Family Court (Family Court Associates) Legislation Bill

I present a legislative statement on the Family Court (Family Court Associates) Legislation Bill.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jacqui Dean): That legislative statement is published under the authority of the House and can be found on the Parliament website.

I move, That the Family Court (Family Court Associates) Legislation Bill be now read a third time.

This bill is one part of the Government’s work to reduce delays across the entire justice system. Reducing delays in the justice system is critical to ensure New Zealanders can effectively access justice. Some of the ongoing work to address court delays includes increasing the number of judges in the Court of Appeal, the High Court, and the District Court through to 30 June 2025; establishing the Criminal Process Improvement Programme, a judicially led cross-agency programme to reduce backlog in the District Court by establishing best practice in court procedures; and establishing a joint work programme with Te Whatu Ora, the Ministry of Health, and Corrections to address issues around court-ordered forensic reports. This Government has also helped around 93,000 more people access legal aid. The costs of accessing legal aid have been removed, the repayment thresholds have been increased, and interest will no longer be accrued on unpaid legal aid debt. Together with the Family Court Associate, these initiatives aim to increase access to justice and improve the experience and process of court proceedings.

Delays in the Family Court can be particularly harmful in the family justice system because of its role in making decisions that affect children, parents, and whānau at challenging times in their lives. I just quickly want to pivot to many of the submitters that took time to provide the Justice Committee with their wisdom, their views, their expertise, to assist in the formation of this bill. In particular, there was one gentleman by the name of Paul von Dadelszen. He was the former Deputy Chief Family Court Judge. As a baby just graduated from law school, I took up the role of judge’s clerk, and I had the privilege of working with Paul von Dadelszen and some of the work that he was actually doing on some of these proposals—and that was almost 20-odd years ago. But I note that Judge von Dadelszen—he’s retired now, but he took the time to submit on these bills, to really walk through—and there’s been several iterations over a long period of time—the thinking that had gone in by the judiciary, by practitioners, by the courts at various stages that has resulted in this ultimate outcome, which are the Family Court Associates. But they build on—I guess I just want to highlight the whakapapa by which the introduction of these Family Court Associates has been made into this House and, indeed, law, this evening.

An accessible Family Court that operates without undue delay is key to a fully functioning family justice system. Significant reforms were made to the Family Court system in 2014, and were intended to help people settle arrangements for the care of their children without having to appear in the Family Court. However, some of these changes led to delays across the Family Court, which had significant negative impact on children, parents, and whānau, and exacerbated existing issues already likely in many of those family environments. In 2018, the Government established an independent panel to examine the 2014 reforms and consider the impacts on families and children. The independent panel provided its final report, Te Korowai Ture ā-Whānau, in 2019, which provided 69 recommendations. The independent panel found that experiences of the family justice system were generally negative and that delay in the resolution of court cases impacts on most areas of the Family Court system.

We know that delay is a significant factor in undermining trust and confidence in our Family Court. It keeps parents and children in stressful and uncertain situations, and can contribute to deepening parent and whānau conflict. There are a large number of children involved in Family Court proceedings. Children exposed to ongoing inter-parental conflict are four times more likely to have social and emotional problems than the general population. Further, some children do not have contact with non-custodial whānau for long periods of time while proceedings continue, which can cause relationships to deteriorate and be detrimental to the wellbeing of the child and whānau. In some cases, there are long-term, intergenerational impacts, particularly for tamariki Māori who lose connections to their whānau and, by dint, their whakapapa. The impact of delay, of course, is not limited to children. For example, for victims of family violence, court processes can be re-traumatising, and court delays exacerbate and prolong trauma.

The Government is committed to addressing these barriers to justice and strengthening the Family Court. The establishment of the Family Court Associate forms one part of a wider long-term programme of work to respond to the independent panel’s recommendations, and are part of the Government’s commitment to address court delays more generally, as I’ve already set out.

