Third Readings

I call the Hon Minister Judith Collins to address the people’s House.

Happy Suffrage Day to you, too. I move, That the Care of Children Amendment Bill (No 2), the Child Support Amendment Bill (No 3), the Children, Young Persons, and Their Families Amendment Bill (No 2), the Domestic Violence Amendment Bill (No 2), the Family Courts Amendment Bill, the Family Dispute Resolution Bill, the Family Proceedings Amendment Bill (No 2), the Legal Services Amendment Bill (No 2), the Property (Relationships) Amendment Bill (No 2), and the Protection of Personal and Property Rights Amendment Bill be now read a third time. The legislation will give effect to this Government’s commitment to reform the family justice service so that it encourages less adversarial resolution of parenting issues. Our proposed reforms will provide greater protection for children and vulnerable people. Core features of the current system will remain, such as the ability to get immediate access to the court in emergency or urgent situations.

The reforms proposed in the legislation are the first significant legislative changes to the Family Court since its inception in 1981. The time is right for reform. Society has changed in the three decades since the Family Court was set up. The make-up and the dynamics of families have changed. A Ministry of Justice review of the Family Court in 2011 found that court processes were complex, uncertain, and too slow. There was a lack of focus on children and vulnerable people, and insufficient support for resolving issues out of court. The review also found significant reliance on court professionals, which can increase the time applications take to be resolved. The cost of operating the Family Court was increasing at an unsustainable rate.

The reforms reflect our increased understanding of the negative effect that adversarial court proceedings can have on children. They recognise that the Family Court should be just one part of a wider system that helps families reach agreement about care arrangements for their children. The majority of couples reach agreements between themselves, even now. This legislation recognises that for those who cannot resolve matters, it would be desirable to have other options, rather than heading straight to the court.

In many cases, the court is not the best place for helping families settle disputes. To reduce the number of parenting issues proceeding directly to the court, the legislation proposes establishing the new family dispute resolution service, known as FDR. Before commencing care of children proceedings in the Family Court, family dispute resolution will be mandatory for most parents. Exceptions include serious cases such as domestic violence or straightforward matters where parents want their agreements sealed by the court.

The harmful impact of conflict on children will be minimised by family dispute resolution, with fewer cases expected to go to the court each year. Family dispute resolution will reduce the delays and expense that court processes can involve for parents. Family dispute resolution will be free for the estimated 60 percent of participants who will be eligible for pre-court financial assistance. For those not eligible, the cost of family dispute resolution will be less expensive than retaining a lawyer and proceeding to a defended court hearing.

As well as family dispute resolution, the free and highly successful Parenting through Separation course will be expanded and will also be made mandatory for many parents prior to the Family Court proceedings. If couples fail to reach agreement in family dispute resolution, they can still apply to the Family Court. In cases where people do proceed to the court, they will be supported to navigate the court system independently for straightforward matters. Improved information services, a simplified three-track court system, and easy-to-use forms will be introduced.

Parents eligible for pre-court financial assistance may be provided with some initial legal advice prior to court entry. They may also be provided with some preparatory counselling to help them make the most of family dispute resolution. Currently, up to 3 hours’ pre-court taxpayer-funded counselling is available to anyone on request. Under the reforms the focus will shift from dealing with private relationship issues to resolving parenting disputes and reducing conflict for the benefit of children.

In the court, Family Court judges will have more options to help resolve disputes. They will be able to refer parties back to family dispute resolution or Parenting through Separation if they believe this will help parents reach agreement. They will also be able to involve lawyers earlier in the court process where they believe that that will increase the chances of success. Providing more options for parents will free up the Family Court to focus on cases that require judgment. It will also target the use of professionals, including lawyers, to help resolve more serious matters.

The legislation will give effect to this Government’s commitment to protecting children and vulnerable people by improving the Family Court’s response to domestic violence. New provisions in the legislation will make non-violence programmes more effective. There will be wider powers to direct people to attend non-violence programmes. There will also be an increased onus on providers to report on the outcomes of non-violence programmes and to identify any ongoing concerns about those who have attended the programmes. To strengthen the Family Court’s response to domestic violence, the maximum penalty for breaching a protection order will be increased, from 2 years’ imprisonment to 3 years’ imprisonment. To improve the safety of those at risk, new provisions will allow people under a protection order to request provision of a safety programme at any time. The definition of psychological domestic violence will also be widened to include financial and economic abuse, such as denying or limiting access to financial resources.

In summary, this legislation will reduce the stress on families and children because disputes will be settled more quickly and fewer cases will end up in court. When they do end up in court, the interests of children will be the primary concern. The Family Court will be freed up to focus on the more serious matters that require legal judgment, such as those involving domestic violence. More protection will be afforded to vulnerable people and children at risk. This legislation creates a more comprehensive family justice service, which will better meet the needs of families today.

I would like to take the opportunity to thank all members of the Justice and Electoral Committee for the work that they have done in relation to this legislation, including the chairs of the committee—there were two during the process of this legislation, Mr Tim Macindoe and Mr Scott Simpson. I would also like to thank all the submitters, because their submissions were listened to and there were significant changes to the legislation following the input of the submitters. I commend this legislation to the House.

It is a great pleasure, of course, to address the people’s House on this very important legislation arising from the Family Court Proceedings Reform Bill—legislation that will affect many people. I address the people’s House not in purple, as the Minister of Justice has done, but, indeed, with a heavy heart, nevertheless, because these are not good bills. This is not good legislation. In spite of the Minister’s best hopes for it, or the marketing spin that she, at least, puts on it, we do not anticipate that it will have any of the effects that she anticipates for it. I find it interesting that the Minister says that the legislation will put the interests of children at the forefront of the Family Court’s consideration of family dispute issues. When there was a Supplementary Order Paper that proposed exactly that phraseology to make the interests of children paramount, Supplementary Order Paper 254, it was rejected by the Government—rejected by the Government members. This is not legislation to put the interests of children first. It is not even legislation to put the interests of separating couples first. It is about putting the Government’s balance sheet first and foremost. It is about putting the Government’s income and expenditure accounts above all else. It is about cutting cost. That is what has driven this.

