Family Court (Supporting Children in Court) Legislation Bill

I present a legislative statement on the Family Court (Supporting Children in Court) Legislation Bill.

Legislative statement published under the authority of the House.

I move, That the Family Court (Supporting Children in Court) Legislation Bill be now read a first time. I nominate the Justice Committee to consider the bill.

Mr Speaker, can I join with other members of Parliament who have congratulated you today. This is my first substantive speech in the House, and can I say to you congratulations on your appointment as Deputy Speaker to the House. Ngā mihi nui ki a koe. I know from your rulings in the previous Parliament that you’ll be firm and stern. So I look forward to seeing that being effected throughout the next three years.

This Government is committed to continuing to strengthen the Family Court process, and this bill forms part of a long-term programme of change focused on improving access to justice for children, parents, and whānau who are involved in disputes over the care of children. The bill is intended to enhance child wellbeing and care of children cases both directly and by assisting parents to resolve parenting disputes. It will enhance children’s participation in proceedings that affect them and help to ensure that children feel supported and informed as they move through the Family Court process. It will also extend lawyers’ duties in the care of children proceedings, as well as reinforcing expectations that people should be protected from family violence. In fact, the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child says that children’s participation in decisions that affect them is a fundamental right and this bill will effect that.

Could I also acknowledge the independent panel that examined the 2014 family justice systems reform. The final report from the panel was released in June of last year and found that children’s participation in the Family Court process is still not recognised or valued. The independent panel identified that there is limited participation by children in issues that affect them, and that there is concern as to whether their views are obtained and considered in both proceedings that happen inside a court and those that do not. So studies do show that children want to be involved in that decision making and can experience immediate and long-term consequences if they are not listened to as part of the Family Court process. This can include feeling isolated, lonely, and anxiety, and having difficulty with coping with the stress of being in the middle of a parenting dispute.

In responding to the issues that the panel found, the bill will amend the Care of Children Act 2004 to establish a new guiding principle that a child should be provided with opportunities to participate in decisions where they affect their care and their welfare and that their views should be considered, and it will also provide express reference to the United Nations convention that I mentioned earlier.

The bill will also amend the Family Dispute Resolution Act 2013, and that will require a family dispute resolution provider to facilitate participation by children who are the subject of a family dispute.

The bill also emphasises the importance of engaging children appropriately in processes that do affect their direct care. Providing children with an opportunity to express their views can help parents focus on the actual needs of the children rather than their own conflict between the parents themselves. Again, studies can show that children do want to be involved in the decisions and the process around the dispute, rather than be the decision-maker in a dispute, and, overwhelmingly, children want to participate in the family life of both parents, to be consulted and to have a say and to have an opportunity to make their own feelings known about any parental conflict.

The independent panel also identified that there is considerable variation in how lawyers for children obtain and represent the child’s view and that there is no legislative requirement for lawyers to understand the child’s background or cultural background. So in responding to the issues, the bill will also amend parts of the Care of Children Act to require that on the appointment of a lawyer to represent a child, a lawyer’s personality, cultural background, and training and experience must be considered, and, in essence, they must fit the situation for the child. It will also require that a lawyer appointed to represent a child must explain the nature of the proceedings to a child in a manner that the child is most likely to understand, supporting the child’s ability to express informed views. That is not to say that this is not already happening, but making it a clear requirement within the amendment of that particular piece of legislation will, again, make sure that the children’s views are represented in a way that they understand and that they can have input into the resolution. These amendments are intended to ensure that children do feel supported and informed as they move through these processes.

The panel also identified that the family justice system is unable to fully understand and respond well to family violence, particularly the impact on its children. Also the Care of Children Act will be amended to require that the court must have regard to the principles set out in section 4 of the Family Violence Act, emphasising safety as a primary consideration in the assessment of a child’s situation. The bill signals the Government’s continued focus on enhancing safety and strengthening responses to children at risk of family violence.

The panel also identified that delays are widespread within the system and it’s a significant factor in undermining people’s trust and confidence in the court, and that can contribute to things getting worse between parents and wider families. So the bill will, again, amend the Care of Children Act to impose duties on lawyers to promote resolution of issues in a dispute fairly, inexpensively, simply, and speedily.

The amendment is intended to lead to better and less harmful outcomes for children, and it will be beneficial at a time when the Family Court is under significant stress around capacity exacerbated by COVID-19. So capacity within the Family Court can be provided more to those who actually need a judicial intervention, as opposed to those who may not. Since 2014, increase in delays has meant that care of children disputes have taken longer to resolve, leaving children and parents, essentially, in limbo for extended periods of time.