In 2020, the Government began its reform based on Te Korowai Ture ā-Whānau and aimed at better supporting whānau through the family justice system. The reforms have included reinstating legal representation in the early stages of Care of Children Act 2004 proceedings in the Family Court, with legal age for eligible parties; providing quality, accessible information for children, parents, and families to help them navigate the family justice system; establishing Kaiārahi—Family Court Navigators—to help parents and whānau navigate the system.

Briefly on that point, I just want to acknowledge some of the incredible work I’ve seen by those Kaiārahi. I had an experience up in the Manakau court, a couple of months ago now, where I got to meet with those Family Court Navigators, who walked me through what their day-to-day life was. In terms of working with whole family units, I was astounded by the depth and breadth of the way that they form relationships.

And, finally, as a part of this work, we’ve also increased lawyer for child remuneration to incentivise the recruitment and retention of skilled practitioners.

The purpose of this bill responds to one driver of delay identified by the independent panel: the high administrative workload of judges. The panel recommended that a new position be established in the Family Court. The bill establishes the Family Court Associate role to take on some of the workload of the Family Court judges. That will reduce delay up to 25 percent, it is estimated, in terms of time, and assist in improving the process and experience of people participating in Family Court proceedings. This new role will help Family Court judges to progress cases instead of undertaking time-consuming administrative tasks.

The Family Court Associate will be a judicial officer with independence from the executive. As a judicial officer, the Family Court Associate can take on tasks currently performed by a registrar, but they can also take on some judicial work that does not require a judge’s expertise or experience but could not be done by a court officer as well. This includes decisions made at early stages of proceedings in interlocutory matters, such as directing parties to undertake dispute resolution, making orders by consent, appointing lawyers, and convening settlement conferences. The Family Court Associate will spend most of their time doing work on the papers, but they will also appear in court for some matters as well. Matters that are complex or have a significant impact on people or human rights will remain with judges, including final decisions that materially affect children, such as guardianship.

This bill also includes a requirement to review the Family Court Associate role to evaluate its effectiveness. Going through the submissions that were made to the select committee, I noted that there were a number of submitters that sought that very sound recommendation to undertake the review to ensure that the role has done what it was intended to do, which is to reduce those delays in the Family Court and also to see whether any amendments would be desirable.

Finally, I want to acknowledge those that worked on this piece of work: the chair of the Justice Committee, Vanushi Walters, and all of the members. And I want to acknowledge, of course, as well, the independent panel for their work, Te Korowai Ture ā-Whānau, which has indeed informed the creation of the Family Court Associate role. Finally, I commend this bill to the House.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. We have said all along that where, in the courts portfolio, we have a proposal from Government that we can support because it will improve the lot of those who are going through the system, we will support it. We continue to support this piece of legislation, the Family Court (Family Court Associates) Legislation Bill, because we think it is worthwhile. We think it does something that will indeed help to reduce the delays in the court system. So I begin, on that bipartisan note, to explain to the House that National will support this bill at its final reading, and we wish well all those who will be affected by the work of the courts, including the future Family Court Associates themselves.

I think it’s fair to place this bill in the context of the efforts that the Government has made in relation to the Family Court these past six years. If we take a step back from that, we should consider the old maxim that justice delayed is justice denied, and, of course, that means different things for different courts. In the criminal court context, we have people who should be presumed innocent until such time as they are proven guilty, held on remand. That places a great strain on the system. We have in a civil context, the perverse incentive for people to delay proceedings and to avoid going to court, in a way that would prejudice the rights of others. And in the Family Court, we have lives that are left in limbo for far too long; we have division crystallised, breakdown exacerbated, in a way that the Minister actually explained, I think, very well.

So it is common ground, I think, on all sides of politics, that we must speed up our courtroom processes. Sadly, that’s not been the experience of the last six years. To be fair, it’s been a longstanding issue in our New Zealand courts that matters take far too long to be decided. And, of course, that is to the great detriment not only of those working in the system but also, more importantly even than them, those who are innocently involved in matters that take so very long to be disposed of. So the Family Court Associate is, I think, a role that will help. As the Minister has explained, it’s similar to that of a judge, and it’s almost a situation of walking like a judge and quacking like a judge but not, in fact, being a judge, being a judicial officer. And I should explain that—

💬 Simon O’Connor: What are these judges up to these days?