This legislation started with very noble intentions. It started out as a reform process to address the quite legitimate and well-expressed concerns about the Family Court, particularly concerns about delay—we know that there were delays in some cases—and about the fact that more court time and more judge time was being tied up in what might otherwise be described as trivial matters. They were matters, as the Minister of Justice described them in some of her contributions to the debate on the legislation, of where little Johnny or Jane should spend a particular weekend or a particular Christmas. It was quite proper for the then Minister of Justice, the Hon Simon Power, to convene a process, which was a very good process. It started with a meeting of interested parties here in Parliament in 2011. It followed that with a consultation process with those working in the field and those working in the court: the lawyers, judges, specialists, and families as well—those who had used the system—and it also included an expert advisory group. That was a very robust process.

But what a pity that the outcome, once there was a change of Minister—once there was a new Minister of Justice and Judith Collins took over—was that the legislation did not reflect the work that was done through those very important consultative processes. What came back was a piece of legislation focused on the care of the children issue, which is important—and it is nearly 40 percent of the Family Court’s work—but it was also about removing the responsibility of the State to ensure good and fair outcomes between couples who were separating and for the management and custody of their children.

It not only removed the State’s responsibility but beat up on the lawyers and the professional advisers who have been involved in that process. How interesting it was that probably 80 percent of the submitters whom we had before the Justice and Electoral Committee were lawyers, judges, and also users of the court. Mums and dads and former partners came to the select committee and said that the person who got them through and who enabled them to understand what was happening, who enabled them to understand the agreements they were entering into and the orders that were being made by the court, was the lawyer—the large number of parents who came and said that the person who was the most helpful was the lawyer for the child, because they were not wrapped up in the emotions of their client, they could hear and understand the children, and they could assist the lawyers representing the parents to come up with a sensible set of solutions. That is why the evidence before the committee was that between 75 percent and 80 percent of family disputes were resolved in discussions between the parties and their lawyers.

And what has this Minister done with the legislation now? In her desperate bid to get lawyers out of the picture and to prevent users of the court from having access to legal advice, including by screwing down the right to legal aid—and that is getting harder and harsher even for those who get it—the Minister thinks that suddenly, miraculously, couples who are in dispute will quite happily sit with each other and one other person in a room and will resolve their issues. It is a Pollyannaish view. We had a sort of address by Marjorie Proops from the Minister as part of the debate, who said that people should pull up their socks, pull themselves together, and sort it out. It is completely unreal and unrealistic, and it simply does not allow couples going through the devastating time and process of separation to deal with their issues. When people are making agreements that are lasting a lifetime, or at least lasting a large chunk of their lifetime, and lasting for the period of a child’s life until they enter into young adulthood, then, actually, parents are entitled to have access to advice and to understand the legal ramifications of the agreements they are entering into.

This legislation will deprive them of that. They will be expected to participate in a forum where they will not have access to legal advice. They might have had a small amount of advice beforehand, but not when they are going through the actual issues and wanting to know the legal impact of what they are agreeing to. They will not have access to that. They will be expected to deal with the person with whom they want to end the relationship, or about whom they are grieving at the end of the relationship, with only an independent facilitator present, whose job then is to help them understand what they are doing and to also represent the best interests of the children. It will be an impossible task. It does not matter what accreditation regime the Minister puts in place through the ministry, or anything like that. It will not be a satisfactory situation for those who are reliant on the system to come up with an agreement to resolve their very difficult problems.

I think it is a great shame that on a day when we are celebrating such an important anniversary as the emancipation of women, the entry of women to the franchise, and the beginning of the process of empowering women in our communities, we are passing legislation whose most deleterious effects will be felt by women, who will lose the voice they have had and the assistance and the support they have had to deal with one of the most difficult situations in any person’s life—man or woman. They will lose that support. Not only that; they have already lost access to legal aid to get assistance through that sort of process, and many women will be left vulnerable and exposed and on their own. This is a shameful day. It is a shameful day for the Government, and, frankly, it is embarrassing to be member of a House that is passing legislation like this on a day like this.

So that is why we remain implacably opposed to this legislation. This is not about effective dispute resolution; this is about a Government desperate to cut costs so that it can bail out its rich corporate mates. The Tīwai Point aluminium smelter, Warner Bros, Skycity, and all of the rest of them are lining up for a handout. This is a Government that is quite happy to take money out of the back pockets of the most vulnerable in our community—to take resources out of those processes and forums and institutions that support ordinary people going about their daily lives—so that it can present a surplus next year and look after its corporate mates. That is how cynical this Government has become. Well, mark my words, it is coming to an end. Our leader, David Shearer, has said that the train is leaving the station. There is a song about that. There is another song—there is another song. The world is changing. There is a new world a-coming, and we are part of it. We will bring it about, and it will be about fairness and equity and a community that cares about its people, that looks after its people, and that uses the resources of the State wisely and to empower people. That is what we stand for. That is why we are implacably opposed to this dreadful legislation from this shabby, tawdry Government. We look forward to the day when this will be tossed out, and we will have better legislation that will look after families and look after people in their most difficult times and at their most difficult moments.

Kia ora. It is a pleasure to rise in support of the third readings of these bills now divided from the former Family Court Proceedings Reform Bill. I also thank the member Andrew Little for what may have been his final speech as Labour’s justice spokesperson, and I remind him that, yes, his leader has said that the train is leaving, but the leader is actually David Cunliffe, as I understand it, not David Shearer, as he mentioned. It just goes to show the depth of confusion and malaise and concern that exists in the Labour caucus when the justice spokesperson stands up a week after a change of leadership and still refers to the old leader, once removed, as the current leader. That just shows the mess that the Labour Party is in.

