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KATHLEEN SWINBOURNE: Can I just say in response to that. I'm glad this government is taking seriously the idea that we need more mediation services because it was this government that took those services out of the Family Court in the first place.

LARRY ANTHONY: I'd like to clarify that because we did take them out of the Family Law Court and we put them into family relationships. We decided -

HELEN DALLEY: Now the committee is saying that they should go back into the court.

LARRY ANTHONY: No, what the committee are suggesting, and I'm sure Peter can advocate this, is very distinct., is that a lot of those services keep them out of the court. The whole idea of this families tribunal is to keep people out of the court through conciliation and arbitration.

HELEN DALLEY: But they are advocating more mediation and counselling and your government took the funding for those out of the Family Court.

LARRY ANTHONY: And we put it in the family relationships, a different organisation.

PETER DUTTON: That's exactly the point, exactly the point. The money was taken out and put into an area where we thought it was more effective.

KATHLEEN SWINBOURNE: With this talk about decreasing hostilities, getting lawyers out of the system, we'll set up a tribunal., there are a couple of problems here. First of all, marriage and divorce is a legal process. You have to go to the Family Court in order to file for divorce. That's where it has to be heard. But also with the tribunal that is suggested by the committee, if you don't like the decision of the tribunal, you can appeal to the Family Court.

PETER DUTTON: That is also wrong.

KATHLEEN SWINBOURNE: The only reason you can appeal is on a point of law which means you have to know the law before you go to the tribunal in the first place.

HELEN DALLEY: So you really need a lawyer to advise you?

PETER DUTTON: No, the situation - well some critics have said the family tribunal will just be another layer of bureaucracy which is completely the opposite to what the committee is seeking. The idea that we have is that matters would be dealt with in the tribunal without solicitors being present so that people through mediators in the tribunal would be able to arrive at a position.

HELEN DALLEY: But isn't it still as adversarial or potentially adversarial?

PETER DUTTON: Not at all because at the moment you've got two people who are pitched against each other with lawyers and barristers behind them costing tens of thousands of dollars.

HELEN DALLEY: Now they'll just be pitched against each other maybe without spending the tens of thousands of dollars.

PETER DUTTON: Well, the tribunal is - the recommendation is that it would be set up with three people, with somebody who represented the interests of the child, somebody who was legally qualified and somebody who had good mediation skills. Now the beauty of the tribunal, in my view, is that there is not an appeal mechanism to the Family Court except in the most extreme cases, sexual abuse for argument's sake, in that minority of matters where that may be present. Then those matters can be heard by the Family Court. But the idea is that the tribunal would be able to have the last say and essentially it would only be on the grounds of a denial of natural justice that you could appeal to the Family Court.

MICHAEL GREEN QC: It's not true that divorce and separation is a legal issue. It's a human relations issue. It's - and the legal system at the moment, the adversarial lawyer-driven judge-driven system is engineered to continue that. The adversarial process, there's a myth about this. It doesn't start in the court, it starts the first time a person - the parties go to their respective solicitors, which is the common culture now with at least 50 per cent of cases, and a letter of demand is written by a solicitor. It's only a minority of solicitors, and this is the nub of the problem, there's only a minority of solicitors in any state that will offer alternative dispute resolution methods or easy timely settlement as a first instance process.

The question they don't ask, and are not trained to ask, is what's best for the whole family and so that's why the recommendation of the committee are so brilliant. It's a terrific system, it will be world breaking, it will be best in the world if we can get the politicians, the government to put it in place. But I believe if they don't, and the answer to your question you keep asking what's different, it's already in the family - is precisely that. It's there in the Family Law Act but in the context of a lawyer adversarial-driven system. The committee wants to bring it out of that and set up a whole new scheme. It's only that, I believe, which will really work.

HELEN DALLEY: Gary Watts from the Lawyer Council, are you going to sit there and take that lawyer bashing?

GARY WATTS: Well, I thought we were all shot already, Helen. This talk about adversarial procedures is a derogatory term designed to shoot the lawyers and not recognise the role they play, which is as dispute resolvers.

HELEN DALLEY: I was going to ask Catherine Carney, do you think the roles that lawyers play in helping people to a mediated outcome has been forgotten in all this?

CATHERINE CARNEY: Yes, I think it is. Most family lawyers do help with a negotiated settlement, as we know and we've said time and time again most of these matters are settled. Also lawyers are terribly important where there's any power imbalance, they can help in that because where there's a power imbalance of any type obviously one party is at a disadvantage and having their lawyer there is what lawyers do best.