I want to thank the independent panel for their report on the 2014 family justice system reforms, as supported by the expert reference group. The panel’s report has informed the creation of this bill, and the Government anticipates that it will provide the foundation for further reforms in the family justice system. I want to commend their commitment to strengthening the family justice system so that children, parents, and their whānau are treated with dignity and respect and are supported in order to see that the best decisions possible are being made for those using the family justice system and, importantly, the children.

The Government is committed to addressing the impacts of those reforms, as well as broader underlying systemic barriers to access justice, and we know that that will take time. This bill forms part of a wider package that was announced in May of this year to support families through the Family Court, which also included the reinstatement of legal representation in the early stages of the Care of Children Act proceedings, also improved information for children’s parents and their family, the establishment of the family justice liaison officers to help parents and whānau navigate the system, and increased remuneration for lawyers for children to incentivise recruitment and retention of skilled practitioners to represent children.

Together with this bill, these initiatives will promote our vision of a family justice system that is safe and responsive to the diverse needs of those who are using it and where all parties do have a voice, and, importantly, children. It is a family justice system that continues to place child wellbeing at its heart, and we commend this bill to the House.

The question is that the motion be agreed to.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. This bill is well intentioned and, listening to the Minister of Justice, it’s hard to disagree. In fact, I agree with all of his intentions in putting this bill before the House. It’s the second of two bills seeking to undo 2014 Family Court reforms of the last National Government, which sought to have more family disputes resolved out of court, without lawyers. The Labour Government says those reforms aren’t working. So through this bill it brings back counsel for the child right from the start and significantly strengthens that role throughout all processes. As I say, from the well-intentioned motivation of being more child-focused—that’s what this bill intends to be about.

Nevertheless, National will oppose this bill, because we believe—overall—it will be a backward step. As the Ministry of Justice’s evaluation of National’s 2014 reforms found, they were fundamentally sound. Out-of-court processes are more effective and produce more enduring solutions to family conflict. If “justice delayed is justice denied”, then the ministry’s findings that out-of-court processes take on average 37 days to resolve, whereas in-court hearings take 268 days—well, they speak for themselves. Indeed, as with the first bill in this package, we believe while this bill will be great for lawyers, it won’t be so good for anyone else. It adds court process and cost to taxpayers and participants alike, making an already unaffordable and clogged Family Court system worse.

If there are issues with how the 2014 reforms are working today, then strengthen the out-of-court processes, but don’t revert to more and more billable units from more and more lawyers. Sorry to be so mean to the legal fraternity. As a former lawyer, I appreciate there’s now a raft of new lawyers on the other side of the House, after reaching a period when there weren’t all that many. I don’t subscribe to Shakespeare’s view of killing all the lawyers, and I’m glad to say that now—and not in the future. Once Kris Faafoi’s hate speech laws are in place, I probably won’t be allowed to say that. But I sincerely know that, wherever possible, given the process and cost increases and civil processes—from family ones, to commercial ones, to other civil disputes—justice is better served without, rather than with, my former colleagues. Sadly, more often than not, if the dispute takes too long, or costs are iniquitous, that’s no meaningful justice.

The cost point is obvious, but I’ve seen a number of Family Court proceedings where one side is legally aided—and that includes a lawyer for the child—and eventually, with broken heart, the other side must bow out because, although not eligible for legal aid, their own money runs out and they are left, by the process itself, dislocated from their own children. A similar point can and should be made, I think, for the process itself. It’s a hard truth that with lawyers the incentives are for the dispute to go on, regardless of what the letter of the law says. Lawyers seek to battle on for a theoretically perfect justice in too many cases, in my view. What does this mean for the Family Court? Well, it means hearings with lawyers at hundreds of dollars an hour, in some cases, arguing about school pick-up times; who said what, when; and which house the sleepover can happen at this coming weekend. These things shouldn’t be in courts of law—with judges paid hundreds of thousands a year listening to lawyers paid by the minute or the hour—they should be resolved out of court, without lawyers.

