Corporate governance

The Chief Justice, assisted by the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) and Principal Registrar, is responsible for managing the administrative affairs of the Court.

Under the Constitution, judicial power is vested in judges who administer that power in court. The Family Law Act 1975 (Cth) states that the Court shall consist of a Chief Justice, a Deputy Chief Justice and senior judges and other judges. By delegation from the Chief Justice, case management judges assist in administering judicial functions in particular areas, such as case management. The judges’ committee structure facilitates collegiate involvement of the judges of the Court.

The Family Court is autonomously governed; that is, the Chief Justice has the responsibility for the administration of the Court. To enable the effective and efficient administration of justice, the judiciary needs support to deal with its workload. Non-judicial court employees, who are public servants, provide that support. In addition, there are arrangements in place with other courts for the supply of services.

The CEO and Principal Registrar is subject to directions from the Chief Justice. The agency head under the Public Service Act 1999 is the CEO and Principal Registrar of the Federal Court of Australia (Federal Court).

Judicial officers

At 30 June 2019, there were 34 judicial positions in the Court, including the Chief Justice and Deputy Chief Justice.

Judges assigned to the Appeal Division – 30 June 2019

Judge	Appointed to the Appeal Division
The Honourable Chief Justice William Alstergren	10 December 2018
The Honourable Deputy Chief Justice Robert McClelland	10 December 2018
The Honourable Justice Steven Andrew Strickland	14 December 2009
The Honourable Justice Ann Margaret Ainslie-Wallace	9 July 2010
The Honourable Justice Judith Maureen Ryan	27 September 2012
The Honourable Justice Murray Robert Aldridge	12 March 2015
The Honourable Justice Michael Patrick Kent	10 December 2015
The Honourable Justice Garry Allan Watts	21 June 2018
The Honourable Justice Stewart Craig Austin	21 June 2018
The Honourable Justice Peter William Tree	22 March 2019

Family Court of Australia Judges – 30 June 2019

Adelaide	Appointed
The Honourable Justice Steven Andrew Strickland	22 November 1999
The Honourable Justice David Michael Berman	18 July 2013
The Honourable Justice Christine Mead	25 March 2019
Brisbane	Appointed
The Honourable Justice Colin James Forrest	1 February 2011
The Honourable Justice Michael Patrick Kent	12 July 2011
The Honourable Justice Jenny Deyell Hogan	14 January 2013
The Honourable Justice Catherine Carew	7 March 2016
The Honourable Justice Michael Baumann AM	11 January 2018
Canberra	Appointed
The Honourable Justice Shane Leslie Gill	16 May 2016
Hobart	Appointed
The Honourable Justice Robert James Charles Benjamin AM	19 August 2005
Melbourne	Appointed
The Honourable Chief Justice William Alstergren	13 October 2017
The Honourable Justice Victoria Jane Bennett AO	30 November 2005
The Honourable Justice Kirsty Marion Macmillan	14 December 2011
The Honourable Justice Sharon Louise Johns	29 July 2013
The Honourable Justice Jillian Williams	8 February 2019
The Honourable Justice Joshua Wilson	11 March 2019
The Honourable Justice Norah Hartnett	25 March 2019
The Honourable Justice Timothy McEvoy	27 March 2019
Newcastle	Appointed
The Honourable Justice Stewart Craig Austin	13 July 2009
The Honourable Justice Margaret Ann Cleary	8 July 2010
Parramatta	Appointed
The Honourable Justice Garry Frederick Foster	8 August 2013
The Honourable Justice Hilary Rae Hannam	13 August 2013
Sydney	Appointed
The Honourable Deputy Chief Justice Robert Bruce McClelland	16 June 2015
The Honourable Justice Ann Margaret Ainslie-Wallace	9 July 2010
The Honourable Justice Judith Maureen Ryan	31 July 2006
The Honourable Justice Murray Robert Aldridge	13 December 2012
The Honourable Justice Janine Patricia Hazelwood Stevenson	18 May 2001
The Honourable Justice Garry Allan Watts	14 April 2005
The Honourable Justice William Philip Johnston	12 July 2010
The Honourable Justice Ian James Loughnan	12 July 2010
The Honourable Justice Judith Anne Rees	15 December 2011
The Honourable Justice Louise Henderson	8 February 2019
The Honourable Justice Robert Harper	11 March 2019
Townsville	Appointed
The Honourable Justice Peter William Tree	14 January 2013

