Newman Muriel: Care of Children Bill — First Reading 
Newman Muriel: Care of Children Bill — First Reading 
[Volume:609;Page:6673] 
Dr MURIEL NEWMAN (ACT NZ) 
: 
 The ACT party will be opposing the Care of Children Bill. We are extremely disappointed that this bill is the result of 2 years of work done by the Government in response to two member’s bills that I introduced into this Parliament. I introduced a member’s bill proposing shared parenting as the predominant outcome of family law disputes and another bill to open up the Family Court. This country is one of the very few in the world that have a secret court in an area that affects people more than anything else—that is children and families. It is about time New Zealand moved into the new age and recognised that justice has to be seen to be done. 
In the last Parliament we called for the Family Court to be opened up and for shared parenting to be introduced but the Government along with other parties in this House voted both those bills down. It told us to wait that it would introduce legislation to sort out the issues. It is a very disappointing day to be standing here looking at the result—this Care of Children Bill. One realises that this legislation is not only a dog’s breakfast with massive complexity and superficial changes—changes to words and terms that actually do not mean anything—but designed to meet a feminist agenda within this Parliament. It is paving the way for same-sex marriage and same-sex adoption. It is a bill that totally undermines the traditional family unit. It talks about family diversity—and I do not think that any member of this House would say we do not have other types of family in New Zealand today. But a Government has a responsibility to understand that the most successful child-rearing institution ever invented is the traditional nuclear family with a mum and a dad who are married. If we care about kids and if we care about our children doing well then we must support the sort of family unit that in general ensures children do better. This bill does nothing of the sort. What is really disappointing is that it goes further. Not only does it undermine the traditional family but basically it redefines fathers as a drafting error. If dads—separated fathers who are excluded from the lives of their children—think they have had it bad by the time this bill goes through they will have almost nothing. 
Like previous speakers I have talked to many non-custodial parents who cannot even get to see their children. They are whacked in the pocket with huge amounts of child support payments and they cannot even see their children. If they are lucky they will see them maybe once every 3 weeks under a 1-hour supervised access visit—and these are people who often have done absolutely nothing. But their partners have used the system to be able to have power over them and exclude them from the lives of their children. This Government knows all about that issue. Its members were lobbied so hard in the last Parliament that they cannot ignore the fact that so much hurt and anguish is going on out there. This bill has delivered no hope at all to those families and non-custodial parents. 
The real problem in New Zealand is that in this whole area of family law we are now going in exactly the opposite direction from our nearest ally Australia. I know we like to have a healthy relationship of competition with Australia but we have to admit that it is a pretty successful nation. In the area of family law it realised the damage being caused to children and sought to do something about it. Some years ago the Australians opened up their Family Court. They said that an open court meant that families could see what was ahead of them if they chose litigation. The majority actually decide to go through mediation so they do not have the endless costly battles that go on and on and damage children immeasurably. The number of false allegations plummeted—because how can a person make a false allegation when the other partner the family and the grandparents are all sitting there knowing that he or she is lying? 
So Australia has justice in the Family Court and it protects the identity of individuals. It exercises name suppression in general. I see nothing wrong with our Family Court in New Zealand using that model. We have tried so hard to get the Government to look at it yet the provisions in this bill are Clayton’s provisions. It is not opening up the Family Court. The Government is saying: “Yes sure you can have some more family members along.”—and that is good; I am not putting that down—and: “Yes we will publish some of the outcomes of the proceedings.” But they will be censored. We need proper open justice in the Family Court. All of this stuff about protecting identities can be fixed with name suppression. Family Courts around the world have done that. That is the first thing. 
This bill goes in the opposite direction. It pretends to be opening up the court but it does not do anything like it. If members look at the provisions that deal with the fiscal implications they will see that an extra $8 million a year will be spent on more judges more administrators more counsellors bigger database systems more supervised-contact providers—just name it! It is making family law more complex and more costly. There will be a huge increase in legal aid. Is that what New Zealanders want? The answer is no. They want family law to be simpler. They want people to be able to resolve their differences in a friendly fashion not through litigation. This bill will make our family law industry which is already one of the biggest in this country even bigger. 
I say to the Minister sitting over there and to all the other Government members that what they have done in this bill is not right. I hope that the select committee has the courage to make some sensible changes. Today I tabled in the House a petition signed by 600-odd people asking that a select committee look at opening up the Family Court. All we want is for New Zealand to follow the Australian model which works so well. 
The second issue is that the bill fails to address shared parenting. Shared parenting entitles children in the event of a family breakdown the right to frequent ongoing contact with both their mother and their father. In New Zealand we have a presumption of sole maternal custody. Mums get the kids; dads are excluded. We know now because we have had this system for so long that within about 2 years about three-quarters of those children will lose all effective contact with the non-custodial parent. I ask whether we as a nation can afford to have all those children who have gone through the trauma of family breakdown lose the access and support of the other person in the world who loves them more than anybody else plus the grandparents. I say “No”. 
I have been heartened in the last week to hear that the Australian Prime Minister John Howard is saying that his Parliament will have a proper look at shared parenting in Australia. It is looking at introducing it as the predominant family law. I can tell members that if it does that then the outcome of family breakdown will be improved dramatically because in countries such as the United States Sweden and Holland where shared parenting is the law kids do better and families do better. I ask the Government to allow the select committee that considers this bill to look at what goes on in those countries. Everyone will be surprised to see that the outcomes for children are better. 
This bill is called the Care of Children Bill and I that think the House has a responsibility to tackle what is a tough issue. The Government has not done a good job on the bill but I know that with our parliamentary process we can with the will of Parliament improve things. We can make things better. I appeal to Government members on the select committee to take heed of the submissions that come in. Where they think that perhaps the drafting of the bill has gone in the wrong direction then maybe they can change it and maybe New Zealand will end up with family law outcomes we can be proud of—outcomes that will do justice to our children to our families and to this Parliament.