Family law and family violence

Professor Richard Chisholm

Seminar held at the Institute on 15 May 2013

Report by John De Maio

In this seminar, Professor Richard Chisholm, an Adjunct Professor of Law at the ANU College of Law, reviewed the recent 2011 amendments to the Family Law Act, which attempt to maintain the involvement of both parents in children's lives after parental separation, while strengthening the provisions relating to protection of children and adults against violence. Professor Chisholm highlighted the complexities of the Act and made suggestions for simplifying the legislation to better meet the needs of children.

Professor Chisholm began by noting that family violence is a pervasive problem and is relevant in many areas of law, including criminal law, child protection and family law legislation. He described the changes to specific sections of the Family Law Act relating to family violence, which involved the inclusion of definitions of family violence and abuse, an increased priority for protection, and removal of the "friendly parent" and cost provisions (section 117AB). He placed these changes in the context of the 2006 family law amendments, which he argued had a greater focus on the involvement of both parents in children's lives. His view was that the amendments made in 2011 went some way to providing a greater emphasis on violence and protection concerns.

Where new definitions have been given in the legislation, he noted that such definitions "lived" in two worlds, the first involved the practical implications of the legislation providing legal or operative guidance and the second facet was that definitions had a role in terms of ideology and public education. He noted that widening the definition of child abuse to include children witnessing family violence is an example of the legislature wanting the law to recognise the importance of this aspect. In terms of the practical implications, Professor Chisholm suggested that widening legislative definitions had the potential to lead to a diversion of resources. He pointed out, for example, that the number of Form 4s (a notice of allegation of family violence or abuse) to the Melbourne Registry of the Family Court had increased from 86 in July-October 2011 to 264 such notices in the corresponding period in 2012.

In conclusion, Professor Chisholm described some other possible reforms that could be made to family law legislation that would lead to improved outcomes for families and children. These centred on:

• better education for professionals in terms of child development and working with family violence;
• improved coordination, particularly at the state-federal level;
• providing safety information to the courts; and
• improved risk assessment and court procedures.

He also emphasised the importance of legislation meeting children's developmental needs. This could be achieved by removing the two "primary considerations" relating to meaningful involvement of both parents in children's lives and protection from violence and harm. This approach would remove "family violence" as a separate legal category, though of course these issues would still be very important in determining parenting orders. This, he argued, would simplify and shorten the Family Law Act, while having a greater focus on children and less distraction by legal categories and notions of parental entitlement. In his view, parenting orders should be based on the child's current and developmental needs, and the capacity of parents and others to meet them.

An introduction to Australian Indigenous psychology: Implications for responding to violence in Aboriginal communities

Victoria Hovane

Seminar held at the Institute on 11 June 2013

Report by Liz Wall

Australian Indigenous psychology is an emerging field in Australia. Presenter Vickie Hovane described it as an interpretation of general Western psychology that can accommodate consideration of the psychologies of culturally diverse peoples who live within the culturally diverse settings of Indigenous life in Australia.

Vicki Hovane is a psychologist, practitioner, researcher, advisor and an Indigenous woman from the Broome region of the Kimberly. She outlined a conceptualisation of what Australian Indigenous psychology may look like, including a framework to work with individuals and communities. She noted the importance of Indigenous Australians having a voice and the need for Indigenous people of Australia to be able to contribute the articulation of an Indigenous psychology in this country.

An Australian Indigenous psychology reorients Western psychology to reflect culturally relevant frameworks that better meet the needs of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, particularly in the context of the experiences of colonisation, including oppression, exploitation and the imposition of a foreign culture. This reorientation includes many aspects of Western psychology, such as universal needs, neurobiological factors and standard therapeutic practice that can be applied universally to all people.

Australian Indigenous psychology must incorporate the relationship between colonisation and oppression and their effects on contemporary issues. At the same time, an Indigenous psychological framework can be used to emphasise the positive legacy of traditional Aboriginal culture that can be incorporated to form a strengths-based approached to working with communities and individuals. Ms Hovane sees the wider positive acceptance of Aboriginal culture today as providing an important basis to enhance Aboriginal peoples' cultural identity and providing cultural strength to feed into the Indigenous psychological model.

The Social and Emotional Wellbeing Framework is a classification of core aspects of Aboriginal culture under relevant values, principles, practices and traditions that make up the various elements of culture. These can then be contextualised and weighted to accord with the values of particular communities. This approach enables flexibility to adapt the framework to apply to each group or individual. The aim of the framework is to support individuals and communities to thrive by embracing the positive historical legacy of Aboriginal culture rather than being encumbered by the negative historical legacy of colonisation and oppression.

The framework can acknowledge the stress that many Indigenous people live under while providing a basis for emphasising the positive core principles of Aboriginal culture. It promotes opportunities for positive transformations by providing a rationale and a motivation to create environments that are safe and to build sustainable change for communities that give people strength to acknowledge the positive legacy of Indigenous culture.

Determinants of Indigenous wellbeing under this model enable social, historical, political and cultural determinants to be considered. These include community, family and individual cultural schemes, such as kinship structures, respect and the observation of roles and reciprocal obligations. This approach provides a way to acknowledge the obligation of collectivism and reciprocity in Aboriginal culture and put in place healthy boundaries that are consistent with responsibility and accountability in the relevant local context.

The aim of an Australian Indigenous psychology is to work from within to provide a positive emphasis on supporting transformation rather than to impose change. The discourse must enable Indigenous people to create mechanisms from their own culture, that enable people to share their own improvements and develop their own positive changes.

Demographic consequences of Nordic family policy: Evidence from administrative data

Dr Trude Lappegård

Seminar held at the Institute on 6 August 2013

Report by Killian Mullan

Trude Lappegård, a senior researcher at Statistics Norway, gave a fascinating talk on the effects of Nordic family policy on fertility and partnership breakdown. In particular, the research focused on the influence of quotas for paternity leave introduced in Norway and Sweden in the early 1990s on these demographic outcomes. Using administrative data on the entire population from Norway and Sweden, the study randomly assigned families into a pre-reform group and a post-reform group. This random assignment facilitated the investigation of potential causal links between the policy changes and fertility and partnership breakdown.

The study found a clear positive association between father involvement and having a second child, and a clear negative association between father involvement and partnership breakdown. However, the study found little evidence of a causal link between the introduction of quotas for paternity leave and either increased fertility or partnership breakdown.

The presentations raised a number of interesting talking points, one of which focused on the role of social norms. It was suggested that following the implementation of the policy, as more and more fathers claimed what was now considered a "right" to stay at home and help with raising children, the normative societal expectations of fathers' role in raising children changed. Dr Lappegård alluded to future work that will seek to explore the role of changing social norms in this policy arena. It was also refreshing to hear that these policies are the subject of strong political debate in Norway.