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The Japan Custody Battle

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I questioned Minister Wong (Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade) and officials regarding the devastating issue of Australian children being abducted to Japan by one parent and entirely cut off from their Australian families due to Japanese domestic law.

While I understand the need for diplomatic language, my priority is getting these kids back to their families.

Transcript

Senator ROBERTS: Chair, can I just use the rest of my time to get into the second bracket? I’ve only done five minutes.  

CHAIR: Well, you’ve been very efficient, so, yes.  

Senator ROBERTS: Thank you. Minister Wong, this goes to something we’ve discussed before and that I think you’re quite supportive of, but I won’t pre-empt it.  

Senator Wong: That worries me!  

Senator ROBERTS: When you’re worried, I’m worried! For those not familiar with this scenario, many Australian children have been taken by one parent to Japan, who’ve refused to return the Australian child to Australia, contrary to the wishes of the other custodial parent or an Australian court order In Japan, the non Japanese parent is often denied access to their child or even contact with that child—a terrible situation. Sometimes contact is limited to a small number of written letters or emails per year. This is because of Japanese domestic law. Minister, what is the current state of negotiations between Australia and Japan to set this situation right?  

Senator Wong: Sorry, I’m just trying to find my brief on this. I’m hoping someone from my office is going to text me on this fairly shortly. I don’t have anything in front of me, and I’m hoping that someone who can talk about Japan, not just consular, might come to the table, please. Ms Adams: I can, but I just want to hear the—  

Senator ROBERTS: I’ll repeat the question. What is the current state of negotiations between Australia and Japan to set this situation right?  

Senator Wong: I want to respond to the word ‘negotiations’. You might recall—I think we had this discussion previously, and I assume Ms McGregor can go to this—that this is a domestic legislation for Japan and that we have been advocating or supporting the changes to their domestic framework and working with them, including through, from memory, the chief justice of the family court, who went to Tokyo to share our experience on joint custody arrangements et cetera. I can’t recall what the legal term is. My recollection is that the legislation has passed. Am I right?  

Ms McGregor: It’s come into effect.  

Senator Wong: That is the legal system changing, which we are supportive of. Then there has also been representations we make on a consular basis for the non-custodial parents. And you should know that I have raised this issue, including the sensitivity and distress of these issues and the distress that many parents feel, with my counterparts over a number of years, because I’m sure they’re in contact with you. There are obviously parents who are very distressed, but Ms McGregor can probably more directly go to the consular issues.  

Ms McGregor: I can confirm that Japan’s joint custody reforms came into effect on 1 April 2026, and we very much welcomed that step. We’re doing a range of things to assist Australian parents who are facing child abduction and custody issues in Japan. We continue to provide consular assistance to affected Australians and—  

Senator ROBERTS: Excuse me, this is wonderful news, but how many Australian children are being held in Japan, contrary to international law, and how many Australian parents have raised this as an issue, if you could include that in your statement?  

Senator Wong: Can we just reframe that for us? I don’t mind you saying that, but, rather than making the assertion ‘contrary to international law’, why don’t we give you whatever we can about how we deal with the people we have dealt with without us being drawn into having to make a legal—  

Senator ROBERTS: Okay, I’ll rephrase it.  

Senator Wong: No, it’s only because obviously we have to make representations, so we use language carefully.  

Senator ROBERTS: I’m not a diplomat.  

Senator Wong: No, you can say what you want, Senator, but I’m just saying—  

Senator ROBERTS: I’m happy for you to rephrase it. I just want these kids back.  

Senator Wong: If you don’t mind, Ms McGregor can assist.  

Ms McGregor: I think we can speak about this in terms of numbers of consular cases involved. DFAT is currently providing consular assistance to 16 parents with respect to 23 children on these issues of parental abduction and child custody. Since 2004, we’ve provided assistance to the parents of 90 children in similar cases. Obviously, we can’t comment on individual cases, but we do a lot of work, particularly to keep parents updated with periodic updates on our advocacy and on developments in Japan. Most recently, we sent out one of those updates in May. Alongside that, we continue to engage Japan to explain the sensitivity of this issue to ensure that they’re aware of the distress of parents and also to encourage progress in this matter. A lot of our work has been focused on supporting the effective implementation of those reforms, and we do that by sharing family law expertise and maintaining regular engagement with Japanese stakeholders, as well as like-minded governments. And the minister mentioned in particular the visit of the Hon. Justice Victoria Bennett of the Federal Circuit and Family Court. She visited Japan. She shared experiences of family law and reform with parliamentarians, judges, bar associations and academics. We’ve had other visits such as that over a number of years.  

