The One Nation senator Malcolm Roberts has told a parliamentary inquiry into Australia’s family law system that “many instances” of domestic violence allegations are made up by parents to gain custody of their children.
The inquiry, which has been championed by One Nation and broadly criticised by domestic violence groups and women’s advocates, began hearings in Townsville on Tuesday.
Roberts and One Nation leader Pauline Hanson both made a series of unsupported statements about parents lying to the family court when ostensibly questioning the first witness, James Steele from Family Law Practitioners of Queensland
“I’m not a lawyer but I am a son, a father and a husband and I’m very concerned with some of the stories that I’ve heard personally and also read about [in] the submissions,” Roberts said.
“If DV is alleged by a party, what level of evidence is needed before a decision is made about refusing access to a child?” he asked.
“What about if the parent who is alleging the violence is lying? What repercussions then? Because at the moment as I understand it a person can lie in the family law system with impunity and get away with it. How can we make sure the accountability is on the person who makes the accusations?”
Steele said the protection of a child should be paramount. He said that if a person had been found to have misled the court, the court could take that into consideration when determining that person’s capacity to care for the child.
Greens senator Larissa Waters said on Twitter that Roberts’ comments showed “no understanding of fact that women do not benefit from revealing they’re suffering [domestic violence]”.
“The system, and the patriarchy, protects men,” she wrote.
The claim that women frequently make up abuse claims is a prominent grievance among men’s rights groups, but has been widely discredited in multiple studies.
According to researcher Jess Hill, who has authored a book on domestic abuse called See What You Made Me Do, one of the most thorough studies on false abuse allegations from Canada found that non-custodial parents, usually fathers, made false complaints most frequently, accounting for 43% of the total, followed by neighbours and relatives at 19% and mothers at 14%.
Last year anti-violence campaigner Rosie Batty denounced Hanson for saying women made up false allegations of violence during custody disputes.
Batty said such remarks were “incredibly damaging”, and proof the senator “already has an agenda”.
“Obviously there are some women who do abuse the system, but overwhelmingly we know that one woman a week is being murdered at the hands of a violent man,” she said.
“The court system needs to listen and put the safety of children first.”
During the hearing, Roberts also asked whether “the onus of proof that there is domestic violence [should] be on the accuser who makes the allegation to deny such access to the child?”
The irony of Malcolm Roberts demanding proof of violence from the accuser while being prepared to accept the view of the perpetrator’s alleged innocence - without any proof - is lost on him. This Family Law Inquiry is a dangerous platform for MRA puppets One Nation.
— Larissa Waters (@larissawaters) March 9, 2020
At this point Warringah MP Zali Steggall, a barrister before entering parliament, interjected.
“For clarity, what do you understand as proof?” she asked Roberts. “Because at the very least wouldn’t there be an affidavit? So what do you understand as proof?
“Well I’m not a lawyer Ms Steggall, but I think you are,” Roberts replied.
“People are being given restraining orders, [domestic violence orders] against them and not getting access to their child, then later on it’s found that the person who has made the accusation has just made it up.
“We’ve had many instances of that. You can look at the technical definition of proof, I just want to make sure that it’s founded when someone has an order [made against them] in evidence.”
Steggall interjected again: “But isn’t the problem that to be founded it needs to be a hearing?”
Earlier Hanson had asked Steele about prosecutions for perjury in family court cases.
“I have been advised that [the number of perjury prosecutions] is next to zero, but former judges have also stated that there is perjury in their courtrooms and nothing is done about it,” Hanson said.
The inquiry continues on Tuesday morning in Townsville before hearings in Rockhampton on Wednesday and Brisbane on Thursday.