Family Court of Western Australia

The following judges of the Family Court of Western Australia also hold commissions in the Family Court of Australia.

Judge	Date of Family Court commission
Chief Judge The Honourable Justice Gail Sutherland	16 March 2018
The Honourable Justice Simon Moncrieff	31 August 2009
The Honourable Justice Susan Janet Duncanson	6 December 2012
The Honourable Justice Richard O’Brien	12 April 2016
The Honourable Justice Ciara Tyson	22 February 2019

Judges appointed to the Administrative Appeals Tribunal

The Honourable Justice Janine Stevenson

The Honourable Justice Victoria Bennett AO

The Honourable Justice Colin Forrest

The Honourable Justice David Berman

The Honourable Justice Robert James Charles Benjamin AM

Appointments and retirements

Judicial officer appointments

There were 10 appointments to the Court in 2018–19:

Judicial officer retirements

There were six retirements from the Court in 2018–19:

• The Honourable Justice Mark Le Poer Trench retired on 21 November 2018.
• Chief Justice John Pascoe AC CVO retired on 10 December 2018.
• The Honourable Justice Christine Thornton retired on 14 December 2018.
• The Honourable Justice Jenny Coate retired on 8 February 2019.
• The Honourable Justice Paul Cronin retired on 18 April 2019.
• The Honourable Justice Peter Murphy retired on 1 May 2019.

Senior executives

Judicial committees

Policy Advisory Committee

At the strategic level, this committee is the peak policymaking body within the Court. The committee’s role is to support the Chief Justice in the administration of the Court and to provide strategic advice and policy direction, particularly in relation to legislative, procedural and administrative changes likely to affect the Court and its users.

As at 30 June 2019 members of the Policy Advisory Committee were:

• The Honourable Chief Justice William Alstergren (Chair)
• The Honourable Deputy Chief Justice Robert McClelland
• The Honourable Justice Stewart Austin
• The Honourable Justice Janine Stevenson
• The Honourable Justice Robert Benjamin AM
• The Honourable Justice Kirsty Macmillan
• The Honourable Justice Shane Gill
• The Honourable Justice Michael Baumann AM
• The Honourable Justice Jillian Williams, and
• Acting CEO and Principal Registrar Virginia Wilson.

Finance Committee

The Finance Committee’s principal focus is to:

• consider and define the full cost and budgetary requirements of the Family Court
• consider spending and budgetary priorities that affect core judicial work
• discuss budgetary priorities and the allocation of financial resources
• consider the budgetary requirements of the Court following the changes to the administration of the Family Court pursuant to the Public Governance, Performance and Accountability Act 2013, and
• ensure transparency in respect of expenditure and the setting of budgetary priorities that affect core judicial work.

The Finance Committee is chaired by Justice Benjamin and includes Justice Watts and Justice Austin.

Rules Committee

The Rules Committee is established in contemplation of s 123 of the Family Law Act 1975 (Cth), which provides that a majority of judges may make rules of court in relation to practices and procedures to be followed in the Court. The Rules Committee considers proposed changes to the Family Law Rules 2004 (Cth) with a view to improving the efficiency, accessibility and cost effectiveness of the Family Court for its clients. The committee also undertakes detailed consideration of discrete issues as required.

Court Performance Committee

The Court Performance Committee is chaired by Deputy Chief Justice McClelland and its membership comprises all registry case management and Magellan judges.

