Family law · 23 September 2026
In a family court where most matters carry a risk factor, the person whose only job is to speak for the child is paid below private rates, in short supply, and increasingly hard to appoint. That is not only a child safety problem. It is a fairness problem.
Here is the number that should frame every conversation about Australia's family courts. According to the Law Council of Australia, "around 80 per cent of matters coming before the courts involve one major risk factor, including family violence."
Now here is the number that should frame every conversation about fairness. The independent review of the National Legal Assistance Partnership by Dr Warren Mundy identified a shortfall in annual funding of more than $80 million, and found that demand for Independent Children's Lawyers "is in excess of supply".
Put those two facts together and you have the quiet crisis of the family law system in 2026. The court is asked to protect children in matters where allegations are serious, disputed and often unproven at the interim stage. The people appointed to speak for the child and to test the evidence are underfunded and running short. Everyone loses: the child who needs protection, and the parent who needs the allegation properly examined.
On 7 May 2026 the Law Council of Australia published a media release titled "Children's voices at risk as family law safety net frays", responding to the Mundy review of the National Legal Assistance Partnership. Its President, Tania Wolff, put the case for Independent Children's Lawyers simply: "the ICL is the one person in the room whose only job is to speak on behalf of the child."
The release quotes the review's finding that recent changes "have created a circumstance where demand for ICLs is in excess of supply", and that "it is in the interests of children, their parents and efficiency of the courts that this situation is urgently addressed."
On 17 September 2026 Lawyers Weekly reported the Law Council's current positions ahead of the statutory review of the 2024 family law amendments. The Council is pressing for "adequate funding of independent children's lawyers" and to "secure ongoing funding for Lighthouse, the Evatt List and Indigenous family liaison officers".
Those are not abstract asks. They are the parts of the system that decide whether an allegation is screened, investigated and tested, or simply asserted.
The Family Law Amendment Act 2023 commenced on 6 May 2024. Two changes matter here.
First, the best-interests test in section 60CC of the Family Law Act was rewritten. The old structure of two primary considerations and thirteen additional considerations was replaced with six factors and no hierarchy. The first factor asks what arrangements would promote the safety of the child and each person who has care of the child, including safety from being subjected to, or exposed to, family violence, abuse, neglect or other harm.
Second, the role of the Independent Children's Lawyer was strengthened. Under the court's guidelines, "the ICL must meet the child and provide the child with an opportunity to express any views (not necessarily at the same time) unless there are exceptional circumstances."
Both changes push more weight onto the people doing the work. A safety-first test only works if someone is equipped to examine what the safety risk actually is. A duty to meet the child only works if there is an ICL to appoint, and the legal aid grant covers the hours.
Debate about family courts tends to split into two camps. One says the system does not protect children enough. The other says the system treats allegations as findings.
The uncomfortable truth is that both camps are describing the same failure from different sides.
When the people who test evidence are underfunded, two things happen at once. Genuine risk can go under-examined because nobody has the resources to investigate it properly. And disputed allegations can harden into working assumptions, because interim orders made on untested material become the status quo that the final hearing inherits months or years later.
An adequately funded Independent Children's Lawyer, a timely family report from a court child expert, and a triage system that identifies high-risk matters early are the tools that serve both camps. They make it more likely that a child at real risk is protected quickly, and more likely that a parent facing a false or exaggerated allegation gets it tested rather than absorbed.
That is why the Law Council's funding asks are a fairness agenda as much as a safety agenda, even if they are rarely described that way.
The Federal Circuit and Family Court of Australia's Lighthouse program screens parenting matters for risk at filing. The Evatt List is its specialist list for the highest-risk matters, managed through intensive case management by senior judicial registrars, registrars and court child experts, with Independent Children's Lawyers sometimes appointed on an expedited basis.
These are precisely the mechanisms that move a matter from allegation to evidence. The Law Council's call to secure their ongoing funding recognises a simple point: a court that cannot triage cannot prioritise, and a court that cannot prioritise treats every matter as either urgent or ignored.
The question is not whether the family courts should prioritise child safety. They should, and the law now says so in terms.
The question is whether a system can be safe for children while its evidence-testing machinery is starved. The Law Council's answer, in effect, is no. Children's voices are at risk because the people paid to carry them are being paid too little, and there are too few of them.
That should worry the parent seeking protection and the parent contesting an allegation in equal measure. It is the same safety net, and it is fraying for both.
An Independent Children's Lawyer is a lawyer appointed by the court in a parenting matter to represent the child's best interests. The Law Council of Australia describes the ICL as the one person in the room whose only job is to speak on behalf of the child. Since May 2024, an ICL must meet the child and give the child an opportunity to express views unless there are exceptional circumstances.
The independent review of the National Legal Assistance Partnership by Dr Warren Mundy found that demand for ICLs exceeds supply and identified an annual funding shortfall of more than $80 million. The Law Council says legal aid grants for ICL work are well below private practice rates.
The Family Law Amendment Act 2023, which commenced on 6 May 2024, replaced the old best-interests structure with six factors and no hierarchy. The first factor is what arrangements would promote the safety of the child and each person who has care of the child, including safety from family violence, abuse, neglect or other harm.
The court screens matters for risk through the Lighthouse program and manages the highest-risk matters in the Evatt List. Evidence is tested through the parties' material, Independent Children's Lawyers, family reports by court child experts and, ultimately, findings at a final hearing. Interim orders are often made before allegations are tested, which is why timely investigation matters to both safety and fairness.
Adequate funding of Independent Children's Lawyers, ongoing funding for Lighthouse, the Evatt List and Indigenous family liaison officers, and attention to the legal assistance funding shortfall identified by the Mundy review, ahead of the statutory review of the 2024 amendments.