Family Court (Family Court Associates) Legislation Bill

I’m not sure if it’s a bad pun to say it’s a relief to have moved off the previous bill—and did so legally! Moving on to legal matters, we’re now discussing the Family Court (Family Court Associates) Legislation Bill, in the third reading—just to make sure that the Minister of Justice understands there is no committee stage; we are at the third reading—and National continues to support this bill.

Look, I’ve discussed this bill before. It’s a good step. It’s a bit like an earlier contribution tonight: it’s a step, it’s a step in the right direction, there are positives, but a lot more is needed. If you’re one of those unfortunate New Zealanders who has to go through the Family Court—obviously, your circumstances are such that you have to be there in the first place, which is, I suppose, ipso facto, unfortunate; but, secondly, that the system is incredibly slow, grinding, painful, and so forth. So this is a Government attempt to attempt to speed up the process.

The Family Court Associates—people who have practised law, I think, for seven years, is it? I’m sorry I don’t have the absolute specifics. We had a Coroners Amendment Bill recently, which was in a similar vein, bringing in, if you will, extra associate coroners—between them either five or seven years’ experience, and then to carry on for a five- or seven-year placement in this role. As with the coroner’s court, this Family Court Associate role is meant to try and ease the administrative burden. The Family Court Associate holds a variety of, I don’t know, roles, if you will, that they can undertake—not as much as a normal Family Court judge, but some of them. It’s the Labour Government’s suggestion that this will ease the burdens on the court; I’m not as optimistic on that. I want to be clear, I think it will be of some help; I just think the Government’s being a little bit optimistic as to what effect this will actually have. The system is broken at a much wider and deeper level.

One way to simply illustrate it is: where are these Family Court Associates going to actually physically sit? We already know our court buildings are physically struggling. The judges themselves don’t have enough space, let alone the associates. We don’t have the use of audiovisual systems in the way that we should have. We don’t have the likes of night courts. Look, there’s a whole array of things which could be done.

As I said at the start, this is a step in the right direction. National’s happy to support it. It’s not going to make things any worse, but I don’t believe—and I don’t think that this side of the House believes—it’s going to bring about a substantial change. That perhaps illustrates for us that this Government’s very good at putting down little bits of legislation and putting out nice PR and it all sounds well and good, but the substance is not there.

I will leave my contribution there. This was only a short call. As I say, we continue to support the bill. If I might, because it is timely as well, just a quick shout-out to Sam Sachdeva; he launched his book The China Tightrope tonight. It’s a really good book. Shameless plugging here, not because I’m in it but, actually, I think, a really important contribution, which, as the Speaker knows, has absolutely nothing to do with the Family Court (Family Court Associates) Legislation Bill. But, Sam, it’s now on the record!

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I’m going to use this opportunity to come back to the bill, because this is an important bill. Many of us have experiences of the Family Court. Myself, I’ve given evidence in the Family Court in a matter to do with a friend of mine. Many of us have family members, friends, workmates, and those of us who work as electorate MPs have constituents who come to us.

My experience of this issue is that it’s a very serious one; a very serious one that has a massive impact on families and on children when we have delays in the court. It was a bit disappointing to hear the previous speech, because there are a number of pieces of reform that we are undertaking in the Family Court, one of which—which has been recently referenced—is the stopping of people taking vexatious cases in the court. This is something where people have made direct representation to me, as their local MP, about the combination of delays in the court and people taking vexatious cases. Those things working in conjunction can often lead to massive delays, and that has a harmful impact on children and young people in particular.

The main thrust of this bill is that we will add capacity through Family Court Associates into the Family Court to ensure that we have the people that we need to hear these cases, because it is important that, in this particular area of law, we do have swift access to justice for those involved. Otherwise, we end up with serious situations where children may not see parents for many months, where people expend enormous amounts of money on battling through the Family Court, often leaving them without access to a home when they go to sell it because they have to repay legal aid fees.

This is one of many things we are doing to rectify some of the reforms that National put in place in 2014 that led to huge delays in the court. I’m really proud to be a member of a Government with many, many people in this Government who have worked in the system, who have researched in the system, who have lived experience of this system, and who are putting in place the changes that we need to ensure people have access to justice. It’s an excellent bill, it’s a serious bill, and I commend it to the House.

