O'Connor SimonFAMILY COURT (FAMILY COURT ASSOCIATES) LEGISLATION BILLThird ReadingDebate resumed from 17 May.SIMON O'CONNOR (National—Tāmaki): 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!