Smith Murray: Care of Children Bill — In Committee Procedure 
Smith Murray: Care of Children Bill — In Committee Procedure 
[Volume:621;Page:16697] 
MURRAY SMITH (United Future) 
: 
 This bill to my mind reflects the Labour Party’s term of Government. It started off with some promise but as it has gone on through the last 2 years it has deteriorated. We have had legislation such as the Prostitution Reform Bill and the Civil Union Bill where the Government has started to introduce the social engineering that is so damaging to our society. We also have examples like the Supreme Court Bill and now the Foreshore and Seabed Bill where the Government rushes things through Parliament contrary to widespread public opinion. We have just seen that occur with regard to clause 37 of the Care of Children Bill. 
The bill starts off with very nice-sounding principles. They are ones that United Future welcomes although I suggested in Supplementary Order Paper 294 in my name on Part 2 that they do not go far enough. Nevertheless those principles reflect the important role that parents have in their children’s lives. New clause 4A states that the child’s parents and guardians should have the primary responsibility for the child’s care. Further on the bill states that there should be continuity in the arrangements for the child’s care and that the child’s relationships with his or her family group whanau hapu or iwi should be stable and ongoing. That is excellent. It refers to both of the parents. It states that the child’s care and upbringing should be facilitated by his or her parents and guardians and by all persons exercising that role. It also states that relationships between the child and members of his or her family should be preserved and strengthened. Those are really noble principles so the bill starts off fine. 
But by the time we get to the end of the bill we find that it has degenerated into situations that are nothing like those concerning the care of children and they are totally contrary to what is in the best interests of children. So the Care of Children Bill should be renamed “The Care of Children (but only if consistent with our PC social engineering ideology) Bill”. That is effectively what happens because as soon as anything that is in the best interests of the child gets in the way of the ideology of this Government then the Government moves away from that and follows its ideology even though that will be damaging to families to parents’ relationships with their children and to the children themselves. United Future is strongly opposed to this bill for that reason. In this bill the Government has moved away from fine principles and has started into those other things. 
The obvious example of that is the debate we had last night on clause 37 and the Government’s refusal to interfere with the secret abortions that go on whereby nobody knows that an abortion has happened except the doctor and the girl concerned. Parents do not know about abortions and that has serious consequences for their children. I quoted an example of a rape situation that fortunately did not result in a pregnancy but did result in sexually transmitted diseases and serious psychological harm to the daughter. The parents did not know about the rape and were not told about it because the misguided codes of ethics of the medical practitioners’ bodies state that privacy rights extend to not telling parents what is going on in the lives of their young children. That is reprehensible but there is nothing that this Government is prepared to do about that. It thinks it is just fine that parents do not know about the serious consequences that happen to their children. 
I was just rereading my  
Hansard 
 notes about the case I mentioned that happened earlier this year. A girl was raped and the parents did not know about that. Let us think about the distress of those parents who were left in a situation where they had a girl who had changed in her behaviour and who was clearly affected by certain situations. There were bizarre situations when the girl was in a restaurant and she would suddenly flip out and the parents had absolutely no idea what was causing that. They were at their wits’ end. They came to the conclusion that it could only be the result of the school environment. They got to the point of thinking that they had to do something and about what they could do so they thought they would withdraw the girl from her school and put her in another school—that maybe there was a problem at school. Only then when they approached the school about that after having been distressed for 2 months about the girl’s attitude were they told that in fact their daughter had been raped. 
I think that is absolutely reprehensible. When this Government allows that sort of thing to happen without the parents having any right to know what is happening then it is moving right away from the care of children and from a situation where the best interests and welfare of the child are paramount to a situation where it is prepared to protect doctors and allow that sort of thing to go on. It is prepared to protect criminals. That was a criminal offence—the rape of a girl. Yet the medical profession did not even report it to the police. Nor did the school report it to the police. That is a reprehensible situation. 
United Future will not support this bill. 
LYNNE PILLAY (Labour—Waitakere) 
: 
 I move  
That the question be now put 
.