Anyone who has followed Australian family law over the last few years will be acutely aware of the level of conflict there is over the text of the Family Law Act 1975, especially in relation to parenting after separation. Family law is a field full of advocates. Views are often passionately held, and debate can too often resemble a form of trench warfare in which the goal is to capture territory rather than finding the common ground between different views and concerns. This adversarial approach to the issues also affects research. In this field, there is too much policy-based “evidence”, and too little evidence-based policy. The outcomes of this approach to public policy have been unsatisfactory. The Family Law Act 1975 reflects various compromises between advocacy groups, and lacks coherence as a result.