I want to thank the Minister of Justice, Judith Collins, for bringing this legislation to the House. I would also like to thank the officials who worked very hard and diligently on this piece of work for us, at times under great time pressure to achieve deadlines. I would also like to thank the hard-working and diligent members of the Justice and Electoral Committee, who across the party divides of the House actually worked, I thought, in a very collaborative and useful way on this legislation as it went through the deliberations before the committee.

It is quite a complicated piece of legislation. It amounts to the first real, full reform review of our Family Court justice process since its inception some 30 years ago. The legislation now falls into the omnibus of divided parts. I am not going to go through those individually, but in preference I would like to just acknowledge the 386 written submissions that the committee received and also the 217 oral submissions that the committee heard in various places around the country.

Many of those submissions were from people who had personal and absolute horror stories to tell us. They told us, for instance, about the expensive, slow, drawn-out, ineffective, and stressful process that the Family Court system had provided for them. Changes made during the select committee process mean that as a result of the work of the committee, the legislation is, I think, better legislation than it was when it came before us at the first reading.

The people who come before the Family Court—those who told us their stories at the select committee—often are people who are stressed, who are emotional, and who are at a vulnerable point in their lives. A relationship breakup and the subsequent sorting-out of details can be one of the most difficult things that people can confront in their lives.

But that said, the vast majority of couples who do go through a relationship split and the fallout that occurs as a result of that actually do sort out their affairs without the need to go to the Family Court. They do so because they are able as adults to come to terms with the changed situation in their relationship and they can work out a way through it—the vast majority do. On this side of the House, we take the view that where people can sort things out for themselves, they should. Recourse to State-provided services and facilities should not be a course of first action for people who are going through relationship breakups. We do not subscribe to the view that the Family Court should be the first option in resolving relationship issues.

The reforms that we are considering today mean that the Family Court will be a better, more efficient provider of a service for those who actually need it. Let us have a look at why those changes are needed. The Family Court has for a long time been criticised by people who were involved with it as being adversarial, and for placing additional stress, in already testing circumstances, on people who are already vulnerable and under stress. People complain that it is not focused enough on the most serious cases, such as domestic violence, and people complain that it is negative for children who are subjected to the process.

So these reforms being considered today establish a new family dispute resolution process that will absolutely focus our family justice system very clearly towards supporting people to resolve their disputes outside the court system where appropriate. I think that is a good thing. Couples will be required to go through a Parenting through Separation programme, and at least attempt a family dispute resolution before applying to the court for parenting or guardianship orders, unless there is an exemption such as what might apply where there is a case of violence being involved. I think that is right and appropriate.

These reforms will support people to resolve disputes out of court where appropriate and they will ensure that the court, when it is needed, is focused on the most vulnerable. This legislation and these divided bills are good pieces of reform. They are needed pieces of reform. I thank the Minister for bringing them to the House. I commend these bills wholeheartedly for consideration by the House.

Namaste, Mr Assistant Speaker. I am pleased to take a call in the final reading of the legislation arising from the Family Court Proceedings Reform Bill. But I do it with some sadness, because this is the kind of measure in this area that ought to be supported across the House. There ought to be agreement across the House when we are trying to improve a system. These series of bills do not actually do that, and I want to go through the three major drivers to this legislation as we see it.

The first driver here is the increasing costs in the Family Court system. Let me talk a little bit about that because it seems to have become a principle by which this Government operates. It says that if something we are doing is costing more, then by definition there is something wrong with it and we must reduce it, without actually having a look to see why that cost is increasing. So when we do that, the only argument we get from this Minister and from this process is that this is out of hand because it costs too much. And because it costs too much we must now find a system that actually destroys the very value of the services provided in the Family Court.

The Family Court is 30-odd years old and it has served us well. It is a well-developed system. That is not to say that it cannot be tweaked. It can always be tweaked. But in trying to keep a focus on only the financial driver for this particular area of change, what the Government has forgotten to do is to calculate the advantages of that as well. The Government has not done that. We have had no discussion about what the value is of the kinds of services that are provided in the Family Court and, through legal aid, to those who end up in this particular place. So it is a Government that knows the price of everything, but the value of nothing. The Government has not demonstrated its understanding of the benefits to those vulnerable people who find themselves in this particular situation.

The Government has been very ready to spend large sums of money elsewhere. If we look at that—I think the figure is $13 million. That is what the cost is of this service that is being is cut. If that is all it is, then why, in a country with a budget like ours, and in a country with a soul like we purport to have, has it become such a problem that we cannot actually provide the kinds of intensive services our most vulnerable children need—it is mainly children whose parents are separating; it is the adults who make the mess, and it is the children who pay the price—and actually get the right services there so that change can occur? Yet we are prepared to spend inordinately much larger sums of money to address some other presumed advantage. The Government has not explained that. The Ministers have not explained that.

I think that the financial driver behind this is hard to actually be convinced by. It is what the Government has done for a long time. It may just be that the real driver behind this is the Government trying to hide its own mistakes—the mistakes it made in 2009, with the unaffordable tax cuts, etc. The long-term effect of that economic plan is that the Government now has to cobble together even small sums of money from very, very good programmes, just to balance the books. It is selling whatever it can sell. The Government is cutting programmes like this. In the scheme of things they are very cheap programmes—not expensive at all—and they are doing a lot of good; certainly doing no harm. Yet this legislation puts that aside.

I cannot imagine Tim Macindoe actually being supportive of something like that, when I know he understands the needs of the children who find themselves in this position. I have respect for the member, who knows that providing the right amount of resources, the right kind of assistance, the right kind of dispute resolution procedures, and making sure there are no financial pressures actually resolves the situation. But no, this is not what the Government is doing.