Senator ROBERTS: Thank you for that comprehensive answer. Minister, the Japanese Prime Minister recently came to Australia on an official visit. Was this issue raised with the Japanese Prime Minister or did you see no need to because the legislation in Japan is pending?  

Senator Wong: I will check what I can share with you on that. Obviously it’s the Prime Minister’s bilateral, not mine—so, meetings between the leaders—but generally the track for raising this and keeping it— 

Senator ROBERTS: Bubbling?  

Senator Wong: Actually, demonstrating to Japan that this is an important bilateral issue we have interests in and want to keep trying to progress, that has been me to my counterpart. I’ve had a number of Japanese counterparts and it’s one of the issues we make sure we continue—at my level and through our diplomatic track— to make clear to them that this matters to us. I’ll check about Prime Minister Takaichi, but just to be clear with you, it would be me to Minister Motegi—and, previously, Minister Kamikawa et cetera—rather than leader to leader, in general.  

Senator ROBERTS: Thank you. Are you aware that some law firms in Australia have run seminars to show Japanese parents how to take their Australian children permanently out of the care of the other parent? It’s not in the best interests of the child.  

Senator Wong: No, I wasn’t aware of that.  

Senator ROBERTS: This organised child stealing—use whatever diplomatic language you want—is still happening, to some extent, with the financial support of our welfare system. Should a non-custodial Australian parent be forced to pay child support to a Japanese parent where the child is being held in Japan, contrary to the wishes of the Australian parent, other family members and a court order? Are you aware of that? I’ll be asking questions in another committee—  

Senator Wong: This is on a law firm site, is that what we’re—  

Senator ROBERTS: Sorry?  

Senator Wong: Where is this information that you’re quoting?  

Senator ROBERTS: My staffers advised me.  

Senator Wong: I’m not trying to—I’m saying, is this something a law firm in Australia is—  

Senator ROBERTS: Yes.  

Senator Wong: Right.  

Ms Lawson: We’d be interested to have that information so we can have a look at it.  

Senator ROBERTS: Last question—two questions: What can you offer to devastated parents in Australia to end this situation of standing by while child stealers thumb their noses at the other parent? Are you expecting any changes now that the legislation in Japan has changed? Can you do more?  

Ms Adams: We haven’t been standing by. This issue has been—  

Senator ROBERTS: No, I’m not saying you have been.  

Ms Adams: Well, you did. Excuse me, but I thought that’s what you just said in your question just then. But we know we’re not standing by; we’re continuing to advocate on the particular cases and on the systemic issue. It’s been a high priority for the embassy as well as the foreign minister for many years now. We’re continuing to work on effective implementation of the—quite historic, in a Japanese context—legislation that recently passed.  

Senator ROBERTS: Thank you. Last question: how keen do you think the Japanese administration is to resolve this? Will they implement the law fully?  

Ms Adams: The change in the law was carefully debated and very intensely worked through in the Japanese system over many years. It is actually a historic change to introduce shared custody as a new concept in Japanese family law. We have every expectation that it will be fully implemented.  

Senator ROBERTS: Thank you. 

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The right to protest is protected by a body of law going back 800 years

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Would the Attorney-General like to take another run at explaining why parliaments in Australia are not in breach of the very principles that define our legal system, the Bible and the Magna Carta, reinforced by the much more recent United Nations charter on human rights?

This is Australia in 2021. It’s a disgrace. We need our freedoms back and we need an Attorney-General who understands the basics on which our freedoms are based.

Transcript

Thank you, Madam Deputy President. I reference the response by the Attorney-General, Senator Cash, to my question on freedom to protest under the body of Australian law. Senator Cash fluffed on about what is in fact a basic element of our democracy.

What she seems to have forgotten is that there is an overarching principle: the right to freedom is a basic inalienable right that our body of law has been formed around. Our laws reflect our Christian heritage and should always do so. Our governing document, our national Constitution, for instance, references God in its preamble.

Without being presumptuous, and while I’m not a biblical scholar or a church-goer, perhaps I should have asked myself earlier than this a fundamental question: what would God do? It turns out that the Bible is quite clear on the issue of freedom. From Galatians 5:1:

It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm … and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery.