Yeah, I might need to duck for cover, after perhaps putting my non-webbed foot in it, but you get the idea—

💬 Harete Hipango: You’re getting in a flap!

And we don’t even have a Speaker Mallard any more to appreciate these! Anyway, we’ve upgraded, haven’t we, ma’am?

💬 Hon Members: Move on.

I’m being encouraged to move on, so I shall. But, actually, there are a number of different constraints that face the Family Court system at the moment, and having a Family Court Associate will help in some of those respects but not in others.

Some of the constraints that currently are the cause or a contributing factor to the delays actually won’t be resolved by this. For example, it’s pointed out that the Family Court Associate will have the power to obtain reports such as cultural, medical, psychiatric, and psychological—that’s a worthwhile thing for Associates to do—but, of course, the constraint at the moment exists largely in the unavailability of sufficient numbers of people who are qualified professionals who are willing and able to supply those reports. There are various things that could be done about that, probably outside the scope of this bill, so I won’t traverse those now, but suffice to say that that’s a constraint that isn’t directly addressed by the bill. And any serious reform of the Family Court system must consider such wider factors as that and understand that the Family Court Associate will be operating in very much the same environment as the Family Court judge currently is.

Other problems such as self-represented litigants: with all the best will in the world but perhaps less experience and training than qualified lawyers, they do inevitably make life difficult for those working in the system. And I say that not in a way to sound as though people do not have the right to access justice; of course, everyone has the right to access justice. If the system is such and their resources are such that they feel they are best served by self-representing, that’s an indictment on the system more generally. But, again, Family Court Associates will have to deal with that issue as best they can. Again, there are things we can do, but, again, I would suggest that that’s not something we had best litigate, so to speak, in the context of this bill.

These other problems will persist, and so we have, I suppose, in the nature of a band-aid solution—of course, a band-aid can be helpful if the wound is small enough that it will cover it, but I think we shouldn’t pretend to ourselves that this is a more comprehensive solution than it is. And I think we should all feel challenged to provide policy solutions that will actually provide a more comprehensive approach to reforming our courts. If I were to summarise it, I would say that there is a huge administrative burden at the moment. The Family Court Associate role being established by this bill will help, because some 25 percent of the judge’s workload is administrative and the Family Court Associates can do some of that work. But, of course, if we were to remove some of the administrative burden by making the processes more straightforward, more user-friendly, there would be less of that work needed in the first place.

In terms of what has happened to this bill since it’s gone through, I think the Justice Committee’s treatment of it was very positive. I think I’m right in saying that the chairmanship passed, during the course of that bill being in front of the select committee, from the Hon Ginny Andersen, as she now is, to Vanushi Walters. May I say that I think the committee, under their leadership, has done a good job of examining what’s needed in the bill, and, as the Minister, the Hon Kiritapu Allan, has rightly and graciously acknowledged, the committee had a certain amount of help from a number of very useful and informed submissions, including former judges, no less. So it’s been a worthwhile exercise to improve the bill.

The changes, which we don’t need to go through in detail, were along the lines of recognising that the Family Court Associate will be a judicial officer, albeit not a judge, but it’s appropriate to provide them some of the protections which, of course, protect the system as a whole, such as saying that they’ll have the same immunity and they can’t be removed for grounds other than the pretty narrow ones on which it’s possible to remove a judge currently: inability, which is pretty tightly defined, or misbehaviour. We don’t want judges or, as I say, Family Court Associates to be able to be removed on the whim of those who might simply dislike the decisions that they reach. So we thought that was appropriate.

I say “we”; I wasn’t a member of the committee per se. I think I might have attended some of the consideration and the hearings and submissions, but certainly I did my best to familiarise myself with these issues that were being discussed at that level. We saw, as well, at select committee that a Family Court Associate would be able to direct a registrar to appoint a lawyer to assist the court under several Acts. That’s an administrative decision; an important one, but one that’s not necessarily judicial, albeit that it should be exercised in a judicious fashion. So that’s, I think, helpful and, again, along the lines of performing some of those administrative tasks, will be useful.

