Attorney-General Christian Porter. Picture: Kym Smith

The Morrison government is close to clinching a deal with crossbench senators to achieve historic reforms to the family law courts but will be forced to dump a key part of its proposed changes.

As well as securing the merger of the Family Court with the lower-level Federal Circuit Court, the government also looks likely to tip more resources into the overstretched family law system.

However, a controversial proposal to send family law appeals to the Federal Court would be scrapped as part of the deal with the Senate crossbench.

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The reforms come amid a backlog of about 20,000 family law cases and delays of up to three years or more to resolve parenting and property disputes, causing ­irreparable harm to families.

The legislation would create a new Federal Circuit and Family Court with two divisions.

Under the deal, existing Family Court judges (who will form Division 1 of the new court) would continue to handle appeals.

However, instead of a stand-alone appeals division, in which judges handle nothing but appellate work, it is possible all Division 1 judges could sit on appeals. This may help to achieve ­efficiencies.

The legal profession has been fiercely opposed to the proposed changes to the family law courts.

It has raised concerns about the potential loss of specialisation that could occur without a stand-alone Family Court.

The lower-level Federal Circuit Court handles a mix of family law, ­migration and other general federal law work.

However, there is strong pressure from the community to ­tackle the family law crisis.

A Coalition-controlled inquiry into the courts restructure bill last night recommended the bills be passed by the Senate but that the bid to send family law appeals to the Federal Court be dropped.

It also recommended a requirement that lower-level judges handling family law have the appropriate “skills, knowledge, experience and ­personality”.

The report also called for more registrars to help tackle the courts’ backlog of cases, for all judicial ­vacancies to be filled immediately and for the government to consider appointing more judges.

Attorney-General Christian Porter said the amendments were “worth considering” and would be used as the “basis for continuing discussions” with crossbenchers over coming weeks to ensure the government could achieve “meaningful” reform. “The most important thing here is that we achieve reform which makes it easier for families … to get through the courts as ­simply, quickly and cheaply as possible,” he said.

Mr Porter has been negotiating this week with key crossbench senator Rex Patrick to secure his support for the bill.

Senator Patrick said the government had “addressed most of the concerns the legal profession had with this bill”.

“There are still some outstanding issues with the legislation and also with resourcing,” he said.

“These issues need to be resolved before Centre Alliance can support the bill.”

In a dissenting report, Labor said the bills should not be passed. Senator Louise Pratt said it was wrong the report was being tabled before an Australian Law Reform Commission inquiry into the family law system was completed.

Greens senator Nick McKim said while his party “acknow­ledges problems facing the Family Court”, it did not support the legislation.

Nicola Berkovic Legal Affairs Correspondent Sydney

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