DIVORCE BILL IN CANBERRA

Press, Volume XCV, Issue 28258, 22 April 1957, Page 15

DIVORCE BILL IN CANBERRA

Strenuous Battle Expected (Special Correspondent N.Z.P.A.) * SYDNEY, April 20. A stern battle is expected at Canberra over a private member's bill to provide uniform divorce laws in Australia. The bill, if passed, would supersede the present State divorce laws. State Supreme Courts Would administer the new law, but the Commonwealth would have power to establish a Federal Divorce Court if necessary. If the bill becomes law, divorce will be obtainable on only eight grounds. Failure to obey an order for restitution of conjugal rights will no longer be a ground for divorce, and it is on this point that the bill is being hotly attacked—especially in New South Wales. An eminent Victorian divorce lawyer, Mr Percy Joske, Q.C., a Liberal member of the Federal brought down the measure. In his bill he proposed that the Commonwealth laws should replace the various State laws after next year. Mr Joske said the eight grounds for divorce in the bill were those generally accepted for a long time by the States. They were: adultery; three years’ wilful desertion without justifiable reason; habitual drunkenness and cruelty, failure to support a wife, a wife’s neglect of marital duties for three years; unnatural offences; habitual assaults; habitual criminal convictions; incurable insanity, proof of which would be five years’ detention in a mental institution; presumption of death after seven years’ absence.