Even more arcane than that are a couple of changes made in the Supplementary Order Paper put forward by the Government, which, again, we supported. We thought it was helpful to have the Oath of Allegiance, under the Oaths and Declarations Act, to be required to be taken—I think one “takes” an oath—by Family Court Associates, just as with judges. And also there’s a quinquennial review—I think I’m right in saying it’s every five years, but I like using that word anyway, so let’s hope it’s five years! And I don’t know any equivalent names for other ones.

💬 Simon O’Connor: Say it again.

So the quinquennial review timing has been established by Supplementary Order Paper, which, as I say, we supported.

So, with a minute to go, I’ll summarise my comments by saying again that we support this measure. We think it’s helpful in itself. Of course, the question, I suppose, is begged: why not simply appoint more judges? Because a judge can do everything that a Family Court Associate will be able to do—is my understanding—albeit that the reverse doesn’t quite apply. It might be that there are good reasons for that. I mean, there’s currently a cap on the number of judges one can have. I’m not quite sure why; I think that’s something we could all look at. There was actually a lifting of the cap on the number of judges in primary legislation as Budget urgency in a previous year, so perhaps we have that to look forward to in the next 24 hours or so. And I’m keenly looking across the aisle to see if any Labour Party colleagues who might know what’s in the Budget can give any clues with their body language, but I’m getting nothing back. Indeed, I think we might need to wake one of them up before her contribution, but that’s a comment on me, not on any of them. So we supported this bill. We continue to support the bill. It’s a good idea as far as it goes, but more is needed. We support and commend the bill to the House.

The question is that the motion be agreed to.

Thank you, Madam Speaker, for the opportunity to take a call. We’re wide awake on this side of the House. And I thought I might just start by responding to some of the comments made by my colleague Chris Penk, but I’ll reassure him that he doesn’t need to duck for cover. I did want to comment on his reference to the very well-known phrase that “justice delayed is justice denied”. And that is a very well-known phrase, and I want to begin by thanking some of our submitters, because those are words, but clearly it is felt very differently when you’re going through some of those court processes.

And whenever I come up against what I consider a key principle of legal process, I’m always a little curious about its history, so I did look to see when this concept of “justice delayed is justice denied” came up in history, and it goes all the way back to the 1600s, so it is a really well-embodied piece of our justice system. It wasn’t the only theme that emerged from submitters. Others were the powers of Family Court Associates, the independence of Family Court Associates, the training and experience, ensuring safety in the Family Court system, Te Tiriti o Waitangi obligations, participation, consultation, evaluation, and monitoring as well. So there were really robust submissions, and, once again, I would like to thank our submitters and the Justice Committee for its work.

In the second reading of this bill, I did make reference to some of our submitters, who included the New Zealand Council of Victim Support. They raised a very important issue, I thought, in regards to the Family Court being used as a tool of abuse. And, of course, this is a bill that responds to that critical issue as well. It is only one part of this Government’s response to this issue. Very recently, Minister Allan did announce that a new bill would be announced to prevent victims of abuse from being further abused or traumatised in the courts as well. We had a number of excellent submitters.

The last one I wanted to acknowledge, was the Disabled Persons Assembly New Zealand for their submission, and they really spoke to the aspects of how the Family Court system doesn’t, in many ways, work for disabled people, but they were also really positive about some of the changes that this bill brings into being—particularly the creation of the Associates. And they submitted that, with the introduction of the newest Associates, there was an opportunity for the courts to look more broadly at disabled people’s experience in the court system.

