Ngaro Alfred: Family Court Proceedings Reform Bill — In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeNgaro Alfred: Family Court Proceedings Reform Bill — In Committee[Sitting date: 18 September 2013. Volume:693;Page:13498. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]ALFRED NGARO (National): I am happy to take a call on this Part 3 of the Family Court Proceedings Reform Bill especially in particular where Miss Ardern talked about wanting to be informed as she was not part of the Justice and ElectoralCommittee. Those of us who were heard submissions and I can talk about the family dispute resolution process. In particular I want to acknowledge the Hon Lianne Dalziel who was part of that. We had a good working relationship. I think we worked well in hearing the submissions and working through and I think we actually came to a good resolution here.I want to talk in particular about how Miss Ardern talked about the voice of the children. Well in actual fact if she had read the back part of the story and if she had been part of the select committee she would have known that Parenting through Separation which is the parenting programme absolutely focuses in particular on ensuring that the voice of the children is heard. But I also want to remind her that she may not have read the back part of the story and I can understand that because she is only reading off the speech notes that she has been given. She was not part of the select committee.So here is the thing. I just want to inform her that in response to serious concerns raised by the court users which included the public the judges the lawyers and counsellors Cabinet directed a review of the court in 2011. Here are some of the key issues that were found. The review found that in addition to the concerns about rapidly rising costs the court lacked sufficient focus on meeting the needs of children and on achieving sustainable durable outcomes for families. This in particular Miss Ardern is the focus of the bill. It found that the court was adversarial placing additional stress on already strained relationships. It was negative for children and not focused enough on the serious cases spent too much time on simple matters and was too complex and this is the essence of this review and in particular this bill as well.I want to focus on the family dispute resolution process. What I think in particular is that this bill establishes a family dispute resolution process that particularly focuses the family justice system towards supporting people to resolve their disputes. It has been unfair—the concerns that have been raised that there is a lack of concern for the needs of the children. In fact this bill does that. It talks about this.I want to pick up on the point around the providers. Mr Little made I think some unfair comments when he was actually there at the select committee. We heard from providers. We had a New Zealand mediation services association come. It talked about its experience its expertise and said that good mediation truly does make a difference. Again all the evidence shows us that in this case we can ensure that families do not need to go through this and as we are saying in this bill it is not for all people. But where there are some who can actually move out of the court process then absolutely the family dispute resolution process can be very beneficial to them as well. We are hearing from officials that there are around about 4000 court applications and roughly around about 2000 children in particular who could benefit from this.I want to also pick up some comments around the issue for family dispute resolution providers. The family dispute resolution providers are very clear that they will be expected to screen parties for safety risks. I know from the Green members that there was some concern about the issue around family violence. We want to ensure that the power imbalances or inability to participate due to illness or disability will be screened and will be picked up as well. Where the family dispute resolution is unsuitable or unsuccessful for people they will still be able to access the court system to resolve their disputes.I also want to pick up that the family dispute resolution will be subsidised for those who meet the financial eligibility threshold. There was some concern that they would not be able to access this. That is not true at all. In fact it is really clear that where they are unable to meet the financial eligibility threshold they will be subsidised in thisconcern as well. For others the cost of the family dispute resolution is likely to be lower than the cost of employing a lawyer and making an application to the court.We think that the family dispute resolution process is a good process. We think that it is not only a process that will help support children and families but in particular this process will be beneficial for the Family Court system.