In this epistle, Paul was urging the new churches he had founded in Galatia to stand against those who were trying to subvert the freedom Christianity had given. Paul’s epistle to the faithful in Galatia could have been written today. The battle for freedom and darkness exist now, as it did 2,000 years ago.

We spent 2,000 years writing a body of law to implement Christian principles, including the right to freedom. These freedoms were first enshrined in the Magna Carta Libertatum—literally the ‘great charter of freedoms’ that the head of the church at the time, the Archbishop of Canterbury, wrote in 1215.

Our Attorney-General has demonstrated not only a lack of understanding of man’s laws; she has failed to demonstrate an understanding of God’s laws. Being sworn in on the Bible is clearly no guarantee of believing a word of it. While eminent biblical scholars advise that the Bible is properly understood in context, how could the Attorney-General not have looked this up at any time in the five months the senator has occupied her role?

Five months of widespread and sustained media and social media conversations around the right to protest and the Attorney-General, the highest law officer in the land, was missing in action. Was she not curious about what the law actually said? Let me help on that in the time remaining.

The Magna Carta was written in response to King John exercising his powers, using the principle of vis et voluntas, which translates as ‘force and will’—the making of decisions that were above the law and then using force to create compliance, much like parliaments around Australia are doing right now. Lord Denning described the Magna Carta as:

… the greatest constitutional document of all times—the foundation of the freedom of the individual against the arbitrary authority of the despot”

I looked through the Magna Carta and I couldn’t see the COVID exemption that allows governments to destroy human rights and do whatever they want if they can get the population scared enough to accept it. Of course, there is no exemption afforded power-mad governments and unelected bureaucrats.

In 1948, before the UN turned into the problem and not the solution, the United Nations charter on human rights declared a few things on freedom of protest that parliaments around Australia are conveniently ignoring. Article 19:

Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference …

Article 20:

Everyone has the right to freedom of peaceful assembly and association.

Article 21:

Everyone has the right to take part in the government of his country …

This is what protesters are doing: participating in governance, exercising their right to free speech and free association. That’s the very definition of a protest. These are rights that article 30 of the United Nations declaration of human rights protects. It binds governments from breaching the declaration.

It would appear that the Prime Minister and the premiers are seeking to wind back our right to freedom to that which existed prior to 1215, to give themselves the powers that King John used force to exercise.

Would the Attorney-General like to take another run at explaining why parliaments in Australia are not in breach of the very principles that define our legal system, the Bible and the Magna Carta, reinforced by the much more recent United Nations charter on human rights?

I wonder what Monica is thinking, languishing in jail with the promise that she can get out, providing she renounces her membership of a political party. This is Australia in 2021. It’s a disgrace. We need our freedoms back and we need an Attorney-General who understands the basics on which our freedoms are based.

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Question Time: Attorney General Cash fails to explain the legal right to protest

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I asked the Attorney General the Hon, Senator Cash her legal opinion on the right to peaceful protest. Judge for yourself if this is an acceptable defence of the right to protest from Australia’s first law officer.

Transcript

Senator ROBERTS

My question is to the Attorney-General, Senator Cash. My question references independent professional truckies who protested on Monday morning in Queensland. Can the Attorney-General inform the Senate of the legal protections afforded Australians under our Constitution, legislation, common law or international conventions that protect the right of everyday Australians to engage in peaceful protest in a public place?

Senator CASH

I thank Senator Roberts for the question. I don’t have the actual legal provisions with me, so I will need to revert to you in relation to that. In terms of the right to peacefully protest in this country, it is a right that we hold dearly, certainly as a society and as a government.

We’ve seen protests around Australia, in particular during COVID-19. It is important that people do adhere to the law at all times and certainly respect the rights of others in relation to what they are protesting on.

The PRESIDENT

Senator Roberts, a supplementary question?

Senator ROBERTS

After the truckies made their excellent point, which Senator Hanson and I support, Senator Hanson did ask the truckies to consider allowing horses on trucks in the blockaded traffic to be freed and allowing everyday Australians to go about their day without hindrance.

Attorney-General, do you agree that the Australian people would be looking to parliaments to defend civil liberties exercised in a fair manner, not to trash them?

Senator CASH

Again, at all times when people are protesting—and it doesn’t matter what issue they are protesting about—they should always protest in accordance with the law. They should respect the laws of the land, and at all times they should respect the rights of others.

The PRESIDENT

Senator Roberts, a final supplementary question?

