Shanks Katrina: Family Court Proceedings Reform Bill — Second ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeShanks Katrina: Family Court Proceedings Reform Bill — Second Reading[Sitting date: 02 July 2013. Volume:691;Page:11563. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]KATRINA SHANKS (National):It is my pleasure to take a call on the Family Court Proceedings Reform Bill this afternoon. The best outcome for all families who are going through tough times conflict and separation is to find their own solutions define their own resolutions to make them sustainable and enduring for their own families. We know that roughly 90 percent of New Zealanders manage to do that. Their families find their own resolutions and sustainable outcomes. About 10 percent of New Zealanders roughly have to use the Family Court system.For those 10 percent who use it—because they cannot find their own resolutions they need a bit of help—this is where the Government can come in and support these people. What the family dispute resolution does is give them another way to find that resolution. We are doing that by allowing them to stay out of the court system for as long as possible to give them access to parenting courses to allow them to have somebody work with them to see whether they can find some resolution and to resolve some of their conflict and then if they need to to go into the court system and use that court system. Of course there will always be a safety net for those who are vulnerable or at risk to be able to go straight into that court system and use it but this is to assist those people who do not need it straight away.We had about 64000 people in the 2011-12 year who were applicants to the Family Court and we know that 40 percent of those applications were made under the Care of Children Act. So about 26000 applications that went through the Family Court system involved children. We are here today to debate this bill about giving a solution to keep people—families who are in conflict—out of the court system. From all the submissions that we heard one thing that we did hear from those parents who came in to talk to us about their experience was that it is time-consuming—it takes a long time to get through it—and it is very expensive to get through the system. And actually they kept on going back and back and back into the court system. It was not good for the children it wasnot good for their relationships and actually in many instances the outcomes were not sustainable. This bill is to offer an alternative to that—to offer an alternative.Some of the main issues raised through the submission process were the ability to access legal aid; access to lawyers for the child; allowing a screening process for fast tracking those who are vulnerable; the ability to refer parents back to family dispute resolution from the court system so if you have gone through family dispute resolution and you get to the court system the courts can send you back again for more parenting courses or can send you back again to resolution; allowing relationship counselling to be part of the tools for the family dispute resolution; the importance of parenting courses—we heard that over and over again through our submitters how important those parenting courses were—and understanding what the needs of the children are when you are going through. It is not necessarily about the needs of the parents but about the needs of the children and about putting them first when they are making those decisions. The lawyers’ involvement in the family dispute resolution system was what we heard of a lot but then 46 percent of the submitters were lawyers so that was most probably reflective of that. And also we heard of the skills needed in the family dispute resolution system. Who do you need in that process? Do you need an arbitrator? Do you need a dispute resolution person? Every family may be slightly different with slightly different needs. We listened to all these concerns and we addressed them before the bill came back into the House.I think this is a good new system in place to allow families to stay out of the court system for as long as possible. I look forward to the debate in the future. Thank you.