As my old civil justice professor at Oxford, Adrian Zuckerman, would say, doing justice is much more than merely arriving at a judgment that is correct, as a matter of fact and law—that is achieving, in his words, “rectitude of decision”. Although, all too often, this is the only bit that lawyers and judges worry about. There are two other vital procedural imperatives for doing overall substantive justice: deciding cases within a reasonable time—as I’ve said, “justice delayed is justice denied”—and using no more than proportionate resources. Actually, costs matter because overall in New Zealand right now, in civil justice, and in Family Court justice, there is no justice because it costs too much. My contention, as I’ve said, is that our civil justice system fails here overall, and does in the specific bill as well. In theory, it’s producing the correct answer, but with too high a cost in regard to the other two legs of the stool—the process, and time, and the cost.

I’ve got friends—in fact I was with some last night—

💬 Dr Duncan Webb: I’ve got friends too.

—in Tauranga—more than the member over there, by the way—who work in the Family Court, both as lawyers and judges, and I want to acknowledge what difficult, important work it is that they do. I’ve not practised much in the Family Court, only attending family proceedings on the rarest of occasions when colleagues couldn’t. I must say, I found the whole sitting thing—rather than standing, as you do in other courts—a little disconcerting. I acknowledge that what I’m saying in this contribution will be anathema to most of those Family Court lawyers, but over my years as a lawyer, and then as a local MP where I have met, I won’t exaggerate, but with dozens and dozens of constituents mortally scarred by the Family Court process, I have to say I’ve developed a scepticism over the role of counsel for the child and the Family Court, at some level, more generally due to the systems and processes in place.

Our tamariki aren’t—as the law once said they were—our property. They’re not a chattel. Such a view is not only antiquated, but it’s also repugnant to us today. It was my three-year-old’s birthday yesterday, and she’s a precious gift that we treasure—and in her daddy’s case, she certainly knows that’s so. But in cases where there aren’t drugs, alcohol, mental health, or violence issues—and I appreciate there are a significant number of those cases—does a small child really know enough to be fully represented as if they have fully formed views? Or are we just actually getting the lawyer’s view, for whatever it’s worth, in the case? Is there a risk of traumatising children by lawyering them up? And, at the risk of sacrilege, do we also need a minimum—which is what this bill enshrines—of three lawyers and a judge in a courtroom in all of these care of children cases?

For the reasons I’ve given, this bill may be well intentioned, very well intentioned. I think, though, it’s overall a backward step. The real task should be to strengthen—because there will be and I’m sure the report, I know the report, identifies flaws with the article processes, but it’s in strengthening that this is good for lawyers with more time and cost to resolve family disputes, but not so much for the mums, the dads, and the children who’ll be involved.

Thank you very much, Mr Speaker. It’s with disappointment I hear the Family Court (Supporting Children in Court) Legislation Bill being described as a backwards step by the Opposition, because the real backwards step occurred in 2014 under the National Government’s Family Court reforms. Those reforms in 2014 are exactly what this piece of legislation is now rectifying. In 2014, those changes resulted in lengthy delays for children and for families. That is why, indeed, I agree with the view that justice delayed is justice denied, because that is exactly what has happened in the past.

These reforms that we saw in 2014 saw a massive increase of without notice applications. Those rose from just 30 percent in 2014 right up to 70 percent as late as 2018. That is why in 2018 Labour had to appoint an independent panel to examine the changes made to the family justice system in 2014, and make recommendations on how to improve that system. I would like to briefly quote from that report that made those recommendations on the changes back in 2014. The authors of that report have noted: “What we have heard, seen, read, and researched has convinced us that the elements of the 2014 reforms must be changed.” That is exactly what we stand to do here today.

In terms of what comes first, it is the rights of the child, and putting children—tamariki—in the middle of what is being discussed. That for too long has not been the case. We see children at the periphery of decisions that immediately affect them and their lives. We know from the research that has been undertaken that children’s participation in the justice process is critical. At times when family violence, when custody, when quite traumatic issues are being traversed in a courtroom setting, it is really important that children understand what is going on. That’s what this process enables, particularly in areas where there is family violence, when dealing with a difficult time, it’s important that children not only understand what is happening to their lives but are supported through that process. Continuing to strengthen the Family Court process, continuing to support access to justice, and continuing to focus on putting tamariki first at a time when it is incredibly challenging is what this Government will continue to do. I commend this bill to the House.

Thank you very much, Mr Deputy Speaker. I believe this is the first opportunity I’ve had to speak in which you are in your current role. As I have said to your fellow presiding officers, you are my favourite of them.

💬 Hon Members: Oh!

I hope they’re not watching Parliament TV, but I will repeat the favour: first among equals—how’s that?