So I will leave my contributions there, just only to say that it is wonderful to see that there is broad support across the House for this bill. I do look forward, I hope, to seeing this bill pass this evening. But very much like the Disabled Persons Assembly New Zealand, I look forward to seeing what impact this very new role will have on our court system, and I commend this bill to the House.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. This is the third reading of the Family Court (Family Court Associates) Legislation Bill, and I’ve previously spoken to the House, actually, at the first reading. As has been heard in the House this evening, justice delayed is justice denied, which is a phrase that I’ve used speaking to a number of other court-associated type bills before the House. So when I did address the House at the first reading, I talked about the importance of timeliness, particularly for our children—not just adults in the Family Court system but particularly and especially children, because the concept of time is so very stretched out and delayed for children. So it is so important that the court not only just makes the system more efficient and effective, but timing is everything, especially for our children but also for all those applicants and persons who are part of the Family Court proceedings.

So with this legislation, there will be the appointment of Family Court Associates who will be required under law to have at least a minimum of seven years’ legal practice experience as a barrister and solicitor—so very important because, effectively, the Family Court Associate is taking on a judicial role, and the focus of that role is to alleviate the administrative workloading for our judges. I have raised in this House before that in terms of making the Family Court more effective, more efficient, more timely, it’s going to take so much more than just the appointment of Family Court Associates, and when the National Party is in Government, my colleague Chris Penk, who is spokesperson for courts, is already looking into and is drawing on the depth and breadth of experience of practitioners in this field throughout the country by engaging and, importantly, listening—something that I could commend this Government to do, and is doing on this bill, but it is a bill proposed by this Government—to implement what is going to be the most effective impact system.

So the Family Court system needs to be technologised. In the days—and it seems to have been a lifetime ago now, almost seven to eight years—working in the criminal court but also the Family Court, the Mental Health Courts, coming back to the Family Court, the importance of utilising technology to be able to facilitate accessibility but also efficiencies in timeliness. This bill doesn’t address that. It’s about putting in place more persons. I have said in this House before that we need more Family Court judges. I just draw on Minister Allan making mention and reference to retired judge His Honour Judge Paul von Dadelszen, who I appeared in front of on a regular basis when I travelled to Hastings in my Family Court role as a court-appointed lawyer for children but also in my district inspector of mental health role, because Judge von Dadelszen was a specialist mental health judge as well as Family Court judge. So I’m actually quite pleased that, for a change, the Government has listened to somebody who does know more than they do in this sector—so, Judge Paul von Dadelszen.

I’ll also make mention, too, of a former Family Court—and he was a Principal Family Court Judge who is now this country’s Ombudsman, Judge Peter Boshier. These are people, like a number of others, who have left the profession and giving service in the Family Court. But what I have also said in terms of the appointment of Family Court Associates: we need to look at the timeliness of appointment of judges as well, because what is tending to happen with the number of judges coming to retirement age exiting—and there is a number of them—we are leaving a void of a wealth of practice experience on the benches. So Family Court Associates will address administrative workloading of the Family Court judges, but that does not address the case decisions that need to be made.

And I do emphasise—and my colleague Chris Penk looking too in terms of making more efficient the courts system and my colleague Paul Goldsmith who’s our justice spokesperson—we really do need to look at boosting and bolstering our resourcing of people in addition to technologising.

I’m also heartened. This is the third reading, so it’s my last chance to make special mention of those special people who I served with in the Whanganui District Court covering the mental health court. Family Court Associates, actually, because the mental health jurisdiction comes within the Family Court jurisdiction, may in part be addressing this to alleviate the workload of Family Court judges to deal with that other jurisdictional work.

So I make mention of those who are continuing to give service in the Whanganui Family Court: people such as Sheryl Chapman long-time service; former, now retired, Rod Newport; Tracey Butler; and then there is Marcus Vettise, who was a registrar, 30 years’ service plus. I mentioned Tasi Sua in a bill about social workers last week, 40 years’ service. And the reason I do this is because it’s localising and taking it back to the community I come from and people who are passionate about the service that they give. Rama Brownlee is another, then there’s Dale and Chris. You know who you are. So I have the privilege to stand in this House to acknowledge and to say to our people in the community on the ground who do know better than most of us here in this House, the effect and the impact that it has in terms of customer service and how we facilitate the people most in need.

