Women’s advocacy groups are pressuring the crossbench to reverse support for the latest family court inquiry, with concerns mounting the probe lacks legitimacy.

Australian Women Against Violence Alliance and Fair Agenda have partnered for a campaign aimed at government leaders, their shadow counterparts and the crossbench, calling for the Hanson-led family court inquiry to be dropped.

The email campaign aims to encourage MPs to push the government into implementing the recommendations put forward by the Australian Law Reform Commission, which have sat with the government since April, and address many of the procedural complaints raised about the family court process.

In announcing the inquiry, to be chaired by the conservative MP Kevin Andrews and the One Nation leader, Pauline Hanson, the prime minister, Scott Morrison, said the inquiry would not be “taking sides”. Hanson has repeatedly claimed, without evidence, that women are routinely making up domestic violence allegations in order to win custody.

But the chief executive officer of Women’s Safety NSW, Hayley Foster, said many women felt as though the inquiry had already taken a side, given Hanson’s repeated comments and leadership role, and were questioning both its legitimacy and their safety in giving testimony.

“The government already has substantive evidence and recommendations before it on how to reform the family law system,” Foster said.

“Not one agency concerned with the welfare of women and children experiencing family violence and abuse have come out to support this inquiry. Not one. Further, survivors of family violence have told us they do not feel safe to engage in the inquiry given the driving force behind it, and the make-up of its leadership. Without so many of their voices, how will the recommendations have legitimacy?

“Survivors have come forward in substantive numbers to advise us that they will not feel comfortable providing testimony to this inquiry. And whilst some may push through – this will not mean that it is safe – and will not mean that a cross section of survivors’ experiences will be represented.”

The campaign, which takes the form of emails to MPs, aims to have these concerns raised directly. Andrews recently told the ABC that while he would strive to ensure a respectful and safe environment, he would not rebuke nor condemn Hanson’s comments.

“What is factual or not will be found out in this inquiry and it will be done impartially,” he said last week.

Foster said the government already had enough to work with in order to reform the court, and the email campaign was designed to remind MPs of the real issues.

The CEO of the Womens’ Legal Service Queensland, Angela Lynch, said while the WLSQ was not part of the email campaign, it was also advocating for the government to act on the recommendations it had in front of it.

“The ALRC just conducted the most extensive review of the family law system with 60 recommendations contained in a report delivered in March 2019,” she said.

“There was a previous lower house Henderson parliamentary report in 2017 with 30 to 35 recommendations that have not been acted upon. There was a 2014/15 child support inquiry. There was a 2014 Senate inquiry into domestic violence in Australia that covered off on issues of family law and domestic violence. There has been the Family Law Council Report into complex families in 2015 that made numerous recommendations [and have not yet been acted upon].”

Lynch said Hanson’s views on the family law system and domestic violence had been consistent over the past two decades and the service had already been contacted by women “who told us they were scared and do not feel they can participate”.

The CEO of Engender Equality in Tasmania, Alina Thomas, said any time and effort dedicated to making a submission to yet another inquiry into the family court, when the government already had recommendations it was not acting on, “takes away from delivering a frontline service which are already stretched to unprecedented levels”.

In South Australia, Kathy Lilis from the Coalition of Women’s Domestic Violence Services said: “We invite our senators to demonstrate that they do indeed value the lives and safety of women and their children, by listening to the experts in women’s safety, including women with lived experience of violence, and to rethink this parliamentary inquiry.”

Lilis said senators should invest in implementing the changes that have already been identified to improve the safety of those at risk in the family law system, rather than support a new inquiry.

“We implore them to listen to survivors who have risked so much to tell them that the current system is destroying lives, and to believe them when they say that an additional inquiry, along the lines of that which is currently proposed, will create further damage.”