This is the awful consequence of the Government’s long-term policy. It has made so much expenditure that it need not have made, and should not have made. It is not producing the benefits, and now the Government is having to cut deep into many of the programmes that are for the vulnerable.

The Government has become rather nonchalant about making cuts to programmes for the poor. It has done that all across the board. Whether under the guise of welfare dependency or inefficient programmes, etc., it has made all those cuts. And yet, the other day, when the botulism scare was on, the Government offered a couple of million dollars to the companies that were involved and that had to travel to China to sort that out. They did not even ask for that. They did not even ask for that, but the Government was very quick to make public moneys available—a couple of million dollars. I heard the interviews with the owners of those companies, and they said: “We didn’t ask for this. Nice to have.” How about that kind of thinking when it comes to providing for our vulnerable people?

The second driver of this particular legislation is something that the member Scott Simpson talked about a few minutes ago, and it is this: the argument has gone that we know that many, many more people resolve their disputes themselves. That is true—they do. But from there the logic is so lost. Therefore, the Government thinks that everybody must do that. That belies logic, because the very point is that the small number who cannot resolve their difficulties end up in this particular situation. Therefore, they are at the sharper end and therefore they do require the kinds of services that the Family Court currently provides. Yet, under the guise of that principle—that so many resolve their issues themselves—the Government says we now do not need to provide these services to these more vulnerable groups at the sharp end. It does not make any sense to do that, but it is a justification. It is an intellectually dishonest justification when the Government says that for those reasons it will take away all of these services.

Well, one of the things that have happened is the change in family form over probably the last 20 or 30 years. The family form has changed. The nature of the family today is very different from the traditional families in which many of us were brought up. There are many, many different types of families, and they form and re-form all of the time. That is happening all over the world. Any cursory view of our family form statistics in New Zealand will show that family form is now different. One of the consequences of the change in family form is that there are more disputes. So it is not surprising that we are programmed to require our courts to actually provide assistance to those family forms. That is what explains the numbers. We have not become inefficient all of a sudden; there are simply more cases.

What the Minister has done in this case—because of some perverse attitude towards the law profession, and I do not understand this Minister’s attitude to that profession—is that she is actually not even listening to her own expert groups, which she brought together to give advice. She is not following that advice. So the logic of this is just not there to follow. This is an ideological trip of this Government. It actually is hostile to the vulnerable.

But maybe there is something a little more insincere. I think the Minister and some others have been captured by a number of powerful people who can say “Look what my partner did to me.”, and that is because of the services that are available to them in the courts. That ought not to happen, and this Minister and this Government have got captured by them. I have heard those arguments as well by some people who want to fight with their partners in court, and when they lose they blame the system. Yet the system was designed simply to protect our children.

This is an ideologically driven set of proposals. It is based on flawed logic. It is based on a rather miserly attitude to a small amount of money. And it will end up having to be fixed up again some place down the track. So for those reasons we have fought against this legislation, and we will change it when we are in Government. Thank you.

The Green Party also categorically opposes the legislation arising from the Family Court Proceedings Reform Bill. The proposed package of reforms will be a significant change to the family justice system, the largest since the establishment of the Family Court in 1981. The reforms are stated to be driven by three concerns: one, that they will enable the Family Court to focus on the most serious cases; two, that the Family Court does not have clear processes, so it is difficult to understand and navigate, apparently; and, three, that the Family Court has seen its costs greatly increase in recent years, despite no movement in the total number of cases accessing its services.

We believe that this legislation is an erosion, rather than an improvement, of our court system. We believe that although the most vulnerable women and children are likely to bear the brunt of these changes, we will all pay. And on Suffrage Day it is particularly galling to see some cornerstone legislation for the protection of women undermined in this House. This legislation is what happens when the Government turns its eye to how it can reduce costs, rather than deliver to its citizens. This legislation is what happens when the Government forgets that it has an important role to play in preventing social disintegration. This is what happens when the Government considers short-term financial lines over long-term savings.

The Family Court was established in 1980 following the report of the Royal Commission on the Courts in 1978. The commission, through a very thorough investigation, recognised that families play a vitally important role in our society, and that a specialised forum was required to respond adequately to their needs. From this arose the Family Court as we have it now.

Yet, over time, so much has been added to the court. I think that when we consider some of the administrative difficulties and the complexity of the court, considering what has been added to its role over time may help us understand that. It stands in stark contrast to the changes that are being proposed. Since its establishment the Family Court has had added to its jurisdiction the care and protection of children under the Children, Young Persons, and Their Families Act 1989; powers of wardship, which were previously the preserve of the High Court; international child abduction law duties; the enactment of the Care of Children Act 2004; exclusive jurisdiction under the Property (Relationships) Act 1976, which was previously shared with the High Court; estates under the Law Reform (Testamentary Promises) Act 1949 and the Family Protection Act 1955; jurisdiction under health and disability legislation, such as the Mental Health (Compulsory Assessment and Treatment) Act 1992, the Protection of Personal and Property Rights Act 1988, and the Intellectual Disability (Compulsory Care and Rehabilitation) Act 2003, and, of course, the introduction of the Domestic Violence Act 1995 gave the Family Court power to grant protection orders under this statute, which represents a considerable body of work for the Family Court.

So it is no wonder that we need to update our legislation and the structure of the court. That is not in question here. The Government held a review. I guess, considering all of that, it made sense to have a review and to consult, and the Government did consult widely. It had 209 submissions, and 121 full responses were received. The Minister of Justice in 2012 released a set of proposals for change. These proposed changes are raised in the discussion paper, but they did not reflect, and this legislation does not reflect, the feedback of the community, of those with the most experience of the Family Court.

What that review asked for was a Family Court review that provided better information on how to resolve disputes; a non-adversarial, child-focused family justice system; greater transparency around court processes and accountability of court professionals, particularly lawyers; consequences for those who mislead the court or create delay; and an increase in the skills and competency of family lawyers.