Case management

The principles devised in 2015 to guide the operation of the Court’s ‘trial docket’ system of case management have been implemented in all registries, enhancing consistency across the Court in the way it manages its case-flow. The system envisages that only those cases that cannot be consensually resolved by intervention of registrars are allocated to judicial dockets for procedural management by judges to final trial.

Magellan

The Magellan protocol is a discrete case management pathway designed to ensure that cases involving allegations of sexual abuse or serious physical abuse of children are heard within six months of such allegations being raised in the litigation before the Court. Due to the increasing vigilance of the registry Magellan teams, cases are not categorised so easily as ‘Magellan’, which means the truly deserving cases are getting closer and faster attention. As at 30 June 2019, there were 131 active Magellan cases.

Judicial Education and Professional Development Committee

The aim of the Judicial Education and Professional Development Committee is to develop, implement and oversee judicial education in the Court by formulating a comprehensive plan for ongoing and extensive judicial education and to provide advice to the Chief Justice on judicial education issues.

The committee, chaired by Justice Macmillan, assists the Chief Justice in the dissemination of information His Honour considers should be brought to the attention of the judges. The committee also develops education programs and puts in place mechanisms to support judges to maintain resilience and to provide orientation for new appointments.

Activities were conducted as part of the annual judge’s conference on 28–29 November 2018.

Judicial Welfare Committee

The aim of the Judicial Welfare Committee is to develop and implement judicial wellbeing initiatives in the Court and to provide advice to the Chief Justice on judicial wellbeing issues. The committee is chaired by Justice Gill and includes Justices Macmillan, Forrest and Stevenson.

Justice Gill was invited by the Judicial College of Victoria to participate in their peer support training programme on 27–28 June 2019. His Honour also commenced a collaborative process with the Australian National University for the development of a longitudinal judicial wellbeing approach.

Work of the sub-committees

Children’s Committee

The Children’s Committee, a joint initiative between the Family Court and the Federal Circuit Court, meets regularly to explore the work to be undertaken with respect to the involvement of children in parenting proceedings and improving the experiences of children in the family law system. The committee has established and is building links with the Australian Children’s Contact Services Association.

Membership for 2018–19 included:

• Judge Cole OAM (Federal Circuit Court)
• Justice Moncrieff (Family Court of Western Australia)
• Justice Benjamin AM (Family Court)
• Janet Carmichael (Federal Circuit Court)
• Kylie Beckhouse (Legal Aid New South Wales)
• Alexandra Wearne (Independent Children’s Lawyer, New South Wales)
• Kate Bint (Independent Children’s Lawyer, Queensland), and
• Brigid Jenkins (Victoria Legal Aid).

During the year, the Children’s Committee, together with the Family Law Section of the Attorney-General’s Department, arranged a national conference for Independent Children’s Lawyers (ICLs). This conference was held in October 2018 and provided a valuable national conversation and information exchange between ICLs from around Australia. Other initiatives include a pilot Young Person’s Board in South Australia and an online survey of young persons aged between 13 and 18 as a joint project between the University of Sydney and Kids Helpline.

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Outreach Committee

The Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Outreach Committee continues the long history of the Court in promoting and improving access to justice for Indigenous families, by ensuring the Court’s administration and judiciary work together to enable and facilitate the participation of Indigenous Australians in the Court’s operations and processes.

The committee continues to undertake work to:

• develop a court protocol for Acknowledgement of Country at court events
• examine the potential for a resource of information relevant to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander outreach issues to be available for general access
• establish and build a link between the Court’s registries and local Indigenous leaders, and
• collaborate with the Family Court of Western Australia, the Federal Circuit Court, state courts and tribunals, the National Judicial College and relevant state judicial education authorities such as the Judicial Commission of New South Wales.