The Family Court (Supporting Children in Court) Legislation Bill touches on pretty important areas, of course, for the lives of many New Zealand families and, indeed, children. I’d like to make a contribution that talks about who this legislation affects, what it’s about in terms of the context of previous reforms, and, of course, the situation that preceded those reforms, because it’s important to acknowledge that those were not made in a vacuum either, lest we think that a perfect state of the world can be returned to simply by undoing that which was done in 2014 or thereabouts. I’d also like to touch on the mechanics of the bill and how it seeks to achieve its various aims—some of which are very notable and worthy—and talk about shortfalls, of course, in the way that it approaches the subject as well, that I’ll essentially weave throughout my contribution.

First, looking at the title of the bill, we’ve got in brackets—other than acknowledging we’ve got Family Court legislation—“(Supporting Children in Court)”. That’s actually a pretty important thing to focus on because it indicates—and I appreciate that a title has to be brief by its nature—that the way that the Government is viewing the matter is to support children in court, as opposed to saying “(Supporting Children Through a Dispute Resolution Process, Whether or Not That is Most Appropriately Taken Care of in Court)”. Of course, it may well be the case, and often is, and I’d even go so far as to say that it usually is the case, that supporting children through a process to be resolved outside of the court by a family dispute resolution, which is, of course, a defined term in the sector if not in the legislation—he said, checking on that point—but it might often be the case, whether from a point of view of timeliness, as the Hon Simon Bridges has noted, or from a point of view of the stress and uncertainty and the difficulty of involving more players and a more litigious process, that resolving these matters outside of a court, preferably before even a courtroom is entered in the first place, is going to be the most beneficial thing for the child herself or himself.

As I’ve promised, I do want to focus on who this legislation should benefit. Of course children are in the context of a family as a whole, but as those who are familiar with this area of the law know, and as those who have been unfortunate enough to have to experience the system from the perspective of their own family situation know, the interests of the child must be paramount. That’s a matter of law as well as, I would suggest, morality, and so we must consider all the way through, as we look at this legislation, whether or not it will solve the problem it is designed to solve, whether or not the rights of the children are being put first, and whether that can be said to be likely to be achieved. No one doubts the good intentions—and, again, I refer to my senior colleague who has referenced that—but, of course, that’s not the same thing as to say that it necessarily will achieve those aims, and so let’s look at that.

The context of the reforms of 2014 was that the system was broken. It did need fixing. If it were a matter merely of saying, “Well, it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.” back then, and it was merely a case of change for change’s sake, then of course we would say in 2020, “Well, we can simply go back to the utopia that existed before 2014.” But the fact of the matter is that it is a longstanding problem in our court system, or in our justice system more generally—again, de-emphasising the role and centrality of the courts as much as is reasonably possible—of a lack of timeliness and of the stress and burden of procedures relating to disputes of family situations, as much as the families’ situations themselves and the underlying difficulties in any given family’s state of affairs.

The rationale for those reforms is actually expressed pretty well, and I think it’s unhelpful that the explanatory note does set out the case for those having been made. Permit me, please, Mr Speaker, to quote directly: “These reforms were intended to encourage individual responsibility and shift the focus from in-court resolution to encouraging parents to reach agreement themselves through out-of-court processes.”

Now, in a number of cases—a large number of cases, I acknowledge—families, through their lawyers, were able to circumvent that process by making what were known as without notice applications, of course, and have the legal representation that, obviously, they desired. Now, of course there is a balance to be struck, because it might be in some cases that legal representation is indeed helpful to unpick a particularly difficult set of issues, and sometimes external help is going to prove of great assistance and value, but at other times, it’s not.

One doesn’t need to share quite the level of cynicism of the Hon Simon Bridges in relation to the incentives or the motivations of our Family Court lawyers. Myself, I would simply speak from personal experience of family law practitioners I have known and say that, to a man and to a woman, they are upright people, who are in the profession and, indeed, in that particular area of the law for all the right reasons. They do work hard in a difficult system that places great constraints upon them, and it is in the nature of the work that it is difficult and demanding. So one doesn’t need necessarily to take a cynical view about the desirability from a lawyer’s perspective of proceedings that are more lengthy, and indeed, if anything, I would suggest that some of the provisions of the bill almost state the obvious in terms of a requirement, for example, that the lawyer must “promote conciliation and … enable the issues in dispute to be resolved as fairly, inexpensively, simply, and speedily as is consistent with justice.”

