Chauvel Charles: Family Court Proceedings Reform Bill — First Reading 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Chauvel Charles: Family Court Proceedings Reform Bill — First Reading 
[Sitting date: 04 December 2012. Volume:686;Page:7030. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
CHARLES CHAUVEL (Labour) 
: 
 There are some real problems with this legislation the Family Court Proceedings Reform Bill. They have been set out I think very ably by a number of groups that have great experience with dealing with the Family Court most notably the existing body of Family Court counsellors and also the family law section of the New Zealand Law Society. What I want to do is just put on record some of the concerns that I have heard from those quarters and from lawyers up and down the country with whom I have met who have real concerns about the way in which the reductions to entitlements which this bill represents to use the Family Court will affect the lives of ordinary New Zealanders. 
We have heard the Acting Minister of Justice talk about the proposed Family Disputes Resolution service. There are many things that commend themselves around that service but one of the problems with it is the cost of accessing it. There is to be a fee of $897 plus GST in order to get through the door. I know that we will hear from Government speakers that there will be waivers available for those who experience financial hardship and who cannot afford to spend the $1000 that it will cost to actually get through the door of the first basic step for the Family Disputes Resolution service. Let us just reflect on that for a moment. The fee is the fee. In order to get around it it will be necessary to apply for a waiver to go to the registrar of the court and to ask essentially for the charity of the State to be exercised in favour of a particular family or family member in trouble. Who knows how many people will have the capacity or the wherewithal to ask for that indulgence? Then when they do what guarantees exist because the statute itself is pretty scant on this as to how the discretion will fall to be exercised? 
When a single person on a benefit with one child earning at the moment $170.80 per week is faced with the need to avail themselves of the Family Court—the court that this Parliament set up in 1981 to be free to access irrespective of imbalances of power in the family relationship irrespective of whether or not children were at risk and needed the protection of the court irrespective of the income levels of their parents—how will vulnerable people be able to still feel that they can access this court with any degree of comfort? That is the fundamental issue that has to be raised right up front. Making access to the Family Court contingent on the party’s ability to pay a fee of over $1000 to get through the door in order to access the initial Family Dispute Resolution service as has been agreed will be the initial step is the first major problem that is going to be faced by people trying to use what has hitherto been a court that has been free to access and not only that has provided six free counselling sessions to people who need to use the services of the court. So if people have relationship difficulties particularly those involving children—and we all know how heart wrenching and how awful those situations can be—at the moment they can go along to the court they will be referred to counselling and they will be able to get up to six sessions without having to pay a charge. 
I want the House to reflect on what a drastic change is being made by this bill. Instead of that system being available which actually deals with so many cases before they even have to go to judicial determination we are now saying no it is going to cost over $1000 to access the Family Disputes Resolution system. It is not going to be free of charge and the reality is that that will simply be a major deterrent for many many people who otherwise would be able to use those excellent existing services. How many children will suffer as a result of being locked out of the system is the question that the House needs to be asking today. How many couples will remain in a miserable relationship situation or simply allow their affairs to lack any legal resolution and simply live in a situation that has no legal sanction to it because they have not been able to afford to go to the court or to formal dispute resolution services and have their problems resolved? That is the tragedy of this legislation. It is mean-spirited and it is unnecessary in terms of where this court needs to go. 
Early on in this process the Minister’s predecessor Simon Power referred the issue of the way in which the Family Court could be improved to the practitioners and stakeholders who had worked in the court for many years. They produced an excellent report. It was presented at a symposium held in the Legislative Council Chamber next door. The Minister at the time Simon Power said “Look this is a really good example of how we can get answers on a consultative basis from people who know the issues know what things are like on the ground in the Family Court and these are reforms that will save money and that we will look to implement.” Well that approach under this Minister has gone out the door. We have this position where the ministry and the Minister will dictate responses and what they say will go. I say that what we are going to see in response to this legislation in the event that it passes in its current form are two things: a go-slow by practitioners who are essential in terms of their cooperation to making the system work and worse a go-slow by the Family Court judges because they are simply not going to be able to cope with the pressures that are going to be put on them by this legislation. 
That brings me to the second major objection that must be taken to this legislation and that is the restriction on representation that this bill will bring about. Basically in respect of a large number of proceedings that will come before the court lawyers are going to be excluded. Everybody likes the idea of excluding lawyers on the face of it. The stereotype is that they just add cost to the system they are going to add complexity and they are going to add difficulty. The reality is that people who are represented in proceedings generally have a better idea of their rights and obligations. They present better documents to the court and they know the sorts of things that have to be said to the judge and the judge is going to have to spend less time disposing of the matter if the parties are represented. The reality is that even if the Minister’s attempts to do away with representation in many cases in the court succeed parties with resources will be able to get good legal advice before they go to the court. They will be able to apprise themselves of their rights and obligations. They will be able to get good documents drawn up—good affidavits—and they will go to the court with a very very good idea of what the process is about. Those who do not have those resources will not be in that position. The reality is that that imbalance of power that we were so careful to keep out of the Family Court will be a reality of the system again. The only way that that will be able to be dealt with in practice is by the judges themselves taking time in each proceeding to make sure that they try to redress that imbalance of power. That is going to mean longer proceedings more delay and more cost. It is not going to save money and this House should not kid itself that it will do so. 
The other major problem with the legislation that needs to be highlighted is the changes that will restrict the ability of the court to appoint lawyers for the child. That is an essential part of the system at the moment. Children do get buffeted by these proceedings. It is essential that they have their own advocate who can speak to their interests rather than the interests of the warring parents. To do away with or to restrict the ability of that appointment will cause major hardship to vulnerable children and it is something that we should be very very concerned about. 
In the context of other cuts to legal aid and in the context of court delays in the system which are now becoming chronic this legislation must be rethought. It is bad legislation for the reasons I have outlined. That does not mean that there are not good features in it—there are one or two that should be persevered with—but the three that I have outlined are major problems. What I want to say is that if the Acting Minister of Justice gets to his feet later and moves a referral motion that means that submissions to the Justice and Electoral Committee will be cut off in February or late January that will make a mockery of the process. We do need to make sure that submitters have proper time—not just the January period when their offices are closed—to make submissions on this incredibly significant and far-reaching bill.