Minors (Court Consent to Relationships) Legislation Bill

I move, That the Minors (Court Consent to Relationships) Legislation Bill be now read a third time.

It is with much privilege and pride and humbleness that I stand here today to take the first call in the third reading of the Minors (Court Consent to Relationships) Legislation Bill. It has been a long time coming, from its inception by Dr Jackie Blue, who is sitting up in the gallery today. It was her hard work that got the bill put into the biscuit tin. Over the years, since 2010 through to 2017, we waited for this bill to be drawn. It was drawn, and I was the most fortunate member of Parliament to have my name on this bill.

I want to thank Dr Jackie Blue for the work that she has done, and for her commitment to ensuring the safety of young girls and young boys that have come here to New Zealand to make New Zealand their home, and for women overall throughout Aotearoa New Zealand. I also want to acknowledge the Shakti women’s refuge in Auckland and their researcher back in 2010, Priyanca Radhakrishnan, who is now a member of Parliament for Labour. I want to thank them for bringing the young girls’ forced marriage issue to the table and to Dr Blue. I want to acknowledge the 30 submitters that came to the Justice Committee and put forward their submissions on this bill, and also the advisers, parliamentary counsel, and, most importantly, I want to thank the Justice Committee. For a bill that we thought would go through a fairly smooth process, we had our ups and downs, but together we got this bill through to today.

My biggest thanks go to the Commonwealth Women Parliamentarians—

💬 Hon Member: Woo hoo!

—who have—yeah!—stood by this bill, with Dr Blue being one of the very first chairs of the Commonwealth Women Parliamentarians. They have continued to stand by the passage of this bill through to tonight. And to all of the parties in the House: this is an amazing evening tonight as we bring through the House this piece of legislation.

So, as I said, we had some ups and downs and changes within the bill. Just a couple of the main provisions as to why the bill went from its former name of Marriage (Court Consent to Marriage of Minors) Amendment Bill—it was because we altered a couple of other Acts as well. So the main provisions of this bill replace sections 18 to 21 of the Marriage Act 1955 to require consent to the marriage from a Family Court judge. I am reading this, Mr Assistant Speaker, because it’s right that I should read this to get it correct. The application must be considered through a Family Court hearing and must hear from the applicant of the 16- or 17-year-old themselves and their parents, so far as is reasonably practicable. Applicants and witnesses may be represented by a lawyer. No members of the public or media may be present. The court can hear any evidence, even if it would otherwise be inadmissible in a court of law.

Secondly, the bill also amends section 46C(3) of the Care of Children Act 2004. The amendments ensure the right, in section 46C(3), for a child to seek review of their parent’s or guardian’s decision or refusal to give consent. It does not apply for consent to civil unions or entry into de facto relationships, and that’s why this bill’s name was changed to its current name.

My contribution will be brief because there are so many others that would like to also add their contributions to it. But, as I said, today is a celebration for all women, not just parliamentarians. It signals that once again women take back, through legislation, their right to choose whom they wish to love and spend the rest of their lives with, without force or pressure. It provides a legal mechanism whereby a Family Court judge makes the final decision on whether the marriage can go ahead. It falls in a most poignant year, really, where we in Aotearoa New Zealand celebrate 125 years of women’s suffrage. That is really important, especially for this bill that’s coming through, where women gained the right to vote.

I came to Parliament so I could make a difference for the constituency of New Zealand, to help shape legislation for this country, and today I am privileged to stand in the House and say that through this, my very first member’s bill, this process for me has begun.

I close my speech—as I said, it was going to be short, sharp, sweet, and to the point—with this somewhat altered whakataukī. I just want to acknowledge my parliamentary colleagues and their support, and I mean all of our parliamentary colleagues. So what I have done with the whakataukī is I have added some threads to this whakataukī so it incorporates all of us. The threads include all the colours of the political parties of this House. So with the forbearance of this House and with iwi Māori who wrote this whakataukī, I just want to go through it: mā kahurangi, mā whero, mā pango, mā kākāriki, mā kōwhai, ka oti ai te mahi—with blue, red, black, green, and yellow threads, our work has been done. I commend this bill to the House. Tēnā koutou katoa.

Tēnā koe e Te Māngai o Te Whare. It is my absolute pleasure to speak to this third reading of the Minors (Court Consent to Relationships) Legislation Bill, which seeks to ensure that in Aotearoa New Zealand those who are 16 and 17 years of age who want to marry or who want to be engaged in a civil union or, in fact, a formalised de facto relationship do so not through the consent of their parents but through the consent of the court. In doing this, I’d like to acknowledge my colleague Jo Hayes, with whom I also co-chair the cross-party Commonwealth Women Parliamentarians, and say I’m incredibly proud of you, Jo, for your advocacy and your being a champion for ending forced marriages in New Zealand.

I want to reiterate that this is a “give Kate a voice” moment. This is the 125th anniversary of women’s suffrage in New Zealand, and, actually, we’ve finally realised the power that women have across this House if we work together. I also must acknowledge Dr Jackie Blue, who actually started this process through her advocacy and work with organisations such as Shakti when she was the National Party list MP based in Mt Roskill. It does really speak to the, I guess, relationships that we develop with our communities, understanding some of our community needs and aspirations and then working with them constructively and pulling in partners to make sure that we find solutions to real problems. I’d also like to congratulate the New Zealand National Party for allowing one of your colleagues to put a bill into the ballot that, actually, has had a few members’ names to it, starting with Dr Jackie Blue and ending with Jo Hayes, and that means we’ll have a piece of legislation that’s fit for our purpose and is going to ensure that forced marriages do not happen in New Zealand.

