FOUR SYSTEMS, FOUR COURTS
Anyone who has had the misfortune of going through the family law courts in Western Australia knows there are serious problems in the system.
A key Sovereign Australia policy is a Royal Commission into the Family Law Court and the violence restraining order system. We need transparency, we need to hear from the people who have been through it, and we need to know what the results actually were. Data transparency, and accountability.
Families need support. Divorce keeps rising, so does family violence, separation, single-parent households and conflict between parents. The system is a mess. We must do better — put the resources into repairing it, into helping families, and into preventing them ever reaching the family court in the first place.
From the conclusion of the memo:
Four systems, four courts, four laws, four timetables. An order can be applied for at no cost and granted without the accused being told, asked to respond, or asked for their side. It becomes permanent after twenty-one days if nobody objects — no hearing, no finding — and carries criminal liability, including mandatory imprisonment on a third breach. Objecting does not pause it. Where it restricts contact with children, the way back is a separate case in a different court at a cost in six figures. On the child protection track the State can remove a child without a warrant. Only that track has deadlines written into law.
Almost none of it is measured. Four reviews have reported since 2014 and three Commonwealth Acts have followed since 2023, none of which could alter the state law. The recommendation that would allow a false allegation to be examined was made, and has not been enacted.
Western Australia holds its own family law jurisdiction, holds full Royal Commission powers under the Royal Commissions Act 1968, and issued letters patent for a Royal Commission in March 2026. The power exists. The most recent use of it was four months ago. And this subject has never been examined by a body holding it.
Our position is that the families passing through these systems are owed better than a process nobody has measured.
The memo — a Royal Commission into Family Law and FVROs →
The policy →