Talofa lava, Mr Speaker. I would like to pick up on the theme that the previous speaker, Rachel Boyack, mentioned in her excellent speech, which is the harmful effect on children, because, of course, that is what we are dealing with when we are looking at those delays that can happen in the Family Court. That is exactly what this bill is trying to address. Of course, the delays can have negative effects on parents and children, including uncertainty and stress. That kind of conflict is never good for any child. It doesn’t matter what family they grow up in—and I am very deliberate with my language here, Mr O’Connor—whether they grow up in a family that is father and mother, father and father, mother and mother, or any other make-up of the family unit. So it is really important to know that these are actually recommendations made by an independent panel and a new position to be established in the Family Court. I thank everybody who had a part in the legislative process, and I commend it to the House. Thank you, Mr Speaker.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. It’s a pleasure to take a call on this, the third reading of the Family Court (Family Court Associates) Legislation Bill.

I would hope that the speech delivered by the Minister during the third reading was actually the third reading speech. I see my good friend over there, the Hon Andrew Little. I am confident that he would never come to the House and deliver the wrong speech, particularly in his portfolio area. It is a sad indictment on the disarray of the Government that a Government Minister—

💬 DEPUTY SPEAKER: Mr Mitchell, can we just stick to the bill before the House, please.

I do want to talk to the bill. It is an important bill and we have supported it because, in my view, although we’ve got massive issues inside our wider court system—whether it be the High Court, the District Court, or the Family Court—I actually think this should be the priority. The reason why I think that is because, as a country at the moment, we’re really struggling with youth that are going off the rails—youth and juvenile offending.

I can tell you now, from my own experience—so I acknowledge one of the previous speakers that was saying that she deals with a lot of her constituents that feel the stress and anxiety involved with the Family Court. I think that although we all like to think that in a perfect world, parents would always put their children’s interests first, often that’s not always the case. It’s kids that are the ones that end up damaged, often prevented from seeing one or other of the parents. Actually, that does have a lasting negative impact and effect on their lives.

I think this is a good move. It’s not the silver bullet; it’s certainly not going to fix all the problems and issues that we currently have sitting inside—

💬 Marja Lubeck: Tell us what the bill does, Mr Mitchell.

I wish the member over there would take this issue seriously, because it’s a serious issue, but she obviously doesn’t think that it is, because she’s busy making inane comments that have got no relevance to this bill. If she wants to say something, say it loud enough that I can hear, and I can address it, because—especially from someone that purports to be a lawyer—this is an important bill that actually goes a long way towards making sure that—

💬 Marja Lubeck: What does it do?

She doesn’t even understand what the bill is. She doesn’t even understand her own bill, which her own party has brought to this House, around associates and actually relieving some of the pressure that is on judges. It’s ridiculous; it’s sad. Not only have we had a Minister today that’s been awful, we’ve now got a backbencher that’s doing exactly the same thing.

This is an important bill. It does provide associates, which you and I know will actually remove and take away some of the pressure on the judges—the judges that are often very slow in actually reporting a written finding or result or outcome of a court case, because they’re often bogged down with the administration and the administrative role that they have in that role.

So we are very pleased to be able to stand in this House and support the bill. It is not the silver bullet, but it does go some way to starting to relieve some of the pressure and, ultimately, trying to have a quicker and a better outcome for our kids. Thank you, Mr Speaker.

Things move very quickly sometimes in this House and sometimes they move incredibly slowly. This is an example where the bill has moved very quickly. Can I say that Labour is absolutely committed to the idea that we have improved access to our justice system. Our justice system needs to be respected and committed to by this House, but we need to keep tweaking it whenever things aren’t working. This makes sure that we have got advocates for people in the Family Court who are going through really tough times. We need to make sure that they have got access to people who can speak their language, who can walk alongside them on what can sometimes be an incredibly hard and tough and tumultuous journey, and somebody that can actually stand in their corner. That doesn’t always happen, but this bill is going to help in that respect; make sure that those families, those people, those individuals have got somebody—a Family Court Associate—to be able to help them navigate the system. For that reason, I commend this bill to the House.

Motion agreed to.

Bill read a third time.