Collins Judith: Family Courts Matters Bill — First Reading 
Collins Judith: Family Courts Matters Bill — First Reading 
[Volume:641;Page:11466] 
JUDITH COLLINS (National—Clevedon) 
: 
 I have been listening with care to the previous speakers. I have to agree with my colleague Simon Power who said that this bill is very important and is not just a technical bill. I note that it relates to and amends 12 other bills concerning children. It is a very significant bill. I note also the comments made about the openness in the Family Court. I think I am correct in saying I am one of the few people in this House who have ever practised any law in the Family Court. I am not sure whether anyone else here has— 
Kate Wilkinson 
: I have. 
JUDITH COLLINS 
: One more member has on our side. I have to say that very rarely is it in my opinion in a child’s best interests for anything to go into the Family Court. I say that not from the point of condemning the parents who cannot agree and everything else but from the fact that at the end of the day the Family Court can help only when parents cannot help themselves. I feel very strongly that the judges in the Family Court do their utmost best to deal with a very very difficult set of circumstances that they face—every day all day. Frankly I would rather be in this place on a really bad day than in their place on a really good day because I do not think they get many good days. I would like to make a comment with the leave of the House—I know it is not usual to refer particularly to a judge—to commend the Principal Family Court Judge Peter Boshier for the work he has done across parties to enable this legislation to be brought forward. He knows this legislation is very important particularly in relation to openness in the Family Court. 
As the National Party’s family spokesperson amongst my other roles I have quite a lot of occasion to deal with issues relating to the Family Court. Unfortunately the closed nature of the court made it always appear to people who were not satisfied—and let us just accept that at least one party is never going to be satisfied in the Family Court—that there was some form of conspiracy going on to prevent them from having what it is that they wanted. Some people may in fact have got completely offside with the court completely offside with the judge reacted in a somewhat hysterical way and maybe were right to feel offside and that they were never going to get a fair go. This bill at least gives those people the opportunity for a form of openness which I hope will be to the benefit of those parties who go there—in particular to their children—and not a detriment to them. 
I note the Minister said that about only 5 percent of matters that are filed in the Family Court are ever finished in the Family Court. Well I thought it was more like 6 percent. So hopefully that is an improvement. I also note that some matters never finish in the Family Court because frankly they never finish! They keep going on year after year and the Family Court is used as some sort of arena in which gladiators turn up. I note the concerns of the Principal Family Court Judge that there be more formality in the Family Court; so there should be. For the people who constantly go back and forth into the Family Court asking for changes of this that and the other thing very little of it is about the actual rights and betterment of children; mostly it is about power and control frankly. Those people do not respect the Family Court and they generally do not respect the judges of the Family Court. They have become familiar and that familiarity has brought a contempt. Unfortunately it has proven absolutely important for the Family Court to say: “Look this is a court of law. It is not a kumbiya session although we can do those too. It is a very serious issue and the fact that you are in front of a court today means that you have not been able to resolve as adults matters generally in the best interests of your children.” Whether it is about access issues custody or care of children or whether it is about matrimonial property they are all issues that involve children when there are children in the families because it is the children who pay. 
There is a tremendous amount of legal aid that is paid out in the Family Court area. I would really like to see the day—and this is not going to win me too many votes in my legal fraternity—when people can actually feel free to attend at the Family Court for mediation and assistance on a matter without having to feel that they have to file proceedings and affidavits which effectively ruin any chance in many ways of their ever having a decent relationship. I have seen affidavits prepared and sent to me for witnessing by others that are patently untrue. I have had to say: “I am sorry. I do not believe this. Is this true?”. I remember quite clearly a woman who turned up in my office in Auckland one day bearing an affidavit about how she was frightened of her ex-husband how she needed these protection orders and everything else and how she needed to stay in the house. I just said: “Is this true?”. She said: “No.” So I asked her why she had the affidavit. She said she had been told that if she did not say this then she would not be able to get him kicked out of the house. Frankly that is illegal activity. That woman was prepared to perjure herself and it was not that the lawyer had told her to say that. It was her friend who had told her to say that. Her friend had obviously been party to a particularly bitter matrimonial dispute and was full of brilliant advice. The brilliant advice could have landed that woman on a perjury charge. But we know those of us who have practised in this area that there would have been an absolutely zero likelihood of that ever happening because once the allegation of domestic violence had been made against the husband he would be tarred with that brush for ever. In fact maybe that is what has to happen but it seems to me that there can be in fact and often is an abuse of that court process. 
I have seen that abuse of the court process used in terms of getting legal aid. I have seen that from my time when I was on the legal aid subcommittee of the Auckland District Law Society approving legal aid applications. I have seen applications made where I felt that they were in fact being made on the basis of a way to get legal fees paid rather than for the betterment of the people involved. The dispute was not necessarily about domestic violence—it was in fact about property—but this was a way of getting instant legal aid granted. 
When we see these abuses coming through I think we need to be able to say that it is not OK. Hopefully the opening up of the Family Court to a limited degree will give judges the opportunity to be able to say in a reasonably open court setting what they think of this behaviour. At the moment judges do not really get a chance to say anything much in open court. They do not get the opportunity for instance to say that Child Youth and Family has completely failed to bring forward a social worker report as required by a judge. They do not get a chance to say that because it happens all of the time and I note my colleague Mrs Tolley agreeing. It is absolutely true. The judges want to have openness in the court and part of the reason is that they want to open up the court to the disinfectant of the sunlight. In other words they want to be able to say why things take so long. They want to be able to show some adults the mirror so they can see how their behaviour is destroying their children. They want to be able to say to people: “Look we’re just the ambulance at the bottom of the cliff; don’t blame us give us the chance to do the right thing but let us do it so you see the work that we do.” 
I commend this bill to the House. I am very pleased that I am the deputy chair of the Social Services Committee so that I can be one of the members who looks at this bill. I am sure it will be a very very well attended hearing or many series of hearings and I look forward to be able to help this law become better law.