Rachel Siewert (WA, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

I thank the Minister for Immigration and Citizenship for his honest answer. He is right: I am not happy. I have a couple of questions as a result of the answer. Yes, he is right. We did go through the child support debate and the legislation is still not perfect. There was an improvement on most things in child support last time, and that legislation does deal with shared care. It is still not perfect. I will put that on the record, but there were improvements. So it is not beyond the wit of the government to deal with some of these areas. As to the issues that the minister raises about implications for other pieces of legislation, I accept that—he is right. He is aware that I have been on about the changes in family law and shared care that have not been properly addressed for ages and what they mean for other legislation. So there are injustices in a number of other pieces of legislation. That does not mean that we should not deal with them here. One of the implications I acknowledge, which is why this is a request, is that it has budgetary implications.

I thank the minister for saying he does not have the solution and therefore does not have a time line. I wonder if there is a process the government is undertaking to look into this to see how it can be dealt with or if it is just a too-big, too-hard issue that is out there on the pin board and that no one has been game to deal with. Is the government actually starting to tackle this? I would appreciate it if the minister could give me an indication that there is a process that they are starting up to look at it. Is it part of what the government is doing to look at the response to the House of Representatives report—because it should be. It is potentially one of those issues that is just going to be left because it is too hard—‘We’ll deal with the other issues, but we’ll continue to leave that group of carers behind.’ It is a group that we should not be leaving behind, particularly as they have been left behind all the time because it has always been too hard. Is the government looking at putting in place a process to start trying to address this? An answer to that would be appreciated.