HELEN DALLEY: Jenny McIntosh, I want to bring you in here, child psychologist. What is it that children tell you they want when their parents separate?

DR JENNIFER MCINTOSH, FAMILY TRANSITIONS: Well, none of this language makes much sense through a child's eyes, they don't see themselves as a commodity, they don't look at parental separation in terms of gender or blame.

HELEN DALLEY: Do you think that's how they're treated now, as a commodity, as part of the property settlement?

DR JENNIFER MCINTOSH: I think there's a great risk that they're commodified.

HELEN DALLEY: By either side.

DR JENNIFER MCINTOSH: Absolutely. Children want no conflict. The fact it makes no sense to talk about children what we need to be talking about is what is psychologically useful to an infant, to a child, to an adolescent in each unique circumstance and there are as many answers to that question as there are children in Australia.

HELEN DALLEY: Now Adam, you have lived in this pretty much shared 50/50 right down the middle since you were what, a youngish teenager?

ADAM LEHOCZKY: About near 14, yeah.

HELEN DALLEY: Was it always about equal time with both or did you just want quality time?

ADAM LEHOCZKY: Well, I knew that with the shared parenting arrangement that was the best way I was going to get quality time with both parents.

HELEN DALLEY: So it never worried you that you had to move house, had to lug - not everything but the school-books and the musical instruments, the footy boots?

ADAM LEHOCZKY: Not at problem - it was not a problem for me. I just accepted that that's how it's going to be.

HELEN DALLEY: And none of your brothers were worried because some of them were younger?

ADAM LEHOCZKY: No, I took the attitude you know, if I'd been able to have my own way they wouldn't have been separating at all but that's not going to happen so make - this is the best way it's going to work. I mean, I remember specifically thinking - and I've said to both parents at some point - that if I'd been asked which parent would you rather live with, mum or dad, I would not have been able to answer. I would have just said, "I can't answer that."

HELEN DALLEY: You would have split right down the middle yourself.

ADAM LEHOCZKY: I couldn't have answered it. I wouldn't have.

HELEN DALLEY: Younger children, particularly preschool children, can they be shunted from house to house or do they really need to be with one?

DR JENNIFER MCINTOSH: Somewhere in between. There are enormous risks for the under-three population in a lot of transitions in their week. Now again, there's a small percentage of the population of parents who can help their infants to cope with what goes with those transitions. But it's the minority and I think that we have to acknowledge that there are huge developmental risks for infants and the research bares this out. Of particularly infants losing security in their attachment to both parents when they have that kind of relationship. One in 10 children in intact families are going to have some mental health problems and in divorced families, it's one in four. Now that's not because the family divorced or separated, that's because of the conflict that went on. Now this is a huge public health issue.

HELEN DALLEY: Elsbeth McInnes, I wonder do you feel that the parliamentary report really does highlight well the lengths that some people will go to to avoid paying child support?

ELSBETH MCINNES: Certainly the recommendations by the committee draw attention to the range of loopholes in the current child support structure which enable people to stash a fair bit of cash outside the system and to minimise their child support obligations.

HELEN DALLEY: Belinda, how much child support do you get from your child's father?

BELINDA SADIKU: For two of my children I get $5 a fortnight.

HELEN DALLEY: $5 a fortnight?

BELINDA SADIKU: For both of my children. I get $2.50 a week.

JANE PITTAWAY: You get more than me, how did you get that?

BELINDA SADIKU: I must be lucky.

HELEN DALLEY: You don't get that much, Jane?

JANE PITTAWAY: I've never received one cent in child support from my child's father. It's been in litigation stage with the Child Support Agency for 12 months. I think the debt's up around $20,000 or something, probably more now, and I haven't even received a piece of correspondence.

HELEN DALLEY: Peter Dutton, the committee did feel very strongly, obviously, about child support, the obligations on people to pay and how you can fix it.

PETER DUTTON: Well, sure. The committee was definite in its view that people have a moral and financial obligation to support their biological children. We've made recommendations that the child support system needs to be overhauled and try to address some of those inequities because at one end of the scale you've got people who are paying nothing, which is disgraceful. At the other end you've got people who are paying $500, $600 a week in net terms to their former partner and that is also inequitable for many people as well.

RAY LENTON: We've got at flawed framework at the moment that drives people to hate each other. We expect people to hate each other. We've got to change that social expectation. It's got to become not good enough anymore for people to stand around in the corner denigrating the other parent. We need an appropriate framework that gives people the opportunity to be as agreeable as they can be.

HELEN DALLEY: We will have to leave it there. I do appreciate you all coming, your stories, your insights and your views. Thank you for joining us.

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