The West Australian
2 February 2016

Why does Federal Circuit Court Chief Judge John Pascoe, on being made a Companion of the Order of Australia (AC) last week, suggest to ABC News that more judges and more money are the solution for a family court system that is causing immense harm to tens of thousands of children?

More judges won’t make family courts less adversarial. More money won’t make them affordable to the vast majority of Australian parents. And reducing court cases from three to two years won’t stop thousands of children from being harmed for life. The harm is done in the first few months, when children are wrongly left with abusive parents, or wrongfully removed from good ones — by a court trying to address matters in which it lacks expertise.

This week’s motion before the Australian Senate, calling for major family reform and a new, non-adversarial system, comes not a moment too soon.