The system, a landmark reform of the Whitlam era, has been operating for more than 40 years. The federal legislation on which it is based has frequently been revised and amended.

Yet although piecemeal reviews have taken place, and different parts of the system have been the subject of academic studies and analyses, no comprehensive examination has assessed the system as a whole, how the Commonwealth Family Law Act and the machinery it establishes (the Family Court) operate in tandem with the state courts, which can adjudicate on related matters – property settlements and family violence.

It is good, then, that the Attorney-General George Brandis has asked the Law Reform Commission, and Melbourne University's Professor Helen Rhoades, to conduct a review.

The commission has 18 months to report. It will need it.

Many of the problems faced by the Family Court – and by the adults and children who are going through it – are caused by a simple lack of resources.

A shortage of judges to hear cases, and of registrars – who prepare cases and, where possible, record the terms where parties agree – has lengthened the waiting time, and the anguish, for families in distress. Costs for the parties can be prohibitive.

More generous funding would obviously help. Though it may seem crass to question the cost of such a delicate process as resolving family disputes, those considerations are inevitable. Budgets are always tight; needs are endless. The review will succeed if it can devise ways to further reduce court proceedings, and save money that way.

But resources, costs and waiting lists are only the most obvious difficulty. The system is also bedevilled by Australia's federal system, in which different jurisdictions oversee separate parts of the law relevant to families.

Child custody (a federal matter) and property settlements (state) are the obvious example of a disjunction that can prolong and embitter disputes between the parties.

To make it possible for all related questions to be decided in one place would involve extensive reform – including, perhaps, uniform legislation and even constitutional change. A review as broad as this one should not shrink from recommending such a move.

There is also a wider, more intractable, issue: the long-standing criticism by men's advocacy groups of what they claim is an institutional anti-male bias in Family Court decisions.

This localised battle of a broader gender conflict has degenerated into ideological trench warfare of the most depressing and unproductive kind. The sides have become identified with extremes of the political spectrum. Minds have become closed to debate. Instead, embittered advocates on both sides shout themselves hoarse trying to deny legitimacy to their opponents, or to silence them altogether.

Nothing productive can come of these exchanges. Let us hope the commission's inquiry can open the way to some compromise that will, if not resolve the conflict, because that is probably too much to ask, at least take some of the heat out of it.

In their day, the Family Law Act and no-fault divorce were major social advances. Their durability, despite legitimate criticisms and needed adjustments, shows they largely succeeded.

But they need updating, and the effort to do so will require a political effort almost as great as the one that set them up. We wish the commission, and Professor Rhoades, well.

This story first appeared on The Sydney Morning Herald.