As somebody who has spent their entire career working to protect the rights of vulnerable children, today’s episode was challenging to record. While we know that children’s rights are violated daily, we don’t expect that harm to be caused by the very institutions created to protect them. 

Australia’s family court was established in the 1970s, underpinned by a naive belief that if couples could separate quickly and easily, family violence would perhaps disappear. Forty six years later, we are faced with an institution that has, and continues to cause irreparable harm to children and families. 

The Australian Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse was damning and resulted in the National Principles for Child Safe Organisations, which are designed to guide how institutions are required to protect and safeguard children from harm. Sadly, despite being an Australian Government institution, the Family Court does not follow the Principles. 

I’m joined today by the wonderful Camilla Nelson, co-author of the new book Broken, a searing account of how Australia’s family law system is failing. The book explores the complexities and failures of the family courts through the stories of children and parents whose lives have been shattered by them.