Some Family Court matters used to be dealt with by the Federal Circuit Court. “There had been discussions for more than a decade about the fact we had these two court systems dealing with family law and there were many problems associated with that,” Lynch said. However, it was a Coalition government that two decades ago that first separated the court’s functions and, at the time, women’s legal advocates were highly critical of that decision. “Our position is that an amalgamation is a positive thing,” Lynch said . But such a move “should retain the stand-alone Family Court”. Those parts of the Federal Circuit Court that deal with family law should be brought into a lower tier of the Family Court of Australia, she said, “thus retaining the specialist stand alone Family Court structure”.