Barnett Tim: Care of Children Bill — Second Reading 
Barnett Tim: Care of Children Bill — Second Reading 
[Volume:621;Page:16420] 
TIM BARNETT (Labour—Christchurch Central) 
: 
 At the last three general elections fathers’ groups in Christchurch have called meetings of local candidates from different parties where they have berated us for our failure collectively to reform the guardianship law. So I was proud to be chair of the Justice and Electoral Committee that was able finally to handle this matter—a matter that had been left for a long time. I am proud to be part of a Government that bit the bullet and it was great to be part of a select committee that succeeded in making what I think are a lot of positive and constructive changes to this legislation. 
The committee as reported in the commentary on the bill had the bill for 1 year. It received 277 submissions and it heard 102 of them over a period of 38 hours. We were also extremely fortunate to be sitting at the time when Judge Mahoney the Principal Family Court Judge retired. We heard from him both before and after he retired. The new judge Judge Boshier took over. We heard from him as well and saw some of the subtle differences in terms of his approach. But both those eminent people from our judicial profession were able to influence the shape of the legislation. 
 We considered the bill for a further 34 hours which gives the House some idea of the detail into which we went. I want very quickly to trace some of the changes and I reiterate that at all times we returned to that key phrase and that key question: what will best meet the welfare and best interests of the child? 
We looked at the purpose of the bill. We strengthened it around the area of children’s rights. We added in guiding principles to give the courts some guidance when making those crucial decisions. We led on the issue of openness of Family Court proceedings and I am sure that that will be built on in time to come. We looked at the area of parenting orders and we focused very strongly on mechanisms to ensure voluntary agreement between parents. We added in access to counselling for disputes and we added in the bonding system. 
We heard from many submitters about the pain caused by endless delays in the area of interim orders. We set time frames in order to ensure that the decision about whether the final order should or should not be put in was made sooner rather than later. 
We added new elements to the definition of “guardianship”. We looked at the process of appointment of additional guardians which was referred to by Judith Collins and we added in a series of checks on convictions and a time element to try to make sure that at least some guarantees were in place. 
The themes of all those changes I think were children-centred and came back the whole time to the issue of the welfare and best interests of the child. Caution and conciliation were the two themes we followed. Judith Collins began her comments with the polemic statement that these are issues on which one should get cross-party agreement but that that was not possible. The reality is that there actually was cross-party agreement on an awful lot of what is in the legislation and on the changes that were needed. 
It is also great as a select committee chairperson to report that we could point in nearly all those changes to submitters who had actually put forward those proposals. We were taking the evidence of people on the ground and reflecting them in the legislation. 
There are three more issues to mention. One is the issue of shared parenting. There was a section on that matter in the commentary on the bill. I would have liked us to have fuller debate on that one. It was an issue we could return to only occasionally and unfortunately one of its most incessant proponents had a bit of an absence during parts of the select committee process for other very genuine reasons. But I think that that debate is one that will continue. 
Secondly regarding the phrases “day-to-day care” and “contact” I can tell members that we agonised over whether we could think of better language for that and we ended up keeping what is in the legislation. Again that debate may be returned to later. 
The very last point is that of consent to abortion. I want to read out one sentence from the commentary that was agreed to by all parties on the committee: “Although the submissions we received contained many opinions about the clause we did not receive any evidence of the provision being abused even though it has been operative for 27 years.” Every party on the committee supported that wording I have just read out. 
I would like to thank the other members of the committee—those who were there just for this legislation and also our regular members who did actually include a fourth lawyer not mentioned by Judith Collins: Russell Fairbrother. He has some experience in these matters as well. I also thank our excellent and devoted officials who kept us going through those many hours. 
I would like to say that although we are bound to debate some of the issues in this legislation it is great and it makes a once-in-a-generation change to a fundamental area facing lots of people’s lives. This has been an excellent opportunity to make the legislation even better. I commend the bill to the House.