I’m going to take us through a bit of a history lesson, because I think it’s really important. So where did this whole 16- and 17-year-olds being allowed to marry with the consent of their parents actually come from? It actually came from the Marriage Act of 1955. But, actually, if we go back even further, it has been since 1933 that if you are aged 16 and 17—actually, under 21—you can get married with the consent of your parents. So we’d said the minimum age was 16. What was it before that? It was actually 12. In New Zealand, you could get married if you were 12, if you were a girl, and 14 if you were a boy, and that was based on the English marriage Acts that we inherited when we were colonised. The first Marriage Validation Act was in 1842. So this whole issue about being able to marry from the age of 16 came from a 1933 piece of legislation.

So, forced marriages in New Zealand—what is the context? What was the evidence? Between 2000 and 2006, Shakti actually started reporting issues of forced marriage in Aotearoa New Zealand. Now, I’ve been able to find some data: between 2011 and 2016, Shakti worked with over 300 young people suspected of forced marriage. These were victims: girls aged between 14 and 16 who became engaged. The shocking part of this is that, actually, there were girls as young as 10 in New Zealand who’d been engaged to an older male.

In 2007, Shakti and New Zealand NGOs presented their concerns to the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) regarding forced marriage and the specific impact on migrant and refugee communities. CEDAW made a recommendation that New Zealand should actually address this issue. In 2009, a petition was led by Jane Prichard from Pacific Women’s Watch (New Zealand) regarding forced marriage and was presented to the House of Parliament. In 2010, the select committee outcome report to Parliament acknowledged that forced and underage marriage was an issue in Aotearoa New Zealand and urged the Government to address this issue. Unfortunately, the Government failed to address that issue in 2010.

So what happened? Well, what happened was that the concluding observations from CEDAW, in June 2012, provided strong recommendations to the New Zealand Government to do something about forced marriage. That inspired Dr Jackie Blue to write a bill, and she wrote that bill as the inaugural co-chair of the cross-party women’s group Commonwealth Women Parliamentarians. I also want to acknowledge our colleague the Hon Carmel Sepuloni, who was also the first inaugural co-chair. They wrote this bill—Jackie did—got it through the caucus, and got it into the ballot.

In February 2015, our Commonwealth Women Parliamentarians became a champion of this kaupapa. How did we do that? We actually became the first purple country in the world to end forced marriage. It’s part of the “end child brides” kaupapa, and how did we achieve that? Because over 80 percent of this Parliament voted to end forced marriage and to end child brides. I do have to acknowledge that, at that time, I believe we could have gotten 100 percent, but some of the Ministers were unable to sign the petition. I am incredibly proud that we were able, as women, in all of our political parties, to talk to our men in our parties to support this kaupapa, and, overwhelmingly, they did. So I thank our male colleagues for actually understanding how important this issue was and standing with us, given we were collectively saying, “We need your help to address this particular issue.”

Now, this whole issue, in terms of an international context, was elucidated on 11 October 2012, which was the first International Day of the Girl Child. That first International Day of the Girl Child highlighted this issue of forced marriage and child brides. There are 1.1 billion girls worldwide who are married—some of them, a third of them, before the age of 15. You know, this is a big issue. Girls as young as five years of age are given away to men. They lose their childhoods, they have unwanted and life-threatening pregnancies, they lose the opportunity of an education, they lose life opportunities, they suffer psychological abuse, they suffer physical abuse, and they’re expected to provide sex to their husbands from that young age.

So what happens? They have ripped vaginal walls, there are internal ruptures which result in permanent incontinence, and, actually, for some of those girls, they die on the night they consummate their marriage. This is how strikingly repugnant this practice is globally, and for us as a Parliament to prioritise this issue and to actually work together as women and men—as colleagues—is something that we should be incredibly proud of.

I think the whakataukī that Jo Hayes created at the end of her kōrero is incredibly poignant, because what it speaks to is the power of us to work together. This place is incredibly adversarial; there’s a lot of conflict, but there are actually some issues where we can put politics aside and actually work as a Parliament for the betterment of specific groups in our society who are facing terrible, horrible circumstances. So I just want to say that, as a member of our Commonwealth Women Parliamentarians, it’s one of the most satisfying roles, co-chairing that group, that I could ever imagine, because we’re changing the world. We’re helping to protect a vulnerable group of people, and we’re also making a statement as a country that we will do everything we can to contribute to the global eradication of ending child brides and actually fulfilling the potential of the sustainable development goals. For people who don’t think it’s that relevant in Aotearoa New Zealand, it is, and what we’re trying to do is create a global consciousness around these types of issues.

So, again, can I just finally say ka pai, Jo Hayes. You will go down in history. And it’s particularly poignant with our colleague Jan Logie in the House at the moment, because some of the bills that have been passed this year—call it serendipity or whatever, but the spirit of Kate Sheppard is with all of us. Nō reira, tēnā koutou katoa.

Debate interrupted.