ABSTRACT
This chapter draws upon a broader research project that looks at law reform, and law reform processes. Permanent statutory law reform agencies are a peculiarly Commonwealth phenomenon; most were established in the 1960s and 1970s and modelled upon the Law Commission of England and Wales. No change in the law can operate independently of the institutions of the police, the legal profession and the judiciary who maintain and perpetuate those myths and stereotypes about women and rape. ‘Family law’ is possibly the most ‘reviewed’ area of Australian law, particularly in terms of reviews of the Family Law Act 1975. The Family Law Reform Act 1995 introduced a number of contradictory ‘reforms’: new principles that included a child’s right to know and be cared for by both parents; but at the same time, a set of amendments that acknowledged the dangers of violence for children.