Well, that’s surely a requirement on every lawyer in every case, so if that’s not already being observed, then stating that again in this particular form as supplementary to ethical obligations of the profession, I don’t think it’s going to make much difference. So it’s disappointing to think that the Parliament could be believing itself to be providing some kind of remedy or solution to a problem that exists when, in fact, little more is being done than simply restating an existing obligation.

The bill is quite right, again, in its explanatory note, and I quote from the general policy statement, to emphasise that “children can experience immediate and long-term consequences if they are not listened to,”. That’s a really worthy sentiment—quite true, I’m sure. I don’t think anyone in this House, or, perhaps, throughout New Zealand, would disagree that failing to take into account the views and the wishes of a child will be detrimental to them, and probably to the resolution of the process as a whole. But we’ve also got to consider the fact that delaying the resolution in the way that’s been described, again, by the Hon Simon Bridges, is itself injurious to the wellbeing of a child, and I expect that every member of this House will know—through their professional dealings with constituents and perhaps even personal experience or other professional contexts and background, they will know of cases that have taken years that might otherwise have been resolved much more quickly and, therefore, much more satisfactorily in terms of the right of the child to have his or her interests considered paramount and, indeed, to be acted upon in that way.

So the existing expectations about the children’s rights under the Convention on the Rights of the Child—and that’s a UN document, or instrument, to which we are signed up to as a country—again, it’s worthy, but, again, it’s something that already exists as a matter of obligation. Laws should be applied consistently with international instruments to which New Zealand is a signatory. There’s nothing to suggest in the current legal framework that that shouldn’t already be the case, and where in individual cases that’s not being applied, then the fault lies with anyone who is so cavalier in their disregard of the rights of the child and the interests of the child and, indeed, of the family.

So, worthy as it is, this legislation doesn’t fit its own bill in terms of making a change that’s so desperately needed.

Order! The member’s time has expired.

It’s special to stand and take a call on this, the Family Court (Supporting Children in Court) Legislation Bill, for two reasons: first, as a practitioner of children’s rights law myself, but also because tomorrow is International Human Rights Day. It’s a day when we recognise the UN adoption of the UN Declaration of Human Rights, and this is very much a bill that talks about the rights of tamariki and rangatahi.

I just want to reflect very quickly on the contributions made from across the floor. While there were some very, very lengthy contributions, including commentary on the title of the bill itself, what was noticeably a minimal contribution was commentary on children’s voices and the importance of placing a high emphasis on children’s voices. So that’s what I’ll briefly speak to. It is such an incredibly important part of ensuring the mental wellbeing of children and young people. It is a value and a right that’s included in article 12 of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, as well. In the 1980s, Sir Mason Durie talked about Te Whare Tapa Whā, the four walls of the wellbeing, one of which was family connection. One of them was mental health and being heard. Not just speaking but being heard is so important for mental health. As was once said, being heard is so close to being loved that, for the average person, they are almost indistinguishable. This is especially true when it’s about being heard in matters to do with your familial relationships.

The second point that I wanted to mention was the inclusion in the bill of the explicit addition of an obligation on lawyers to communicate in a digestible way to the particular young person the information they need and, as a former practitioner at YouthLaw Aotearoa, I learnt very quickly that legalese is very unhelpful to young people—actually, probably to a lot more than young people. I know there are many lawyers who already have this skill, and this bill really affirms the work that they’re doing, but I hope what this bill will also encourage is our training institutions to look at how they can help lawyers—young lawyers, new lawyers—to develop the skills they need to work with young people.

I commend this bill to the House. I personally look forward to reviewing the submissions, including, I hope, from young people themselves. Kia ora tātou.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. It’s a pleasure to rise in support of this bill, in particular to speak after my friend and comrade in the fight for children’s rights, Vanushi Walters, new Labour MP. I’d like to congratulate her and yourself for your reappointment to the role.

This is a good bill. It’s a necessary bill, and it doesn’t quite go far enough, but it does do a lot to restore us as a nation to a place where we do abide by our obligations pursuant to the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, to which we are not only signatories; we’ve ratified. So that convention and all of the rights that we’ve signed on to are technically enforceable in our law and should be. We did move away from that by some length under the previous National Party Government when we essentially gutted the Family Court—counsel for child—jurisdiction funding support as well as the way that we gutted funding for courts and legal aid in every area of our justice system.