We know what is in this legislation. What it does is set up a family dispute resolution process that is mediation and facilitation based, without representation. It will be mandatory, private, and non-judicial and will be a cost to those wanting to access that mandatory service. That is an undermining of our basic court process, that is not what was asked for by the review, and that is not what families in breakdown need.

As was pointed out earlier, in respect of the philosophy that families should be able to work these things out themselves, those that can, do. By far the majority of families do, and they do not come near the Family Court. The families who come to the Family Court in these situations are the families in conflict who have not been able to work it out themselves. It is absolutely essential for us as a State to be able to help those families out, unless we are to all pay for the cost of increased conflict and family breakdown. That is what this is potentially setting up.

Alongside this, although it is purportedly about increasing the rights of the child in this process, it actually limits the role of the counsel for the child. Counsel for the child will now be appointed when there are “concerns for the safety and well-being of the child;” and the judge considers an appointment of the counsel necessary. This is an erosion of that service. It is a displacement of children from their centrality in this legislation. We know that children are the most vulnerable when families are in breakdown. This will have long-lasting consequences.

It sets up that when lawyers for the child are appointed or in other situations part of the costs may now be passed on to one or both parties involved in the case. So here we are, saving money in the short term, considering the Government’s Budget this year, next year, with no mind to the future cost, no mind to the harm and the pain of the families going through this process, and no mind to the potential for victims of domestic violence to get caught up in this system if they are not in a place in their life to be able to disclose that they are victims of abuse. They are going to be put in situations of facilitated discussion where we have no guarantee that the facilitator has skills or knowledge around domestic violence. The outcome of that is potentially very dangerous.

This legislation is a travesty. It is particularly so, I say again, to have this in front of the House on Women’s Suffrage Day—120 years of women having the right to vote in this country. To see a piece of legislation that is so important to women’s and children’s safety in front of this House being undermined is embarrassing, and it is a sad day. Thank you.

This legislation arising from the Family Court Proceedings Reform Bill is about modernising our Family Court system. It is about bringing some 33-year-old legislation into the 21st century.

We have heard that back in 2011 a review of the Family Court system was undertaken, and there were some serious concerns raised. There were concerns raised that the court lacked sufficient focus on meeting the needs of those children and on achieving sustainable, durable outcomes for families. It found that there were complicated court processes, lengthy delays. It found that it was adversarial and that it did place additional stress and strain on already strained relationships. It found that it spent too much time on simple, private matters that did not need to be resolved in the court, that it was complex to use, and that it was too slow to resolve those disputes. It was not focused enough on those most serious cases. This legislation is designed to address those concerns.

I want to go through the stated aims of the original Family Court Proceedings Reform Bill and comment on the outcomes in these 10 amendment bills arising from it. Firstly, the aim was to encourage faster and less expensive resolution for broken families who have issues to resolve concerning the custody and care of children, by requiring parties to participate in the new family dispute resolution process instead of having to go to the court for determination, unless necessary, especially in cases of family violence. This had potential, but has been spoilt by the many other provisions of the reforms.

Secondly, lawyers were not to represent parties in family dispute resolution but may give initial advice if on legal aid, or if paid for privately, of course. The problem here is that too few people who will need it will qualify for legal aid. The threshold is far too tough. So some will be well supported—those who do qualify, and those who can afford to pay for a lawyer privately—but there will be a large number who fall between these two situations, and that is the problem.

Thirdly, the Family Court was to focus on matters genuinely needing a court decision, where protection of vulnerable people and children would be prioritised. I have no problem with that, but has this been achieved in the legislation? The real issue is whether the alternative family dispute resolution system, as set up in the legislation, has been set up well enough to take the court’s place. I have no confidence that that will be the case for far too many people.

Fourth, parties were to take responsibility, where possible, for their own arrangements concerning the care of children. That sounds fine, but the issue here is not so much a statement of the principle of self-responsibility; it is the fact that people do need help through these systems. The worst aspect of these reforms is that the Government is not funding sufficient counselling before a dispute matures, in order to make self-responsibility practicable as a way of proceeding, in far too many cases. As I have already said, the test for legal aid to be provided is far too tough.

The point is that there are areas of significant legal challenge to be dealt with by parties who cannot be expected to fully understand them—too many for the Government’s “no lawyer” provisions in these amendment bills. The Government just does not care about this. It thinks saving money is more important. This is a second-class justice approach, and the Government cannot now pretend that it is anything else.

Fifth, the original intention was to try to reduce the exacerbation of family disputes by making it not so easy to get to court—because legal proceedings often make relationships worse—but with the court still there as a backstop. Not only is it not so easy to get to the court now, but there are significant barriers to parties in the system as a whole. As it has turned out, the legislation will exacerbate, rather than reduce, areas where there is a power imbalance, by forcing parties into processes where one party will have the advantage of representation or advice, and another will not.

This is not an improved system; it is a worse one. It is all very well to have a simplified and cheaper system, but this will be at the expense of the equality of the parties in the system, and it therefore risks compromising the system as a whole, reducing the success rate, and damaging the outcomes for the very people—the children—whose interests, the legislation says, are to be paramount.

Sixth, the legislation would seek to be more responsive to victims of family violence. The legislation does expand the definition of psychological abuse, and it increases maximum sentences for this from 2 to 3 years and improves the delivery of mandatory non-violence programmes. These parts of the reforms are worthwhile—probably they are the only parts in that category.

Seventh, the Government was open about its main intention to make the Family Court more efficient and cost-effective. It was always clear that the major objective was, in fact, to save money, and this permeates the reforms from start to finish. Sadly, this will, as I have already said, be at the expense of a fair and effective system that parties will have genuine access to and be able to use effectively.

