CHAPTER 1
INTRODUCTION
Purpose of the Bill
1.1
On 26 June 2008, the Senate referred the provisions of the Family Law
Amendment (De Facto Financial Matters and Other Measures) Bill 2008 (Bill) to
the Senate Standing Committee on Legal and Constitutional Affairs for inquiry
and report by 27 August 2008.
1.2
The Bill amends the Family Law Act 1975 (Family Law Act) to
provide opposite-sex and same-sex de facto couples access to the federal family
law courts on property and maintenance matters. The Bill also makes other
amendments to the Family Law Act relating to financial agreements between
married couples and superannuation splitting, and for certificates in relation
to family dispute resolution.
Conduct of the inquiry
1.3
The committee advertised the inquiry in The Australian newspaper
on 2, 16 and 30 July 2008. Details of the inquiry, the Bill and associated
documents were placed on the committee's website. The committee also wrote to over
100 organisations and individuals inviting submissions by 25 July 2008.
1.4
The committee received 112 submissions. The committee also received
variations on two different standard letters — standard letter f1 was received
from 169 individuals and standard letter f2 was received from 17 individuals. The
committee also received 64 joint submissions relating to this inquiry and other
inquiries the committee is currently conducting in relation to the Same-Sex
Relationship (Equal Treatment in Commonwealth Laws—Superannuation) Bill 2008 (Same-Sex
Superannuation Bill) and the Evidence Amendment Bill 2008. These are all listed
at Appendix 1. A list of submissions was placed on the committee's
website. However, not all submissions were published on the committee's
website. This was due to the large number of submissions received for this and the
other concurrent inquiries being conducted by the committee, and the resources
required to publish those submissions. While some submitters requested
confidentiality, all public submissions are available to the general public and
can be provided upon request made to the committee secretariat.
1.5
The committee held public hearings in Sydney on 5 August 2008, Melbourne on 6 August 2008 and Canberra on 7 August 2008. Hearings were also
conducted on those days in relation to both the Same-Sex Superannuation Bill
and the Evidence Amendment Bill 2008. Due to considerable overlap between
certain issues which arose at the hearings into all three bills, this report
will refer to evidence relating to the Same-Sex Superannuation Bill and the
Evidence Amendment Bill 2008, as well as to the Bill which is the subject of
this inquiry.
1.6
A list of witnesses who appeared at the hearings for this Bill is at
Appendix 2 and copies of the Hansard transcript for all hearings are available
through the Internet at https://www.aph.gov.au/hansard
Acknowledgement
1.7
The committee thanks those organisations and individuals who made
submissions and gave evidence at the public hearing.
Scope of the report
1.8
Chapter 2 provides an overview of the Bill and its background. Chapter 3
discusses the key issues raised during the committee's inquiry.
Note on references
1.9
References in this report are to individual submissions as received by
the committee, not to a bound volume. References to Committee Hansard are to
the proof Hansard: page numbers may vary between the proof and the official
Hansard.
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