Page 3342 - Week 11 - Tuesday, 12 October 1993
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MR HUMPHRIES: Yes, I think they have, and I am commending them for their work. I do not pretend to be the source of all original good ideas - many of them, but not all of them. Mr Deputy Speaker, I think that that is a valuable step.
The provisions of the Bill which deal with property adjustment are quite extensive and, as I indicated before, do not replicate exactly the sort of position that one would find oneself in under the Family Law Act, for example. Part III of the Bill gives the Magistrates Court jurisdiction in land title which it does not generally enjoy at present. That is an important and significant concession to the knowledge that I think we would all have of the difficulty people face in going to the Supreme Court for all matters dealing with land. The Supreme Court is an expensive venue. I know. It is a venue which is complex and which entails much longer waiting periods than are applicable in the Magistrates Court. So, to give the Magistrates Court jurisdiction in land title matters is, I think, an important initiative. I think that is worthy of experiment, worthy of a constructive attempt, if not necessarily making that the way of all other sorts of disputes.
The provisions of the Bill provide that a court may make an order unless the domestic relationship has lasted for less than two years, and there are a couple of exceptions for that. It requires an application for an order to be made within two years of a relationship ending. It requires the court to make orders that will end the financial relationship between the parties and avoid further proceedings between them. It provides for the court to adjust the interests in a property of either or both of the parties, and it requires that any order be just and equitable. It allows the court to consider the capacity in which the parties participated in the relationship, and notes that an order can be made only against property which is held at the time of making the order. So there are some clear limitations. A person in this position is not in the same position that they would be in if they were a married person appearing before the Family Court in any State or Territory of this country.
There are provisions also dealing with maintenance in certain very limited circumstances, particularly where a child is involved. It is possible to make an application for maintenance. There are also provisions dealing with what are called domestic relationship agreements and termination agreements, which provide that after a certain period one might withdraw from a relationship, and which define the rights that you leave that relationship with according to the terms of the agreement. Those agreements are a very good idea. They are also a very good idea in even a conventional marriage; but I must say that, in all the time I spent as a solicitor, when I advised people to take out marriage agreements as a way of sorting out any problems that might ultimately come along, I found, I think, no cases where anyone was ultimately to take that advice. Inevitably people do not think about relationships ending when they start. They think about them going on for ever. Various other provisions in the Bill deal with ways of implementing the agreements concerned and enforcing orders made, and there are important questions about access to remedies.
I think, Mr Deputy Speaker, that this paper raises questions which will be or should be, one would imagine, extremely controversial. We cannot permit ourselves to make decisions on the basis of this paper until we are fully satisfied that the many issues which have been given rise to by it have been canvassed fully in the community. I suspect that many people are not aware of the implications and are not aware of the details of this paper, to be quite frank.
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