SpeechSIMON O'CONNOR (National—Tāmaki): I want to prefix my comments to say that we are supporting this bill as we actually have done pretty much most of the justice bills in the most recent sitting of the House and I'll come back to that a little bit within the scope of course of this debate. But to acknowledge the member Vanushi Walters who has just resumed her seat and who chairs the Justice Committee it was an important piece of work and it's one of those moments when we're actually working with colleagues across the House—also acknowledging Dr Emily Henderson and her view and expertise—really teasing out some of the difficult issues and I think coming to a good conclusion in and of itself. So again I want to say quite clearly that we support this bill but the caveat is like it was last week that we feel on this side of the House that it's a little bit of window dressing. If you wanted to use a very poor analogy of running a half marathon this is like a 100-metre dash at the moment. It doesn't go far enough. We have a fundamental set of problems within the court system and I'm not referring to judicial activism; I'm just referring to the structure of the courts and the delays that we see. At the moment there are fundamental and systemic problems which need to be addressed. Yes this bill goes a little way to assist. It's certainly not going to make things worse but I would argue it's not going to make them exceptionally better either.What this in effect does this Family Court (Family Court Associates) Legislation Bill is it creates a new role of Family Court Associate (FCA). They sit with a little bit more powers than the registrar but not the same powers as a Family Court judge. Now I'm not going to disambiguate that but you do have to ask the question: the fact that it's just sort of blending roles you go Well why not just appoint more judges?" What is the problem that we have here? Or do we need more registrars? Why are we just sort of going down the middle now? I'm not arguing against these again. I think they will hold a particularly good role. As I said the previous speakers touched on some of the elements which are a debate about what this associate could or could not do. But there's just a hint to me of just that little bit of bureaucracy just that little bit—I'm sort of not so much struggling as trying to find the right words just to articulate that we aren't quite nailing this. Because fundamentally it's sidestepping some of the key issues within our court and certainly in the Family Court system. I don't want to play one court off the other but as a constituent MP—and it doesn't actually matter if we're a constituent or a list MP as most of us know what it's like having to deal with people who are struggling with the Family Court and the huge delays there and that emotional pressure it's putting on families and children. So again it's positive—it's positive to a degree that there is this piece of legislation but as we continue to say it really isn't the solution required. And the encouragement from this side of the House is for the Government to do more. An example of that is utilise technology more often and better. Yep let's create this Family Court Associate which sort of is not quite a judge but a little bit more powerful than a court registrar. Well why not actually look at ways that we can speed up the process? We're not really sure that even with these new associates in play we're going to see much change in the timing. So we'll wait and see and I'll be very happy to be proven wrong if these FCAs these associates see a real increase in speed in the Family Court. Well you know figuratively speaking I'll eat my hat and gladly. But I just want to repeat particularly for those at home that we support the bill but it's a little bit like the bills we had last week around criminal proceeds and around some targeting gangs. Again they in themselves were not bad pieces of legislation and I and the National Party were happy to support them. They just really aren't going far enough when we have a whole series of situations that we do. I don't wish to take up more time in the House than is necessary and I end therefore where I started: National is pleased to support this bill."