Senator ROBERTS

I note that previous protests against COVID measures around our nation were deemed illegal and prosecuted, yet the Black Lives Matter protests were approved under COVID restrictions. Both series of protests were in violation of similar COVID restrictions.

The only difference between the two protests was the subject matter. Attorney-General, should politicians be allowed to use public order measures to hide from public criticism?

The PRESIDENT

Order! The minister said they couldn’t hear the question because of noise during a remote question. I’m going to ask Senator Roberts to ask it again, which I know will waste the time of the chamber, but the minister couldn’t hear it. I ask for silence. Senator Roberts, can you repeat your question?

Senator ROBERTS

I note that previous protests against COVID measures around our nation were deemed illegal and prosecuted, yet the Black Lives Matter protests were approved under COVID restrictions. Both series of protests were in violation of similar COVID restrictions.

The only difference between these two protests was the subject matter. Attorney-General, should politicians be allowed to use public order measures to hide from public criticism?

Senator CASH

Again, for Commonwealth, state and territory governments, the one thing we’re all united in is keeping Australians safe during COVID-19. The Australian government has at all times sought to take measures that combat the virus, while, as I said previously, at the same time respecting people’s rights and their freedoms.

You would also know that states and territories themselves have taken measures under their own laws in respect of COVID-19, and, as you have articulated, this is predominantly done under state and territory public health and emergency management legislation.

Again, at all times, though, the Commonwealth will work with state and territory governments—through the national cabinet—to ensure that Australia’s COVID-19 response is one that is measured and is one that is appropriate.

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Letter to QLD Premier – Licensed Firearm Dealers Shutdown

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200402-Qld-Premier

Full text

Dear Premier 

I was alarmed to recently hear that licenced dealers and armourers across Queensland were notified by Queensland Health that they must cease trading by close of business on Saturday, 28 March 2020. 

I have been swamped with complaints from people who have lost their jobs and livelihoods because of this short sighted decision. 

Other businesses such as the retail stores are able to carry on business without onerous conditions. This would appear to be discrimination. 

A decision had been made by the Chief Health Officer, a public servant, in conjunction with you, to add all Licensed Firearm Dealers and Licensed Armourers to the list of non-essential business, with few exemptions. 

I am told that this was done on the basis of perceived health needs to reduce threats of domestic violence, on the presumption that licenced shooters are likely to commit domestic violence if they can go to a gun dealer’s shop. 

This is absolutely untrue and has no foundation in fact. 

Queensland already has some of the tightest gun management laws in the country. 

There is no evidence in Australia that draws a link between domestic violence and gun ownership, or attending gun shops. 

Why were the Weapons Licensing Branch and the police not consulted beforehand? 

Why were industry representatives not consulted?

It is not possible to buy a gun over the counter from a dealership and leave with it. 

I suggest that this response by the government goes well beyond the power of the State Government to make such a direction based on a health power and is clearly contrary to the National Firearm Agreement. 

This constitutes a major employment problem across the State and 22,000 jobs have now been lost unnecessarily. 

This has the potential to lead to mass bankruptcies of businesses with a total lost value to the Queensland economy of more than $1 billion. 

Many country outlets will have to close down and farmers, who constitute the main users of firearms and ammunition in the State, will be caught unable to deal with the needs of stock and feral management, necessary to be productive in a season of lush greenery. 

The most recent Closure Directive (No 4) from the Department of Health is so restrictive to farmers that many are unable to purchase vital ammunition because of the limited Condition Codes on their Weapons Licences. 

It will impact on an already overworked police service upon whose shoulders it will be to maintain some sort of security of firearms and fill the gap from the front counters of stations across the state. 

Gun shop owners who had ordered weapons and/or ammunition prior to your government’s capricious action would have originally been left in the position of either opening their shop and breaking your directive, or leaving weapons and ammunition in the hands of delivery companies or on their shop front door after delivery. Your government increased the security risk to the community and that risk was averted only through the advocacy of concerned gun shop owners and shooters representatives. 

This is an example of poorly thought through and opportunistic government decision making that should worry all voters about intrusive and unjustified governments who can invent a reason to shut down people’s livelihoods. 

A legal challenge is likely unless the Queensland Government reverses this dangerous decision that may lead to widespread job loss and the destruction of yet another industry through poor government decision making. 

To avoid all these negative outcomes I ask you to please reconsider this decision. 

Yours sincerely 

Senator Malcolm Roberts 

Senator for Queensland 

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