Others have said this, “Justice delayed is justice denied.”, and this bill does a lot to further the expediency of Family Court proceedings, but I’d like to focus on the rights of the child just for a moment, because that is what the substance of this bill is about and what should be celebrated. We have the reinstatement of a legislative commitment to the Family Court having independent representation for children that’s appropriate for them to communicate their needs and their wellbeing to the court. We know that as a nation we suffer enormously from mental health issues and youth suicide. So that sits alongside what we’re dealing with today. This is some of the most intimate, important aspects of children and young people’s lives, their familial relationships, and the way that they’re able to access justice in that forum to express themselves and to have their rights and needs expressed to a court, so it is to be celebrated.

What we would like to see as the Green Party is some more resource and some more commitment to furthering the expertise of counsel for child. Whether that means funding and supporting child developmental experts to assist counsel to ensure that children’s needs are, in fact, being communicated well and that there’s time for those needs and those relationships to develop before the perspective of children and young people is communicated to the court is something that we’d like to continue to work on with the Government. But this is a good moment for access to justice. It is timely, as it comes a day before world Human Rights Day, and I do commend the bill to the House.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. ACT will be supporting the first reading of the Family Court (Supporting Children in Court) Legislation Bill. The reason why we’re doing that is that this bill seeks to improve the care of children who are caught up in proceedings before the Family Court, by making modest changes to the way that the Family Court regime currently works. The emphasis is going to be on the lawyers and on the children and it will give the children the right to have input into the decisions that are made about their care. It’s recognising that a child has a viewpoint.

What is noted is that children are often forgotten through the process, and they can become a victim of forgetfulness as their families are continuing a battle through the justice system and the Family Court system. This bill is introducing obligations on lawyers to ensure that a clear and timely process is undertaken, not to extend it, and the obligations are also put on the lawyers to explain proceedings to those children that are caught up in this process and often are scared, vulnerable, and have no idea exactly what is going on. It encourages the counsel for the child to assist the families and promote a conciliation without having to go through that court process. That can be helped when a child has an understanding of what’s going on.

ACT did support the initial reforms in 2014, and, for the most part, these reforms provided some sound architecture for the management of the Family Court. It encouraged more personal responsibility and a flexible approach to disputes, and it encouraged parents to reach agreement through an out-of-court process. That flexibility empowered the parents and it encouraged a less-oppositional and lawyer-led system. But, off the back of that piece of legislation, there was an independent panel that examined the 2014 reforms, and that panel found that our tamariki’s voices are actually not being heard. As I said earlier, it’s so important that we don’t forget the children, because they are the most important stakeholder through a Family Court process. We need to ensure that the system is actually responsive to the needs of our tamariki, and that must remain vital.

The bill makes relatively minor changes in the context of the 2014 reforms, and ACT does believe that there is merit in examining the proposals at a select committee, and we do not believe that they pose a threat to fair proceedings in the court. We do expect that it will improve the way in which the Family Court approaches the needs of the children through elevating the role of an advocate for the child and giving that child a voice of their own. In the interests of our tamariki, the ACT Party supports this bill.

Tēnā koe, Mr Speaker. I’m very pleased to rise and take a brief call in support of this bill, and before I begin I’d like to take this opportunity to congratulate you on being appointed as Deputy Speaker.

I’m very pleased to support this bill, because it gives a greater voice to our tamariki and our rangatahi, and it enables or enhances their participation when decisions are being made about their care and welfare. The role of the lawyer for the child is a tricky but very important one. It’s one where we’ve seen it go from having to navigate the tensions between being an advocate for the child, or representing what’s in their best interests, and also acting as a mediator. The changes proposed in this bill validate the importance of the role of the lawyer for the child. Also, including children in an appropriate way, where possible, in the family mediation process allows a mechanism for somebody independent to put forward the views of children involved in these difficult processes. Many times in dispute resolution I’ve seen parties get stuck in their positions, unable to see the other’s side, or hear what they’re saying, and having somebody—and this is also more challenging when we’ve got children involved, who might be worried about upsetting one or other of their parents. So having somebody there independent to put those views forward can help often break that impasse and help whānau to move forward without delay or causing further harm.

As has been pointed out already today, when children aren’t included in the process or involved in making decisions about them, that can often lead to detrimental impacts on their wellbeing, such as increased anxiety, stress, or feeling lonely, even. Therefore, it is important to give children the opportunity to participate in our Family Court processes and express their views whenever it concerns their care and wellbeing. Children want to be involved in decision making, rather than be the decision makers.