The Reconciliation Action Plan for the Family Court was officially launched in July 2018. This Plan commits the Court to continue working with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples to overcome the multiple barriers they face when trying to access the Court, including literacy and language barriers, a lack of understanding about the family law system and a lack of service access for communities in regional and remote areas.

Family Violence Committee

The Family Violence Committee is a joint committee of the Family Court and the Federal Circuit Court. The committee’s principal responsibility is to provide advice to the Chief Justice, the Chief Judge and the CEO and Principal Registrar of both courts on the issue of family violence.

In discharging this responsibility, the committee reviews and updates the courts’ Family Violence Plan and Family Violence Best Practice Principles, as well as undertaking discrete projects.

Membership of the committee at 30 June 2019 was:

• Judge Hughes (Chair)
• Justice Ryan
• Justice Hannam
• Judge Spelleken
• Judge Terry
• Judge Bender
• Janet Carmichael
• Di Lojszczyk,
• Lisa O’Neill, and
• Melissa Buhagiar (Secretariat).

The committee’s major project was the continued work on the Family Violence Plan which forms part of the commitment both courts have made to addressing family violence, including the measures contained in the joint Family Violence Best Practice Principles. The Family Violence Plan was released on 15 April 2019, which refined and updated the Family Violence Plan 2014–16. It builds on the work undertaken by the Courts under the 2014–16 Plan.

Collaborative committees

Joint Costs Advisory Committee

The committee comprises representatives of the four federal courts: the High Court of Australia, the Federal Court, the Family Court and the Federal Circuit Court.

Membership as at 30 June 2019 was:

• Justice Benjamin AM, Family Court (Chair)
• Philippa Lynch, CEO and Principal Registrar, High Court of Australia
• John Mathieson, Deputy Principal Registrar, Federal Court
• Adele Byrne, Deputy Principal Registrar, Federal Circuit Court, and
• Virginia Wilson, Acting CEO and Principal Registrar, Family Court/ Federal Circuit Court.

Scales of costs

The current cost scales for each of the federal courts are provided for in the following legislation:

• High Court Rules 2004 Schedule 2
• Federal Court Rules 2011 Schedule 3
• Family Law Rules 2004 Schedule 3, and
• Federal Circuit Court Rules 2001 Schedule 1.

Joint Rules Harmonisation Working Group

The Rules Harmonisation Working Group is a joint committee of the Family Court and the Federal Circuit Court, comprising judges of both courts, responsible for developing a common set of rules, forms and case management in the courts.

The working group is chaired by the Honourable Dr Chris Jessup QC. Dr Jessup is also assisted by two barristers, Ms Emma Poole and Mr Christopher Lum. Members of the group are working closely with the judges to draft the common rules and forms and aid the development of a consistent approach to case management.

Members of the working group at 30 June 2019 included:

• Dr Chris Jessup QC (Chair)
• Chief Justice Alstergren
• Deputy Chief Justice McClelland (Family Court)
• Justice Ryan (Family Court)
• Justice Watts (Family Court)
• Justice Rees (Family Court)
• Justice Williams (Family Court)
• Justice Hartnett (Family Court)
• Judge Driver (Federal Circuit Court)
• Judge Hughes (Federal Circuit Court)
• Judge Harland (Federal Circuit Court)
• Virginia Wilson, and
• Jordan Di Carlo.

Information Publication Scheme

Entities subject to the Freedom of Information Act 1982 (FOI Act) are required to publish information to the public as part of the Information Publication Scheme. This requirement, in Part II of the FOI Act, has replaced the former requirement to publish a Section 8 statement in an annual report.

An agency plan showing what information is published in accordance with the Information Publication Scheme requirements is accessible from agency websites.

The Freedom of Information and the Information Publication Scheme agency plan for the Family Court can be found at www.familycourt.gov.au/wps/wcm/connect/fcoaweb/contact-us/freedom-of-information-and-information-publication-scheme/foi-ips-plan.

