King Annette: Family Courts Matters Bill — Second Reading 
King Annette: Family Courts Matters Bill — Second Reading 
[Volume:646;Page:15586] 
Hon ANNETTE KING (Minister of Justice) 
 on behalf of the  
Minister for Courts 
: I move  
That the Family Courts Matters Bill be now read a second time. 
 The Family Courts Matters Bill is an omnibus bill that extends the openness of the Family Courts introduces non-judicial mediation makes a number of other useful improvements and tidies up legislation designed to improve processes and procedures in the Family Courts. 
A number of further changes to the bill were considered by the Social Services Committee and I acknowledge the committee’s work which has resulted in a number of useful improvements to the bill. The bill extends the openness of the Family Court along the same lines as those provided under the Care of Children Act. It was proposed that anyone could publish reports of proceedings unless a child or a vulnerable person was involved in the proceedings. A provision then allowed a child or a vulnerable person to publish a report provided the publication did not include identifying information on other children or vulnerable persons. After considering submitters’ concerns that children and vulnerable persons may be manipulated or may not understand the longer-term implications of their decision that provision was removed from the bill and will remain a court decision. 
This bill amends 12 different Acts. When the bill was introduced there were separate provisions in many of those Acts dealing with who could report on proceedings and general provisions in the Family Courts Act or other Family Court legislation. The reporting provisions are now to be consolidated into the Family Courts Act which will make it easier for people to find and comply with them. Another change to the bill made at the select committee was to split the counselling and non-judicial mediation provisions between the Care of Children Act and the Family Proceedings Act. It is now proposed that the new and existing provisions for counselling and non-judicial mediation in respect of care arrangements for children are to be solely in the Care of Children Act and those regarding relationship counselling are to be in the Family Proceedings Act. 
For the purpose of reporting proceedings the definition of “child” is amended to refer to people under 18 years of age as the definition was not intended to refer to someone between the ages of 18 and 20 who is married in a civil union or in a de facto relationship. 
The bill extends the existing provisions in relation to counselling through the Family Court to cover others involved in a child’s care such as grandparents or other family members who may now take part in counselling. The bill also introduces non-judicial or family mediation as an alternative means for parents to resolve their disputes without judicial involvement. Research tells us that mediation reduces conflict and enables families to reach agreements that are likely to be more flexible and durable than judicial decisions. Support people are able to attend the mediation and children can also attend with the agreement of the mediator. 
During the select committee process the Government considered the need for counselling for children and it made several recommendations to the committee. The committee agreed to all the Government’s proposals and those recommendations are now part of the bill. Three new provisions take a targeted approach to the provision of counselling for children. The first of those is to take better account of the views of children. The bill proposes that where parents agree children may speak with a counsellor about what is important to them and what they would like their parents to know when they are making decisions about their care. The participation of children in this will be voluntary as not all children will feel comfortable about participating in this process. The second type of counselling for children is to help those children who are taking part in family mediation. Children will be able to speak with a counsellor prior to mediation to help them to formulate and clarify their views. Finally counselling may be necessary in a small number of cases where the child has an exceptional need of assistance in accepting the terms of a court order or would have difficulty in complying with the order. 
I want to raise one matter that is outside the scope of the bill but that has attracted some interest. It is the question of whether parentage testing to establish paternity should be compulsory. As the Government has said previously paternity testing is a complex issue. There are questions about the extent to which adults and children should be forced to undergo a DNA test against their will about the counselling and support that is needed to help people to make decisions to undergo testing and deal with any adverse consequences from a parentage test and about the impact paternity testing has on informal adoptions. The Government has said it supports compulsory parentage testing in principle subject to further policy consideration. However the Family Courts Matters Bill is not the appropriate vehicle to implement what would be a significant policy change. I note that Judy Turner has recently introduced her Family Proceedings (Paternity Orders and Parentage Tests) Amendment Bill and members will have the opportunity to consider parentage-testing issues in that context. 
I also take this opportunity to signal my intention to introduce two Supplementary Order Papers. The first addresses two matters related to Family Court - directed supervised contact. The second enables the appointment of senior Family Court registrars. Government funding for supervised contact was introduced in the Care of Children Act 2004. The Supplementary Order Paper inserts new sections in the Domestic Violence Act in order to enable supervised contact to be funded in the same way as it is under the Care of Children Act. The other proposal is to allow Family Courts to approve supervised-contact providers in order to meet the demand for services in their region. 
The second Supplementary Order Paper enables the appointment of senior Family Court registrars. This change has arisen as a consequence of submissions from the Law Commission and Family Court judges. Currently judges spend a significant amount of time performing administrative work deflecting their ability to concentrate on case management and other matters requiring their expertise and authority. I propose that a new role is established called the senior Family Court registrar. Senior Family Court registrars will hold quasi-judicial powers that will be broadly set out in the Act with detailed provisions set out in regulations. Any appeal from any decision of a senior Family Courts registrar will be heard by a Family Court judge. Senior Family Court registrars are expected to have a positive impact on the performance of the Family Courts by alleviating current pressures on judicial resources and ensuring applications are dealt with more quickly especially in the smaller courts. 
The Family Court emphasises the importance of parents putting aside their grievances with each other in order to ensure the best long-term outcome for their children. The courts already provide a range of free services and information to assist parents to resolve disputes themselves including counselling programmes and mediation. I am confident that this bill will further enhance the Family Courts and improve public understanding of how they operate by making it easier for people to publish reports of proceedings while still protecting the privacy of children and vulnerable people. It will support people to resolve their disputes through counselling and mediation and to take better account of the needs of children by involving them in counselling and mediation where appropriate. I commend this bill to the House.