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Pauline Hanson Sparks Fury After Claiming Women Lie About Domestic Violence

Pauline Hanson Sparks Fury After Claiming Women Lie About Domestic Violence

The One Nation leader will co-chair an inquiry into the Family Court, claiming there are too many cases of women lying.

Stewart Perrie

Stewart Perrie

One Nation leader Pauline Hanson is known to bust out a headline grabbing sentence from time to time.

She's famous for her maiden speech in Parliament for talking about being 'swamped by Asians' to her more recent eyebrow raising comments about climbing Uluru. So it really shouldn't come as a surprise when you hear another 'interesting' viewpoint from the Brisbane-born politician - and yet it did yesterday.

Ms Hanson boldly claimed that women lie about domestic violence so that they can get custody of their kids in Family Court.

jfish92/Creative Commons

"There are people out there who are nothing but liars and who will use that in the court system," she said to the ABC yesterday.

"I am hearing too many cases where parents are using domestic violence to stop the other parent from seeing their children; perjury is in our system but they are not charged with perjury."

Now, this could be the case in a very, very, very small number of instances, but to throw out a statement like that without statistics to back it up is alarming.

When she was asked to support her claims, Ms Hanson said she had personal experience and 'submissions from people that this is the case'.

She has been pushing for a parliamentary inquiry into the Family Court to see whether there is any bias given to women during the sometimes painful process of separation. Yesterday the government agreed to launch the inquiry and asked Ms Hanson to co-chair it.

Unsurprisingly, her comments has sparked anger and fury amongst anti-domestic violence campaigners.

PA

Rosie Batty, who's son was murdered by her former husband and who suffered sexual and physical violence from him, released a statement saying: "It is completely unacceptable for us to have another inquiry. We have had multiple inquiries about the failings of the family law court system. I have campaigned also for changes.

"I would call on Labor, the Greens and the prime minister to block this unnecessary inquiry.

"We know the failings, we need to start investing in this court system that is broken, overwhelmed and failing. It is continuing to put families, particularly children, in danger."

The Australian Law Reform Commission handed down 60 recommendations earlier year about fixing the Family Court, meaning the government already has a way forward without another complicated inquiry.

Opponents of this new inquiry say the government should look at this document and implement the changes suggested instead of going down the path it wants to.

Featured Image Credit: PA

Topics: News, Domestic violence, Australia, Politics