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judges (Nicholson 1995 page 13, Cooke 1996 page 13). It was suggested to the Inquirythat judicial education needs to be ongoing.… one of the failings of judicial education programmes is that they seem to be one-off affairs.Judges may only deal sporadically with cases involving Aboriginal parties (given the smallnumber of cases that actually reach a final trial) and cannot be expected to keep at their fingertipsknowledge passed on over the course of a few days some years ago … Moreover, educationinvolves more than placing information at someone’s disposal and judges should have theopportunity to engage with the material in more depth in a more appropriate environment (LisaYoung submission 816 page 10).All officers of the Family Court involved in parenting disputes will need ongoingtraining to ensure accessibility for, and to avoid discrimination against, Indigenouspeople.Relevant staff include counsellors and Registrars. The critical role of the counselloror welfare office preparing a Family Report points to the need to ensure all such staff arethoroughly trained. Our recommendation relating to the role of separate representativesand Aboriginal and Islander Child Care Agencies will only be effective if implementedwithin an environment of heightened awareness and sensitivity on the part of counsellingstaff, registrars, judges and all other court officers.Western AustraliaUnique among the States and Territories, Western Australia established its ownState Family Court in 1975. The State Act allowed custody and access decisions about allchildren, whether born in a marriage or not, to be made in the same court on the sameprinciples. Elsewhere in Australia children of a marriage were dealt with under theCommonwealth’s Family Law Act 1975 and ex-nuptial children under separate Statelegislation (except in the Territories where Commonwealth legislation applied). In the1980s the other States transferred their jurisdiction over ex-nuptial children to theCommonwealth to permit those children to be dealt with under the Family Law Act.A significant degree of uniformity has been maintained since between theCommonwealth Act and the WA Act. However the Commonwealth amending legislationin 1996 disturbed that uniformity. Legislation to restore uniformity is awaiting enactmentin WA. The Inquiry’s recommendations are directed explicitly to the Commonwealth’slegislation on the understanding that Western Australia will amend the State Act in linewith the Commonwealth.