Word: ruddock
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...after its May Budget, the Australian government will legislate to reform a system that almost everyone - from shattered, working-class dads to the country's sharpest legal minds - agrees is broken. "These will be the most substantial reforms of family law since the 1970s," says Federal Attorney-General Philip Ruddock, who envisages a cheaper, quicker and less adversarial system designed to give both parents, wherever possible, every chance to stay involved with their kids...
...reforming that instrument of justice that enrages separated parents, mostly fathers, as nothing else does: the wage-garnishing Child Support Scheme. On the eve of the changes there's cause for both optimism and hardheaded caution. "I'm not convinced I'll put in place the perfect system," says Ruddock. "I don't feel I'm God. But I do think we can do a hell of a lot better than we have done." New Zealand men's groups - which insist their country's family law system is more flawed than Australia's - are watching with interest and planning...
...Sounds great. But can you legislate to make two people who may loathe each other cooperate? "Well, you can legislate to say they've got to give it their best shot, and that's what we're doing," says Ruddock. Separating parents won't have to use one of the 65 FRCs the government plans to have up and running by 2008. But before they can file suit in court they'll need to have been counseled by someone, even if it's separately by their lawyers. An amendment to the Family Law Act will "say to the (legal) profession...
...offenses). "The government has failed in its most basic obligation to protect Australian citizens," said Shadow Attorney General Nicola Roxon. But since Australia's counterterrorism laws weren't yet in force when Hicks and Habib were captured, they could not have been prosecuted at home, said Attorney General Philip Ruddock. Given the "grave nature" of the allegations against them, it was felt that "seeking to return them (to Australia) would not be a desirable outcome ... in terms of our security." The Law Council's Southwood says "the government should have insisted from the outset that Hicks and Habib be either...
...hoping the legal system that couldn't save his client from three years in limbo will deliver him some compensation via possible lawsuits. The government says that since Habib was lawfully detained, he is not owed an apology or compensation. "Because of his former associations and activities," Ruddock says, Habib will remain "a person of interest" to the security services. And the dilemma of how to fight terrorism without abusing terror suspects' rights will remain a topic of interest to the public for a long time to come...