Turei Metiria: Family Court Proceedings Reform Bill — Second ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeTurei Metiria: Family Court Proceedings Reform Bill — Second Reading[Sitting date: 02 July 2013. Volume:691;Page:11543. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]METIRIA TUREI (Co-Leader—Green):Tēnā koe Mr Assistant Speaker. Tēnā koutou e te Whare. Let us just be really clear about who the people are who will be most affected by this Family Court Proceedings Reform Bill and its attack on the rights of New Zealanders to access genuine justice. Because that is what the Family Court has been designed to do: to provide for those most vulnerable New Zealanders particularly women and their children access to a system that can provide them with genuine justice and support particularly in circumstances where their lives and their well-being are threatened.First let us have a look at some of the numbers in this country. One in every three women in this country has suffered some form of psychological or physical abuse from their partners—one in every three. There are around 2.25 million women in this country so we are talking about 750000 women in this country who have suffered from some form of psychological or physical violence at the hands of their life partners. There are 14 women six men and 10 children killed by a family member every year in this country. They are women men and children who are living in unsafe environments in their own home who are killed by a member of their family because they could not escape.The police attend around 200 domestic violence incidents every single day. That is around one incident every 7 minutes in this country—200 a day; one every 7 minutes. That means that a women most likely or a child often as well is in a situation where their life and their well-being are being threatened by someone who most likely lives with them in their own home. The cost to the public purse of these statistics is somewhere around $8 billion a year. Those are the costs of the police. Those are the costs of failed housing because a person has to run—a mother particularly with her children—from an abusive partner. It is the costs of the hospitals dealing with the beatings and the bruises. It is the costs of loss of schooling for the children who are suffering in these circumstances.What institutions do we have that make it possible to help reduce these appalling numbers in this country? What options do women and children have when it comes to finding someone who will help not only with the practical issues of finding somewhere else to live securing an income and getting on with their lives but with making sure that the legal arrangements that they must provide in order for their kids to do well and be settled are available to them? What are those legal avenues open to them? It is the Family Court actually. The Family Court is the only legal avenue for these women and children—some 750000 arguably in this country—who need to know that they have a legal institution that they can go to that is accessible to them that provides justice for them and that provides services for them and their children so that when they are in really difficult circumstances where they fear for their safety and well-being they have some legal protection.So what does this Government do with the institution that is designed to protect these women and these children? What does Judith Collins so-called Minister of Justice do with this institution? She complicates it enormously from the process that is available currently she increases the cost significantly for the women who are trying to access justice and support and she cuts access to legal advice and support for exactly thosewomen. And what does she say? How does she justify this? She justifies this on cost-cutting grounds when she knows—she must know just as I do from the statistics—that it costs about $8 billion a year to deal with the consequences of this kind of family violence that occurs. She must know that the fewer the women who are able to access the Family Court to get justice and real legal protection when they need it the more the cost to the public will increase.But you know she would rather see that $8 billion being spent on fixing up the bruises and repairing the broken bones than on providing counselling sessions or providing a lawyer for the child or making sure that women are able to access free legal advice that they can then use to protect themselves and their kids in the Family Court. She would much rather see that cost being borne by the public overall than make sure that the Family Court is able to provide genuine justice and support to the women families and children who need it the most.This bill is an appalling piece of legislation. We have known that from the start. In fact when the Minister put out the proposals for this review the legal profession was horrified by what she was trying to do because of the cost that their clients would bear not just in money but in terms of the safety and well-being of the clients who desperately need legal support and justice to protect them from some of the worst violence and the worst circumstances.Let us have a look at some of the provisions. It is now going to cost families around $1000 in order to access the compulsory family dispute resolution service. The median-income family in this country has around $2000 in the bank. That is a couple with a couple of kids and they are doing OK right? They have got a couple of thousand dollars maximum in the bank on average. Yet this Government wants to take in effect half of those annual savings that these families have got in the bank in order to pay for family dispute resolution services that have been provided for free in the past and that are asked for and sought because these parents and these families are wanting to find a way to resolve their issues so that they do not continue to bear the costs of a failed relationship or a difficult circumstance.What does Judith Collins do? She makes them pay up. “Give us the cash.” she says. The bureaucratic costs will be imposed on these families. Report writing costs will be imposed on these families. The costs of the lawyer for the child will be imposed on these families. Where do children get access to justice when they do not get access to genuine legal support? Judith Collins has decided to take away legal advice for our most vulnerable citizens. She says that somehow this is a good thing and that it is going to provide better access to genuine justice for children. No it is not. We all know that the whole process of court can be a very complicated one and that it does often need real skill and understanding of how to navigate through any legal process. Yet that has been denied to the women and particularly to the children of this country because Judith Collins has such a mean approach to the real costs that families bear when there is a relationship breakdown.I have said before that the Green Party opposes this legislation and I agree with other colleagues who again have also stated their clear opposition to this legislation. This Government intends to take dollars take money—desperately needed money—from the most vulnerable families while in the process denying them the justice to which they are entitled. She will do it with a smile no doubt and try to sell it as being a good thing for our country and for our kids. At the end of the day the one in three women who we know have suffered some form of abuse by their partners and their children many thousands of their children whom these women are trying to protect from the worst circumstances of domestic violence are the ones who bear the cost of this legislation. It is a disgrace.