The change would enable the judges to place abused and neglected children in the care of the state if no other fit and proper person or party was suited to parental obligations.

Inexplicably, this power does not currently exist.

Family Court judges can only refer matters(in Tasmania) to the Health and Human Services Department.

It is then up to the department to decide whether it will step in.

Unfortunately, past experience has shown that the department has not always put the best interests of children first.

As Law Society of Tasmania president Anthony Mihal told The Examiner this week, the department was very reluctant to get involved because of funding and lack of resources.

The $210 million in spending cuts to Tasmania's health budget over the next four years is unlikely to see that reluctance change.

The call for increased judicial powers is coming from Justice Robert Benjamin, of the Family Court.

In agitating for change, he draws on his experience with a Tasmanian case.

In a speech to National Family Law Conference last Friday he referred to a 2010 case involving a 15-year-old boy and his nine-year-old sister. There were allegations that both had suffered sexual abuse at the hands of their uncle.

The mother claimed their father, who was seeking custody orders, had bashed her while they were together.

The father alleged the mother, who was also seeking custody orders, had drug, alcohol and emotional problems.

In addition, the daughter may have been at risk of being sexually abused by the brother.

Given this acute dysfunction, Justice Benjamin unsurprisingly found none of the parties seeking parental orders, including the aunt, were necessarily suitable since the children faced possible "emotional, physical and sexual abuse" in any of the proposed scenarios.

Instead, he attempted to make the unwilling department take responsibility for parental supervision.

The department successfully overturned the decision on appeal with the full court finding Justice Benjamin had no legal power to force the department's hand.

A Pyrrhic victory indeed.

The lack of a remedy is so real that Justice Benjamin told the conference that one solution was for a judge to make no parental orders at all, in effect leaving the child orphaned, thereby forcing child protection authorities to fill the vacuum by intervening.

He called it the "take your bat and ball and go home" option.

Clearly this is no long-term solution at all.

What's needed is legislative change and a subsequent increase in funding to child protection agencies.

The situation has reportedly prompted Attorney-General George Brandis to ask the Family Law Council to examine if the court's judges should be given the power to remove children from custody and place them in the care of states' if necessary.

The issue is complex given the conflict between state and federal powers.

But just because it is complex doesn't mean it shouldn't be tackled especially when the stakes are so high.

Inexplicably anti-child abuse campaigner Bravehearts appears opposed to the change, stating that it would be concerned by any increase in the powers of judges to make such a decision.