Eighth, and last, the last of the stated aims was to speed up court applications by reducing the court’s rapidly increasing workload. The reforms may well speed up the Family Court’s workload, but they will not necessarily speed up the system for the parties overall. In the end, despite a very large number of amendments having been made to the bill as originally introduced, in New Zealand First our reservations and our concerns have certainly not been met. By far the biggest concern for us was the reduction in the use of lawyers for the parties and of lawyers appointed to represent the children, and, secondly, the reduction in the availability of legal aid, which is now available to only a limited degree prior to, but not during, any mandated dispute resolution process, and if the dispute goes before a judge.

New Zealand First does not agree to penny-pinching of that kind, resulting in a lack of adequate legal representation and, with that, severely reduced legal aid entitlements. As a fundamental principle of justice, parties with a reasonable need, not the regulations, should decide whether they need a lawyer. Legal aid for advice before family dispute resolution is free for those under the income threshold for legal aid, estimated at about 60 percent of participants, so most parties are already legally aided out of necessity. But the availability of legal aid should not be the basis upon which parties decide whether they will have a lawyer or not, and there will, of course, be about 40 percent who may be unable to cope without legal aid. Although family dispute resolution is likely to be less expensive than hiring a lawyer and proceeding to a defended hearing in the court, these requirements are so tough that many people will simply not get a lawyer when they really need one, so there is a real problem of power imbalances being created as a result.

These reductions in legal representation and legal aid are the main reason for New Zealand First opposing the legislation. These reductions are likely to be a false economy anyway, because the costs in other areas are likely to increase. Fundamentally, if the quality of the process is compromised, the resolution will be illusory, resulting in another dispute later. Another particular reason for opposition is that the legislation prohibits the court appointing a lawyer to represent the child unless it is “necessary”. The concern is that lawyers would no longer be involved in the initial stages of proceedings under the Care of Children Act. The problem is that the legislation requires the court to have “concerns for the safety or well-being of the child;” and to consider an appointment necessary. That is far too tough. It should be the other way round—the court should appoint a lawyer unless it finds that it is unnecessary to do so.

The Government says that parents are expected to represent the best interests of the child in the process, but, in fact, many are actually not able to do that, especially in the stressful situations they find themselves in. New Zealand First would have liked to see the fully Government-funded counselling service reinstated—before disputes mature. Not all families will break up if they get counselling in that way.

Finally, we think that the imposition of interest on legal aid will cause hardship and serious hardship, which are the grounds for the legal aid agency setting aside the requirement to pay interest. It is a very high bar—far too high—and low-income people will suffer. And 8 percent is simple Government profiteering. Legal aid is paid for through taxation. The Government should not be charging interest at all on funds from these sources for these public purposes. The State should make a contribution. Charging interest is objectionable and wrong in principle, and 8 percent is nothing less than disgusting as an approach to legal aid. The State is not a banker. It should be providing a public service. For all these reasons New Zealand First will certainly vote against this legislation.

It is a pleasure to rise and take a brief call in this third reading debate on the legislation arising from the Family Court Proceedings Reform Bill. I believe that this legislation reflects the sensible balance and pragmatic solutions that are rapidly becoming a hallmark of our excellent Minister of Justice in this country. Other Government speakers have spoken about the sorts of sensible reforms that have been introduced. I do not think that the Government should resile from, or apologise for, taking care and being responsible with taxpayers’ money and the investment we are making in our court system in this country.

Other speakers have spoken about the common-sense approach to taking children out of the stressful and harsh environment of a court setting, and settling more of these disputes through a family dispute resolution process. I want to focus on one particular aspect of this legislation, and that is improving the court’s response to domestic violence, because I think this is very important. This legislation better supports vulnerable people, including improving responsiveness to domestic violence, and it does this by expanding the definition of psychological abuse in the Domestic Violence Act to include financial and economic abuse. It increases the maximum sentences for breaching protection orders, from 2 to 3 years, and it provides greater flexibility in the development and delivery of mandatory non-violence programmes.

I think these are sensible reforms that will make a very real difference to people who are at the greatest risk of being the victims of domestic violence. For this reason I commend this legislation to the House.

The brevity of that contribution is reflective of the level of confidence in the equity of this legislation arising from the Family Court Proceedings Reform Bill and what it is capable of achieving. It could also, of course, be indicative of the lack of knowledge of that member, Mr Foster-Bell, about what the legislation is about, because what he said bore no relationship to what this legislation has in it. Let us get one point absolutely clear. This legislation has one purpose, one purpose alone, and that purpose is to save money by cutting spending on the people who are the most vulnerable and the most needy and their ability to get justice in the Family Court system and under family law. It is about cutting spending—the first, middle, and last of the objectives of this Government.

No matter how the Government dresses it up, this legislation is not justified by any evidence that it is necessary or that it will achieve the positive objectives that it claims. It is not supported by those who work in the system, who understand the system, who have been through the system, and who are knowledgable about the system. That is epitomised by the fact that the group of experts set up by the previous Minister of Justice, the Hon Simon Power, is utterly opposed to what this legislation does. When the Ministry of Justice came out and said that this legislation aligns with what the Expert Reference Group on Family Court Reform recommended, the expert reference group said that that was not honest, that was not correct, and that was not true. This legislation is based on a lie—on the lie that it is sustained by what the experts, set up by the original Minister, wanted, when it is exactly contrary to what they believe.

I want to say this: when I went through what those experts presented to the Justice and Electoral Committee and when I challenged the Minister in the chair, the Hon Judith Collins, to answer these challenges, she was silent. Well, she was not silent; she got up and she embarked on a speech replete with personal abuse, but she did not answer the key criticisms that the experts on the reference group made. Those criticisms were these. The expert reference group’s submission said: “If this Bill proceeds … the very fabric of the New Zealand family justice system will be destroyed.” This legislation, if it proceeds, will destroy, they said, the very fabric of the family law and justice system. That was an enormous challenge, and what did the Minister say in reply to that challenge? Nothing—that is what she said. There was silence. The submission goes on and says: “The Bill is based on flawed policy development without statistical or research base justifying such fundamental and radical changes.” The Government has moved forward with this legislation without doing the basic work to show whether or not the changes that it is making will work. There is a reason why the Government has done that. It is that the Government does not care whether it works. The Minister does not care about the damage that she will do to the most vulnerable people in our community, and that includes the children—most particularly the children. She is interested only in saving money.

