Newman Muriel: Amended Answers to Oral Questions — Question No. 4 to Minister; Family Courts (Openness of Proceedings) Amendment Bill — First Reading 
Newman Muriel: Amended Answers to Oral Questions — Question No. 4 to Minister; Family Courts (Openness of Proceedings) Amendment Bill — First Reading 
[Volume:618;Page:13895] 
Dr MURIEL NEWMAN (Deputy Leader—ACT) 
: 
 What an amazing contribution that was! The people who should be ashamed of themselves are those Labour Government members who supported by the Green party will fail to send this bill to a select committee in spite of its importance. I suggest that this bill should go to the Justice and Electoral Committee. It has been dealing with the issues of openness in the Family Court for some months now as it has gone through deliberations on the Care of Children Bill. It is in a very good position to deal with the very important issues that this bill raises. 
When Chief Family Court Judge Boshier came in front of the committee he suggested to members that the proper vehicle to deal with the issue of openness was not the Care of Children Bill—all that can do is tweak the rules that already exist—but that the issue needed its own bill. Here is its own bill right now. We have heard from the Government that it wants to wait for the Law Commission to do something later on in the future. I say that that puts the issue on the never-never. We want an open Family Court to be debated looked at and looked into by a select committee right now. New Zealand deserves that. All those families out there who know the problems with the Family Court and who are victims of the Family Court and all those children who are suffering because of the Family Court need to know that Parliament is taking this issue seriously and will send this bill to a select committee. 
Under this bill judges will retain the power to control their courts—to essentially close the court on a case-by-case basis and to suppress the names and identities of individuals. But the whole being if one likes of the court is the presumption that it will change from being closed to being open. That is the key change this bill makes just as select committees used to be closed at one time until that presumption was changed and now they are open. That is simply the core change that this bill will introduce. 
The benefit is that we will see transparency in the whole family law area. We will see a reduction in the number of cases coming before the court. We will see a reduction in the cost to the taxpayer and the cost of legal aid in this very fraught area—in which as we know every year the costs have been increasing. We will see a reduction in the warfare that goes on between separating couples as they look ahead and say to themselves: “Shivers we can see the fights we will have in the courts so therefore let’s go to mediation.” At the moment those couples do not know. Many couples stumble into litigation because they cannot see what is in store for them. I suggest that if many of them could see the problems ahead they would opt to mediate. That means the warfare that children get involved in will diminish and the number of false allegations that are made in the Family Court will go down as well. 
A lot of has been said about the need for private affairs not to be aired in public. We know that Family Courts are very small courts. The number of members of the public who could attend would probably be just a handful. We are not talking about masses of people going along. In fact the Family Court is open for many of the cases it deals with and the judges told us that nobody ever comes and no media ever attend. I suggest that this is a red herring. The point is that if people have private affairs that they want to keep private and if the Family Court is open then they should sort them out in private. 
Today the Labour Government has the chance to do something right. It has the chance to send an important issue to a select committee to signal to New Zealand that it is taking this issue seriously and that it wants to do the best thing for the future of New Zealand. If it votes this bill down then it is signalling once again its arrogance and its desire and determination not to care about the issues that affect so many families and alienate so many children. 
I want the Minister to remember that if the bill is sent to a committee and we have a truly open court child abuse in New Zealand will go down. If for no other reason that Government should see that this is a very important mechanism to try to improve an area in New Zealand that is a shame to all of us. I urge the Government to send this bill to a select committee.