I’m also very pleased that this bill will require lawyers appointed to represent a child to explain the nature of the proceeding to a child, in a way that they are likely to understand. This is going to further enhance their ability to participate in what’s an often complex process, and it also recognises that, in actual fact, children understand a lot more than what we give them credit for, even those under primary school age. This is important to truly support their participation in that decision-making process, and helps to reduce the stress and anxiety on them at an already difficult time and, as has been mentioned, is consistent with our obligations under the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. The amendments proposed in this bill will lead to better, less harmful outcomes for our tamariki and rangatahi, and I commend it to the House.

Family law is one of the most difficult but, actually, important areas of work for our Parliament. It’s hugely important for the wellbeing of our children, and I don’t think there’d be a member of this House that wouldn’t recognise that the most important relationships that we have are with our parents and with our children. Equally, I’m one of those who say that, actually, family is one of the most important institutions in our society.

The real core of the question with this bill for Parliament is whether, by having more lawyers and more court involvement, we’re going to get better outcomes for children, and I am a sceptic of that perspective that the Government has with this bill. In my 30 years of experience as a constituency MP, I have seen appalling cases through the Family Court in which there have been gross injustices. I highlight two particular cases in which parents who were together, who had done absolutely nothing wrong, had lost the right to see their own children for many years while the Family Court processes delayed and drudged on. Now, nothing would be worse, for me. The worst thing you could do would be to deny me access and the right to see my four children. Those sorts of examples are a real warning that when we have family issues locked up into our traditional, adversarial court system that can take years and tens of thousands of dollars—that we in Parliament shouldn’t have the maturity to be able to question: actually, is that really working in the best interests of those children and those families?

I note, for instance, in the statistics, that the average time to get a resolution of a dispute between separated parents through the process of mediation is 37 days. The average period, if it goes to court, is over 300 days. Now, if you’re a bloke or lady in your fifties, 300 days might not seem that long a time. For a child, 300 days is eternity. It’s a really long time, and that is very damaging for the child. And so in designing our Family Court system, which we have responsibility to do in this House, we need to be very careful of the incentives that we create, because, actually, members on this side of the House say that that system needs to be designed in such a way that we encourage parents as much as is possible to resolve their issues themselves over their children, and the way in which we create family law has to be one in which we have parents incentivised to cooperate and to work together in the best interests of those children. Every time that we open another avenue for long, drawn-out court processes, we may think we’re doing the right thing for the child; in many cases, we are not. Justice delayed is justice denied, and no more importantly than in the case of dealing with Family Court issues.

So my view of this bill is that it drags us down a further route of encouraging and, furthermore, resourcing huge sums of public money into drawn-out legal arguments rather than actually trying to find resolution. I honestly believe that if we spent more money on facilitation and social work - type skills to support parents to raise children in separated environments, we would actually get better outcomes than the huge emphasis that there is here on actually adding more lawyers and more legalistic process around trying to get a better outcome for children. We will scrutinise this bill further at select committee. We’ll never get perfect family law, because every family is so different and it is a challenging area, but it is National’s view that we need to be focused on getting shorter resolution, getting away from an adversarial system, and truly being focused on how we can get parents to cooperate and work together to get good outcomes for children.

Kia ora, Mr Speaker, and thank you for giving me this call. It would have been taken by the Māori Party, but they have chosen not to speak on this bill, and I must say I’m a little surprised that it falls to me, a Pākehā man, to take this call. But nevertheless, I know that the Labour Party has a strong Māori caucus and a number of Māori will speak on this bill and give the voice it needs.

But I did want to just note with my background as a lawyer and, in particular, in respect of professional ethics, the duties that are imposed on lawyers in clause 9 of this bill, setting out new section 7B(2) of the Act, stating in section 7B(2)(b) “[to enable] issues in dispute to be resolved as fairly, inexpensively, simply, and speedily as is consistent with justice.” Now, this is a big shift, and I think it’s important to note that this is a real directive, that there is a substantive legal duty. Whilst it’s ameliorated somewhat by saying in new section 7B(2) “in the opinion of the lawyer,”, that has to be an opinion that is reasonably and sensibly held. And I hope that judges in the court, and the Law Society through its regulatory framework, will hold lawyers who play games, who stretch out proceedings, and who take an overly combative approach—I hope they will hold them to account to ensure that the interests of the child are absolutely upheld. If there’s one thing that we clearly agree on in this House is that those interests must be paramount. I commend this bill to the House.

