Submissions to Family Law Amendment (Family Violence) Bill 2010 Exposure Draft released under FOI
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Subject: Submissions by organisations to Family Law Amendment (Family Violence) Bill 2010 Exposure Draft released under FOI
Dear colleagues,
Under a Freedom of Information Act request, the Federal Attorney General’s Department has finally released the following information to the public:
1. Copies of all public submissions lodged by organisations in response to the public consultation process into the Family Law Amendment (Family Violence) Bill 2010 – Exposure Draft . 122 submissions by organisations supported the proposed amendments; 15 submissions did not support the proposed amendments; and 6 submissions did not indicate whether they supported or did not support the proposed amendments.
2. A tally of the number of submissions by personal individuals  that supported the proposed amendments (178); the number of submissions that did not support the proposed amendments (52); and the number of submissions that did not indicate whether they supported or did not support the amendments (36); for all submissions lodged in response to the public consultation process into the Family Law Amendment (Family Violence) Bill 2010 – Exposure Draft.
It is sad that in a democracy such as Australia, we have to rely on Freedom of Information legislation to obtain access to public submissions to a public federal government inquiry, especially when the inquiry’s  website clearly states, “unless submissions are marked confidential they may be published.” There is no doubt that the Labor Government is pushing through their Family Law reforms with as little transparency as possible.
When the Attorney General’s Department was originally contacted in February 2011 we were told they “didn’t know if or when the submissions would be published.” When pressed further, we were told they “might be published when the legislation goes through parliament.” This clearly hasn’t happened. The FOI request was made on 18th February 2011, and the documents were finally received on 3rd June 2011 (FOI legislation requires that information be provided within one month, or two months when sensitive information is involved). It has taken a further month to scan them and put them online.
You can read the submissions using the links below. They were sent to us by the Attorney General’s Department in the exact format that you see online. They have been scanned and OCR’d “as-is” into one large PDF document that can be easily searched using  Acrobat Reader  software. For those of you who might have trouble downloading large documents, the large PDF has also been split into 5 smaller sections.
I have also discovered that a submission lodged on 14th January via email from the One in Three Campaign was not provided under the FOI request. This raises some very serious questions indeed:
1. How many other submissions were sent in to this Inquiry but were not received, and therefore were unable to be considered by the government?
2. How many other submissions were indeed received by this inquiry but were not provided under the FOI request?
Either way, there appear to be serious administrative errors taking place in the Attorney General’s Department. If your organisation’s submission is also not included in the PDFs linked below, could you please let me know as a matter of urgency?
Download links:  Full document (142MB)  or  Part 1 (33.8MB)  |  Part 2 (16.5MB)  |  Part 3 (22.9MB)  |  Part 4 (35.2MB)  |  Part 5 (34MB)
Kind regards,
Greg Andresen
Research & Media Liaison Men’s Health Australia
Website  http://www.menshealthaustralia.net
Post  P.O. Box 1292, Bondi Junction NSW 1355, Australia
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How many of these submissions where by organisations? Organisations that have received govt grants?
The inference that this process is some how democratic is appalling.
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I think the NCPP had a list with links, to err to some.
Mine was there.
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Seem’s the feminists are very well organised
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Simon Reply:
May 9th, 2012 at 5:05 pm
…and most of them government funded it seems. Why wouldn’t they support the bill if it provided them with more work and credibility.
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What’s happening with the Family Violence Bill in the Senate? Has anyone been called for testimony
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Howard Beale Reply:
July 11th, 2011 at 9:20 pm
Family Violence Bill Public Hearing (6hrs of Yes v 1hr No)
Canberra, Friday 8 July 2011
Committee Room 2S3
Parliament House
Canberra
8.30 am – 3.30 pm
Time Witness
8.30am – 9.00am
Professor Richard Chisholm (Submission 203) Y
Australian Law Reform Commission (Submission 69) Y
Professor Rosalind Croucher, President Ms Sara Peel, Legal Officer
9.00am – 9.30am
Family Law Council (Submission 113) (via teleconference) Y
Ms Nicola Davies, Director Family Law, Civil Justice and Advice Services, Qld
Mr Clive Price, Executive Director, Uniting Care Unifam Counselling and Mediation, NSW
Australian Institute of Family Studies (Submission 174) ?
Ms Ruth Weston, Assistant Director (Research)
Dr Rae Kaspiew, Senior Research Fellow
9.30am – 10.30am
Lone Fathers Association (Submission 190) N
Mr Barry Williams, National President, Mr James Carter, Policy Adviser
Men’s Rights Agency (Submission 170) N
Ms Sue Price, Director
Dads in Distress Support Services (Submission 44) N
Mr Dean Mason, Chairperson (via teleconference)
10.30am – 11.15am
Women’s Legal Services Australia (Submission 62) Y
Ms Angela Lynch, Women’s Legal Service (Qld)
Ms Zita Ngor, National Law Reform Coordinator
Victims of Crime Assistance League (Submission 166) Y
Ms Robyn Cotterell‑Jones, Executive Director
11.15am – 11.45am
Council of Single Mothers and their Children (Submission 74) Y
Ms Kerry Davies, Project Officer
11.45am – 12.15pm
Family Court of Australia (Submission 39) Y
The Hon. Justice Steven Strickland
The Hon. Deputy Chief Justice John Faulks
12.15pm – 1.00pm
Lunch break
1.00pm – 1.45pm
Justice for Children (Submission 189) Y
Emeritus Professor Freda Briggs AO * feminazi
Dr Elspeth McInnes (via teleconference)
1.45pm – 2.15pm
Family Relationship Services Australia (Submission 163) Y
Ms Samantha Page, Executive Director
2.15pm – 2.45pm
Law Council of Australia (Submission 200) (via teleconference) Y
Mr Geoffrey Sinclair, Chair, Family Law Section
2.45pm – 3.30pm
Attorney–General’s Department (No Submission) Y
Ms Toni Pirani, Assistant Secretary, Family Law Branch
Ms Sandra Henderson‑Kelly, Principal Legal Officer, Family Law Branch
Senator Crossin (Chair) ALP, Senator Humphries (Deputy Chair) LP and Senators Boyce LP, Furner ALP, Pratt ALP, and Seiwart AG
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Dear Admin, Could you please post F4E’s submission to this site? I have had a trawl through the pdf files to find it with no success..ta
Zac.
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