The select committee, which I wasn’t part of—my colleagues the Hon Paul Goldsmith, the Hon Mark Mitchell, and I believe Chris Penk also took part in these discussions around this Family Court (Family Court Associates) Legislation Bill. Submissions were heard or were considered from 31 interest groups and individuals with 14 submitters that were heard. In scrutiny and taking heed of those submissions, I see that the select committee turned their mind to applying what had been submitted by way of extending some of those Family Court Associate powers. And I turn to, within the bill specifically—and I’m quite heartened by this, because in the days when I did practise law—Schedule 2 of the bill; new Schedule 2 inserted into the Family Court Act 1980.

There was many an occasion—in fact, a lot of wasted and lost time of a judge sitting on a bench dealing with counsel before, to make appointments, as counsel to assist the court, counsel to represent children, and counsel to facilitate, either as a McKenzie friend or otherwise.

So new Schedule 2 is looking at alleviating the time of judges so that they can orientate and focus more of their work into the substantive application of listening to evidence, court hearings, and then making findings and determinations by issuing decisions. And that’s the fact that I emphasise, that we do need more judges, because we have a growing population. We have a country that’s in crisis with a cost of living crisis, with adverse weather events, with tragedies, and, of course, that affects people who are part of that fundamental, foundational societal construct called family and whānau.

So the Family Court Associates will now take on the power to appoint lawyers in obtaining reports as well, such as cultural reports, such as medical, psychiatric, or psychological reports. All those important administrative functions of a judge now will be passed on to a Family Court Associate.

So this is practical legislation, but it does need to go further to address that very issue of concern that it is a continuum we experience and it will become more of an experience with the crises that we have in our communities. Justice delayed is justice denied, and this is but one part of a whole mechanisation of the Family Court that, with tweaking and adjustment, may just speed it a little bit, but time will tell when there’s a review of this in five years’ time. So 53 seconds remaining—I can wrap it up in a matter of three seconds to say that we commend this bill to the House.

Kia ora e te Māngai o te Whare. I’m going to speak very briefly, because, as has been repeated a number of times, justice delayed is justice denied, and this bill shouldn’t be delayed any longer.

But I am going to say this: as someone who spent many years as a Family Court lawyer, many years researching the Family Court, and who spends a lot of time talking to Family Court practitioners, I really struggle when I hear members of the Opposition attempt to school this Government about the fact that it apparently is not supporting the Family Court enough. I’m sorry, but I was in the court in 2012 when the party on the other side gutted us, when the party on the other side removed the right for representation in the early stages, which caused the absolute disaster of delay that we have now, which skyrocketed ex parte applications, which caused a crisis of self-represented litigants.

This bill is one of many practical, sensible changes that this Government’s bringing in, because we do the darn mahi, unlike other people who, in the interests of cost saving—can I just say, to hear someone talk about how they’re going to spend lots of money on judges when they gutted the court in the interests of cost saving, when they refused to listen to the very judges they have mentioned tonight, I find that really difficult.

This bill is a good, simple step forward. It will give the judges, who are currently buried in paperwork, real, practical assistance. It took this Government to do it, because that Government was about phony cost savings. They stripped the lawyers from the clients where they were needed, and it decimated the court. When I talk to my colleagues and I see the stress that they are still under, when I hear them talk about how they are barely hanging on because of the delays that they see their clients having to go through because of the workload created by the absolutely pointless reforms that we knew would decimate the court, when I see them talk like that and when I hear the sort of rhetoric from the other side—empty, lacking-in-responsibility rhetoric—I despair. But you know what I don’t despair about? This bill. I darn well commend it.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. I too have a speech, and I promise I won’t be as passionate about it, because my thoughts are going to be about the kids within the Family Court rather than the personalities across the way.

ACT will continue to support this bill, but we do have concerns around the Supplementary Order Paper (SOP) that went through during the committee of the whole House stage. It was tabled without thorough explanation as to its contents, and through my speech I’d like to reflect on some of those aspects.

In the committee of the whole House stage, a Supplementary Order Paper was lodged by the Government that made fundamental changes to the way children are processed through the Family Court when Oranga Tamariki are involved. Questions to the Minister, who sat in the chair—which was the Minister of Police at the time, Ginny Andersen—were around the removal of the ability of a Family Court Associate to actually assist when it comes to children caught up within the Oranga Tamariki Act, and that was made.