If I thought that the Government had no option but to cut in this area, I would think about whether the legislation was worthy of support. But what I do not understand is why this Government can spend $30 million on the multinational company Rio Tinto, which intends to pull out of this country anyway and destroy the jobs. The Government has got $30 million for that, but it has not got the money to ensure justice is delivered to the vulnerable in our society. The Government will pay money to Warner Bros—$16 million on top of the $50 million - odd it has already got—to produce a film that was going to be produced here anyway. The Government will spend those millions of dollars, but it will not provide for psychological reports for the kids who might be damaged because of the process of family breakdown. That is not fair. That is not equitable. That is not sustainable. The members on the National backbenches understand that—you can see it in their body language.

The Government has money to cut the income tax rates for the wealthiest people in this country, but it will withhold legal aid. As the regulatory impact statement—this document in my hand, produced by the Ministry of Justice—says, the Government will withhold money from those who need it. That is said in the regulatory impact statement comments, without any sense of irony. It says: “This option only affects those parties who, because of their low income, are eligible for legal aid.” Of course that is whom it affects. It says that if those people cannot get legal aid, they are likely to be unrepresented. Well, boy, there were some Einsteins on the group that wrote that! Of course if they do not get legal aid they will not be represented.

What will that lead to? Well, they own up to this. The Minister of Justice would not own up to it. They say this, in the very next sentence: “the opposing party may have a lawyer. This could lead to the represented party’s view being put more strongly and create or exacerbate power imbalances between the parties.” Of course that is what this legislation will do. But the Minister does not care. She does not care that inarticulate people cannot have representation to articulate their case so that the judge can hear both sides of the story equally. She does not care that this legislation does not produce justice.

Let us have a look at what that expert reference group said. I challenged her on each of these points, and on each of these points she remained silent. This group was made up of barristers with 30 years’ experience in the Family Court, and psychologists like Fred Seymour, who has done incredibly good work to make the Family Court system work and is hugely respected. It is made up of judges and made up of people who the Minister of Justice felt were the most knowledgable, the most experienced, and the most skilled. They said that this bill is not based on empirical evidence. What did the Minister say? What did she say? Nothing. They say this is “contrary to extensive, existing evidence of best outcomes for families and children;”. It is contrary to the evidence that exists of what the kids and the families need to see justice done. What did the Minister say? She said nothing. They say it “will create a two-tiered family justice system …”. How do they describe that? They say: “the more vulnerable members of society will have limited access to the services to assist them in the resolution of family disputes … it is entirely foreseeable that inequalities arising from gender, socio-economic status and ethnicity will become entrenched, resulting”—not in savings—“in increased costs to the health, education, child protection and criminal justice budgets.”

This bill will not even save money. It will create economic costs because when you have people not represented before the court, the court process slows down. It costs more money. It will create human costs because when people are in fundamental dispute and alienated from their partner who might be abusive, you cannot expect them to front up to that person in a committee or a court without representation. It is fundamentally wrong. And anybody who knows the working of the family law system and the Family Court in this country knows that that is wrong. We will come back into this Chamber and we will reverse many of the things that are put in this bill, because they are wrong. They are wrong in principle and they are wrong in practice.

This bill does not deliver justice. It is a negation of justice. It does not deliver fairness and equity. It denies fairness and equity. It is not about the interests of the families who are in dispute and where their relationship has broken down. It is not about helping the children in that situation. It is putting obstacles in their way. This bill is entirely wrong and shame on the Minister for bringing it through this House, and shame on the National members sitting opposite who will vote for it to go through and extend injustice in this country.

I am afraid I probably cannot meet the rhetoric of the previous speaker, Phil Goff, and his passion and criticism of the legislation. But I do not have any particular desire to do that, because I rise feeling that it is a privilege to be speaking on the third reading of the bills that were formerly part of the Family Court Proceedings Reform Bill, introduced by someone who could only be described as a very dedicated and efficient Minister of Justice, who has held—

💬 Scott Simpson: Competent.

Very competent indeed. Thank you, Scott. I will be taking just a short call on this legislation.

The legislation is to ensure that those moving through the Family Court procedure—and no one should ever consider that there is much pleasure in that, I am sure—are delivered better public services in an efficient, effective, and responsive manner. Someone told me recently that by the time you reach this stage in a relationship breakdown, the worst is over. The increased accessibility that is being provided by this legislation means that the focus can, in fact, be on resolving disputes and working to protect the needs of those at the heart of the family—children. I believe that this legislation is a good step to ensuring that the Family Court continues on the path to being a place that solves problems, rather than, as is often the case, being a place that makes problems. I commend this legislation to the House. Thank you.

I want to acknowledge and congratulate New Zealand today as we celebrate Women’s Suffrage Day. It has been 120 years since women were given the right to vote. Today marks a very powerful example of the strength and power of a small nation like New Zealand doing the right thing, and leading the rest of the world. I think it is proper during this debate to pay tribute to the many women who suffered physically as well as emotionally during that struggle, and even today, I suspect, there is still a lot of that suffering.

I think it is also important to reflect and to acknowledge those men—husbands, sons, fathers, and brothers—who stood shoulder to shoulder with the women in the struggle to defend, to protect, and to advocate for this fundamental basic right all those years ago, and even today. In my mind the struggle of women is the struggle for political freedom. It is the struggle for the right to be respected and to sit at the highest table of decision making in this country. It is the struggle for economic freedom, where every woman receives equal pay for work of equal value. It is the struggle for basic freedoms—simple things like the freedom to live where one wants to live, work where one wants to work, or to travel where one wants to travel. It can even be about simple things like eating what one wants. I think that for the most part women have experienced those struggles and they have a deeper understanding than most people. But I also think that the struggles are similar for Māori, Pasifika, ethnic communities, and all working communities, which leads me this debate on the 10 bills that were formerly part of the Family Court Proceedings Reform Bill.