Access to information outside the Freedom of Information Act

Rule 24.13 of the Family Law Rules 2004 provides that a search of the Court’s records may be undertaken by the Attorney-General, a party, a lawyer for a party, a child representative, a child welfare authority if the case affects, or may affect, the welfare of a child, or a person granted leave by the Court or a registrar. Leave may be granted if a proper interest is shown and may be subject to conditions, or for a person researching the court record.

There are other legislative provisions that limit publication in various proceedings; for example, s 121 Family Law Act 1975. In addition, Part XIA of the Family Law Act 1975 gives the Court general power to suppress/prohibit publication of evidence.

Enquiries concerning access to documents or Freedom of Information matters generally should be directed to:

Chief Executive Officer and Principal Registrar
Family Court of Australia
GPO Box 9991
Adelaide SA 5001

or emailed to clientfeedback@familycourt.gov.au.

Further advice on making Freedom of Information requests may be obtained by calling 08 8219 1641.

The Court received six Freedom of Information requests during 2018–19. At 30 June 2019, there were no matters outstanding before the Administrative Appeals Tribunal.

Categories of documents

The Family Court registries maintain the following categories of documents on behalf of the Court:

• documents relating to matters heard by the Court including applications, affidavits, transcripts, orders and copies of judgments
• registers and indexes of matters coming to the Court, and
• general correspondence.

The Family Court maintains the following categories of documents:

• general correspondence
• documents concerning the development and implementation of policy, guidelines and procedures, and
• documents concerning the Court’s administrative operations.

Other documents

The Court holds and makes available on request a range of documents including brochures, fact sheets and general information leaflets. These are available on the Court’s website at www.familycourt.gov.au.

Privacy

The Court holds personal information for two purposes:

• to help resolve and, if necessary, determine matters before the Court (the judicial purpose), and/or
• to assist in administration (the administrative purpose).

Information used for judicial purposes is held in case files and the case management computer system. This information is exempt from the Privacy Act 1988 and Freedom of Information Act 1982. Other statutory provisions and non-publication powers of the Court, designed to protect parties and their children, are applicable to this information.

Information used for administrative purposes is collected as part of the day-to-day running of the Court. Many documents for administrative purposes are held by the Federal Court as the provider of the corporate services for the Court.

The Australian Government Agencies Privacy Code came into force on 1 July 2018. Agencies are required to take reasonable steps to implement practices, procedures and systems to ensure compliance with the code. Consistent with these requirements, the Court has the following in place:

• Privacy Management Plan 2018–19
• Privacy Impact Assessment Policy, and
• Data Breach Response Plan.

These documents can be accessed on the Court’s website at www.familycourt.gov.au/wps/wcm/connect/fcoaweb/contact-us/privacy/.

In addition, the Court has a designated Privacy Champion and Privacy Officer.

Feedback and service improvements

Feedback helps to drive service improvement and the Court invites feedback, including suggestions and complaints, about administrative matters such as privacy, security, a court policy, or the way correspondence has been handled.

Full details about feedback and complaints are contained in Part 3 of this report (Report on court performance), but in summary, in 2018–19, the Court received:

• 6 complaints about Family Court services
• 6 complaints arising from services provided by the Federal Circuit Court or other third parties and relating to Family Court matters
• 13 complaints about judicial conduct, and
• 6 complaints about the time taken in the delivery of a judgment.

External and internal scrutiny

Commonwealth Ombudsman

The Commonwealth Ombudsman made no adverse report specific to the Family Court during 2018–19.

Freedom of Information

The Court received six Freedom of Information requests during 2018–19.

Action in Defamation

There were no actions in defamation during 2018–19.

Senate estimates hearings – Legal and Constitutional Affairs Committee

Senior Executive Service staff of the Court attend estimates committee hearings to answer questions about the Court’s activities. In 2018–19, 12 questions on notice were received and answered by the Family Court.

Correction of errors in the 2017–18 annual report

There are no errors to report.