This bill sought submissions from the public, and I’d like to thank and acknowledge all of those people who came through and spoke to us. Some of those stories were quite heartfelt, and, of course, they came looking for change. The Justice Committee completed a report and I’d like to acknowledge all of those that sat on the committee, because we thought we worked really well together. All parties that were involved within the Justice Committee agreed to the report’s contents and its presentation.

But then, at the eleventh hour, an SOP was produced that makes fundamental changes only involving those kids caught up in the Oranga Tamariki process. Family Court Associates now won’t be able to direct people to attend counselling, won’t be able to grant people leave to make representations, they can’t direct a mediation conference to be convened, and they won’t even be able to adjourn proceedings.

We hear constantly that we’ve got kids caught within the system—some of them for eight months, some of them for a lot longer than that—and that they’ve been removed from their families and are currently stuck in limbo. And without discussion with the people, with the submitters, even with the select committee, the Labour Government has just removed this ability for Family Court Associates to deal with these administrative issues of a child caught within the Oranga Tamariki system. This is what Family Court Associates are meant to be dealing with; it’s what they’re being created to do. This removal has been made with absolutely no valid explanation or reason given at all.

When inquired upon in the committee of the whole House stage, in the first explanation given by the Minister, it was stated that submitters had expressed concerns around the uplifting of children and that the Minister of Justice had considered it best to remove clauses from the bill that give a Family Court Associate the powers of a judge to uplift under the Oranga Tamariki Act.

But those clauses around uplift actually remained in the bill; they were not being removed. All the administration pieces have been removed, except for section 39, about the placement of safety warrants; and section 40, about the warrant to remove a child. Both of those sections have remained.

Subsequent inquiries did not produce any further information, apart from the Minister’s statement that these issues are weighty ones. I would have hoped that we would consider all matters that are before the Family Court as being weighty ones.

And when the Minister later commented that it’s important, that the delay for our children—not to have contact with whānau for significant periods of time—is damaging for our community, it can be detrimental to the wellbeing of tamariki, I wholeheartedly concur with her. I firmly believe that the Minister, in fact, both Ministers—the Minister of Justice and the Minister of Police—who have represented on this bill, have these kids’—these kids caught in this fraught Family Court’s system—best interests at heart; their parents’ ability to get their kids and themselves out of the Family Court system even more so. As the Minister of Justice actually said in her speech tonight, the court delays exacerbate and cause trauma to these kids. So I’m disappointed with what I feel is a significant change, made undemocratically and without good explanation, when the comments around children’s welfare are not disputed by any party in this House. It’s unconscionable to those very kids that we’re trying to protect and get through the Family Court system in a timely way.

Nevertheless, we still support this bill, because Family Court Associates are expected to reduce the workload of our overstretched, our overworked, and heavily burdened Family Court judges. There are six Family Court Associates expected to be part of the initial tranche of recruitment, with the remaining positions to be filled over the following two years. They should receive training similar to that of a judge. The New Zealand Law Society indicated that there are 173 potential practising lawyers who would be able to fill these roles. And it should make a difference to around 25 percent of the estimated administration time of judges, freeing up a quarter of the time that judges have, to enable them to be able to really look at the serious issues that are before them.

I have another concern around the change in the reporting time, because it was that we had to report within five years. The report on the effectiveness on reducing delays in the Family Court no longer needs to be produced within five years of the Act being implemented. The report now only needs to be started within five years, and it can be produced at any stage afterwards. Labour has initiated a clause via a Supplementary Order Paper that delays reporting on delays. ACT won’t hold this one up any longer. At this stage of this parliamentary term, we will support the introduction of Family Court Associates to help our Family Court judges. And with ACT’s policies in place, and those that are coming, we look forward to helping all children caught within our Family Court system without excluding those that are caught up in the Oranga Tamariki regime.

So, with that, ACT continues to support this bill through its third reading.

Debate interrupted.