AWAVA supports the intention of the draft Bill to strengthen the Family Law Act, and particularly the intention of enabling family law systems to better respond to and offer protection to victims/survivors of domestic, family and sexual violence.
We agree there is value in the expansion of state and territory family law jurisdictions to enable family law matters to be resolved by state and territory courts as appropriate; however, we have reservations about the practical application of these amendments without state and territory courts receiving sufficient additional resourcing and training to be able to meet the increased caseload and exercise the requisite expertise to deal with complex family law matters, particularly those that involve domestic family and sexual violence.