Tēnā koe e te Māngai o te Whare. This bill is intended to enhance child wellbeing, and that is the effect of this bill that I want to comment on today. But first I’ll just say this: family justice services and the people who engage with them represent a microcosm of New Zealand. The services involve children and young people, parents and whānau at a time of distress and of crisis and conflict. For many, the barriers to accessing justice reflect the barriers encountered throughout the justice sector and the New Zealand society more generally.

As my colleague, the MP for Upper Harbour, Vanushi Walters, has said, children’s participation in decisions that affect them is a fundamental right in the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, and this bill advances those rights significantly. That is why I’m proud to stand in support of this bill and I commend it very warmly to the House.

Thank you, Madam Speaker, for the opportunity to take a short call on the Family Court (Supporting Children in Court) Legislation Bill. Firstly, may I congratulate you on your election to the role of Assistant Speaker. I think it’s the first opportunity I’ve had to be able to do that, and I wish you well in the role.

I do just want to take a short call on this bill, and most of the arguments from the National Party’s perspective have already been outlined as to why we will not be supporting this bill in this first reading debate. Mostly, this bill, essentially, puts the onus or the role of the Family Court, which is a very important—it puts more lawyers in there rather than actually supporting the rights of children and trying to achieve quick resolutions. Fundamentally, what we are seeing here is a bill which will undermine the changes which were put in place by the last National Government which did seek to encourage individuals, families, and children to come to resolutions, and that the responsibility should be shifted towards them from in-court resolutions, which do take a significant period of time.

One of the comments from the member for Upper Harbour—she mentioned that this bill is about affirming the status of lawyers and affirming the role they play and the skills they have. I just want to say, yes, I acknowledge lawyers in our country have an important role to play. They have very important skills. But this is not the reason why we should be supporting legislation. It should be about how we can get resolutions for children in these circumstances.

We’ve heard from Nick Smith about some of the cases, very difficult cases, and how the need for quick resolution is critical for the lives of these children. We’ve heard the statistics, where we know that if a resolution can be achieved through mediation, it only takes an average of 37 days. If we should be doing anything, we should be trying to see how we can be ensuring more cases are dealt with through mediation and those forms of dispute resolution rather than lawyering up and having more cases heard before the courts.

There’s a number of questions that I have not had answers from in listening to the Government’s members speak on this. What measures of effectiveness will be used to measure the success of these changes? I haven’t heard from the Minister whether there’s actually a measurement. Is there a measurement in terms of how many fewer days, on average, will be taken before a court hearing is had? Is there going to be a target that the Government is going to set? The Government—

Tim van de Molen: This Government doesn’t do targets.

Yeah, no. Tim van de Molen, our excellent MP for Waikato, he says, “This Government doesn’t give targets.” No, they scrap targets. They love scrapping targets. But if we’re going to make these changes, how are we going to measure their effectiveness? How are we going to measure their success? Or are we simply just changing the law and, with a hope and a dream, thinking this is going to make things better? I challenge the Government on that question. What’s the additional cost—what’s the additional cost—and has there been a cost-benefit trade-off between adding additional support into mediation and adjudication services, which will allow faster resolutions in these instances?

These are number of key and important questions which I don’t see talked about in the bill. I haven’t heard any of those answers from the Government members. We will be scrutinising this bill at the select committee to ensure that it is robustly scrutinised, because, at the end of the day, we need to see better outcomes for our children and for our families in New Zealand.

It’s great to see you in the Chair today, and congratulations on your election, Assistant Speaker Salesa. Look, I think this debate in this House this morning has actually given some lawyers some very bad rap and I just wanted to acknowledge all the awesome work that family lawyers across Aotearoa are doing. I started my legal career actually in a family law firm, and I just wanted to say that my boss, the lady that I was working for, had extreme care for the clients that she was serving. And I just wanted to acknowledge, in particular, Dr Emily Henderson, in our caucus, who is an expert at family law. I remember her saying to me on our first day in Parliament that she chose definitely a career following her heart rather than for any other personal gains.

I just want to recognise that this profession, especially within the remit of family law, is a really extremely difficult one, and this bill that we have before us in the House here today just recognises the importance of protecting children in that process. I think it’s really, really important to give children the voice in the proceedings to make sure that the focus is on their wellbeing within the whole entire process. I just think giving them the voice really empowers them to have and to be feeling in control in a very difficult situation, and I just want to commend this bill to the House.

The question is, That

Motion agreed to.

Bill referred to the Justice Committee.

The House stands adjourned until 2 p.m. today.

The House adjourned at 12.06 p.m. (Wednesday)