Australian Law Reform Commission Review of the Family Law System

This submission provides additional background to the main priorities and recommendations that Women's Legal Service Victoria (Women's Legal) will be focussing on throughout the ALRC’s review of the family law system. These priorities have been informed by our casework practice. Where directly on point, we have attempted to reference the relevant questions in the Issues Paper. 

The relevant Women's Legal priorities, set out in this submission, are:

• Reforms aimed at the early identification of family violence and early decision judicial making in the family law system.
• Access to justice through the use of interpreters.
• Expansion of Legally Assisted Dispute Resolution.
• Removal of the Legislative Presumption of Equal Shared Parental Responsibility.
• Implementation of Women's Legal’s Small Claims, Large Battles report recommendations.
• Reforms aimed at addressing systems abuse which prevents perpetrators from using the system to commit further abuse.