On the commemoration of women’s suffrage, this Government is passing into law legislation that will again widen the gap of inequality between those who have economic and political power and those who do not. I suspect that those who will suffer the greatest as a result of the injustices and the inequality that these bills will throw up will be primarily women and children. The legislation limits access to court-funded counselling. It limits access to legal aid. It establishes a mandatory private, non-judicial process, which means that the parties to the process have to meet the cost, and the cost, I understand, from the recommendation from the advisers, could possibly be about $900. I suspect that if people have to pay that amount of money, then they are not going to be able to access justice.

So to sum it all up, the legislation means that vulnerable communities, particularly women and children and young people who may find themselves in disputes requiring legal support and legal aid will find themselves being denied access to justice. They will find themselves being outside the doors of our courts and of support. In my electorate we have the Māngere Community Law Centre. That centre, in addition to the others that service the Manukau region, experienced the highest need for legal aid, and yet we see that this legislation will limit the access to aid for people who require support.

There is also an example of the difficulties that I foresee happening. About a week or so ago a family home in Manukau was broken into by police in error. Today that family is still trying to resolve that, because the police have failed to admit to the error that they have committed, and the family is still waiting for the police to try to resolve that and pay for the damage that was caused. Luckily, the woman whose family this is knows a little bit about the law, so she was able to step up and say “Look, somebody’s done injustice to me.” But I have to say that in that regard there were other families whose homes were also broken into by police while they were looking for the offender.

The point I am making is that a lot of vulnerable families have difficulty accessing justice at the moment, and since the Government has come into power, over the last 5 years we have seen cuts to funding of the sources of support that people would normally receive—legal aid, for example. That is the point I am making here. That is what this legislation is going to do. It is going to put more and more vulnerable communities, particularly women and children, in positions where they will need support but they will not be able to access support. They will need legal aid, but they will not be able to access legal aid. They will need justice, but they will not be able to access justice.

The point I am making is that if we are serious and genuine about supporting and giving strength to our communities, about ensuring that they have access to legal aid and to our justice system, then of course there has to be a cost to that. Of course we have got to pay for that. That is what society is about. That is what democracy is about. But I note that the Government does not care about that.

I will give an example of the need for having support when people are in dispute. In the Samoan world, there are two processes that currently exist for giving support to people who are in dispute, because we know that if you do not provide that kind of support, then there is going to be harm caused generally to those people involved. Often the breakups that occur as a result of these disputes make it so difficult for resolution. The first example is the fautuaga o matua, fautuaga o aiga. It is the ability of parents, the ability of elders, and the ability of the collective to come together and give counsel and give advice in the form of a meeting, to enable the disputing parties to resolve their dispute. It does not matter whether it is a private matter. We know that without outside and external help, those in dispute will not be able to resolve that dispute by themselves.

I suppose people might recall the movie “Crocodile” Dundee, when Crocodile Dundee says “In this small village, if one has a problem, all we’ve got to do is tell somebody else, and they will tell everybody else, and very soon we won’t have a problem.” There might be a funny side, but the reality is that the constant in the process is the need to have external assistance and support when there are parties in dispute. That is what happens in employment relationships, and it also happens in family relationships. Then there is ifoga in the Samoan world. If you have seen the movie The Orator, you will have seen a little bit about that and how that takes place. But, essentially, there is a need for external assistance, whether it be legal aid, whether it be lawyers, to help resolve the dispute that occurs.

If you do not have access to that kind of support, then what happens to those in dispute? People suffer and relationships break up. Is that truly what we are about? On this side of the House that is not what we are about. We are about building strong, resilient communities, and those come only from strong, resilient families. We accept that as part and parcel of ordinary life there is always going to be dispute, and if you accept that, you also need to accept that as part of the resolution process, part of the reconciliation process, and part of the healing process, there is a need for legal aid, there is a need for legal assistance, there is a need for representation, and there is a need for justice.

I have to say that I agree with what has been said earlier by my colleagues, which is that this legislation, as it stands, denies the basic and fundamental right for ordinary and vulnerable communities in particular to be able to access justice. Shame on the Government for passing this legislation on the day that we celebrate women’s suffrage! And the worst of it is that this legislation is in the name of a woman Minister, Judith Collins. I think that a lot of women will be holding their heads down in shame and thinking: “On this particular day, when we when we should all be celebrating and being proud of our nation, this is her legacy—denying women, denying children, and denying vulnerable communities access to justice.”

Thank you for this opportunity to stand and support the third reading of the legislation arising from the Family Court Proceedings Reform Bill. I applaud the Minister of Justice, the Hon Judith Collins, for working on legislation that protects our children and vulnerable people.

💬 Le’aufa’amulia Asenati Lole-Taylor: Did she write your speech?

What is that?

💬 Le’aufa’amulia Asenati Lole-Taylor: Did the Minister write your speech?

Yes, she did, I think. I do not agree with the previous speaker, Su’a William Sio, and what he said. I do not expect such language from him. I had a lot of respect for him, but what he has said I do not agree with totally.

The legislation arising from the Family Court Proceedings Reform Bill implements the Government’s decisions resulting from a review of the Family Court. The purpose of the reform is to ensure a modern, accessible family justice system that is responsive to children and vulnerable people and is efficient and effective. The legislation encourages faster, less adversarial resolution of family disputes, requiring parties with children to participate in an out-of-court family dispute resolution process and a parenting information programme before applying for the Family Court. It is another piece of work that is dedicated to safeguarding the vulnerable. I commend this legislation to the House.