Newman Muriel: Care of Children Bill — Second Reading 
Newman Muriel: Care of Children Bill — Second Reading 
[Volume:621;Page:16426] 
Dr MURIEL NEWMAN (Deputy Leader—ACT) 
: 
 I rise on behalf of ACT to speak on this Care of Children Bill. I have to say that it is with a great deal of sadness that I take this call. This bill was Labour’s promise to provide justice for children whose families have separated and it has failed to deliver on that promise in spite of assurances made in this House over the last 5 years. We all know that in general children with a mum and a dad overwhelmingly do better than children who do not have access to both their parents—that includes those who have grandparents and wider family members to support them. But at the moment in New Zealand today we have a family law system that ensures that if a family separates then all too often a child is left without an ongoing relationship with his or her non-custodial parent—which overwhelmingly is the father. 
I think it is a chilling fact that more children today lose a father every 3 months in New Zealand because of separation and divorce than lost a father during the entire period of the Second World War. We are perpetrating fatherlessness in this country on a grand scale. It is a tragedy that this Government has not seen fit to do anything at all to turn that situation around. 
I feel that of all the bills I have had to speak on during the time Labour has been in power this one is the most shameful. Here we have a piece of law that will simply carry on the problem. The Labour Government will give all these assurances that the Care of Children Bill will make the situation better but when we read the fine print we see there is no change to the fundamental incentives in our family law that ensure children lose a father on a daily basis. Given all the research that tells us of the effects of fatherlessness on children it is simply a shameful situation in which this Government has failed to act. 
I get quite worked up about these issues because I have brought into this Parliament three member’s bills that have tried to deal with these issues. Each time the Labour Government has refused even to send the bills to a select committee because it has said to this House that it will deal with these issues in its Care of Children Bill. The reality is that it has failed to take on board the heart of these issues. It has failed to take the difficult stances that would mean we could actually make a real difference in this area of social legislation. 
Although I pay tribute the chairman of the Justice and Electoral Committee Tim Barnett who I believe genuinely did his best to try to address some of these issues the point is that he had a Government or a Minister that would not play ball and a Minister who was ideologically opposed to some of the issues that I certainly have been trying to raise. 
The chairman in his contribution said that he—and probably every member in this House—had been moved by the fathers’ groups that had approached him. The fathers’ groups wanted the Government to pass legislation that would not leave them alienated denied access to their children and marginalised as a result. Unfortunately for those fathers’ groups they will hear lots of assurances that things will be better but the reality is that this bill will do nothing to address their desires. 
This bill is Labour’s response to calls to introduce shared parenting in New Zealand. That was one of the members’ bills that Labour voted down. I take this opportunity to remind the House that had this bill included a provision for shared parenting it would have included a rebuttable presumption that just as two parents are equal before a relationship breaks down in their responsibility to their children—whether they both work or whether one stays home to look after the children they are both considered to be equal in the responsibility to their child—so too after a relationship breaks down both parents should be presumed to have equal responsibility to that child unless one parent can prove that the other is not suitable to be a parent. 
 That would mean in effect that the number of cases where a parent has proven to be unsuitable would be in the minority. So both parents after a separation would have equal responsibility to their child. That does not mean equal timeshare or anything like that. It means equal responsibility. In other words they would have to put the well-being and the best interest of their child first which is what our guardianship law is meant to be all about. Rebuttable shared parenting would have put that into our law in a way that would mean that mums and dads would both have to be there to provide ongoing love support and care for their child irrespective of the fact that they no longer live together. 
I ask members when they listen to that whether it is an unreasonable stance or an unreasonable provision to have been brought into this legislation. I say that overwhelmingly the answer should be no. It is common sense. That is why shared parenting is the law in countries like Sweden and Holland why Australia is moving towards it why it is the law in many states in America and why it is a movement that is growing in strength in other countries around the world. It appears to me to be such a shame that the Government could not see the sense in putting that into the legislation which would then have gained the ACT party’s support. 
As it is I remain totally disappointed that the Government could have fixed so many bad things that happen in family law by introducing that presumption but has failed to do so. It would have taken the warfare out of separation and divorce it would have ensured that both parents are responsible for their child in an ongoing way it would have ensured that parents comply with child support it would have taken away the fact that many parents today are like the walking wounded because they are denied any access to their children and it would have ensured that children in New Zealand have the access and support of both parents which many of them do not have today because of our family law. 
Secondly this bill was Labour’s answer to my two member’s bills to open up the Family Court. What do we have in this bill? We have Clayton’s provisions. We have openness in name but not in substance. That is such a shame especially given that two chief family court judges told the select committee that they would be comfortable with whatever level of openness Parliament wanted to vote for and give to the Family Court. 
So we have a situation where we will still have censorship; where lawyers can object to the presence of other members including the press coming into the court; and where there will be name suppression—which to be honest I support at this stage. But what it means is that there will not be full openness in the Family Court so a lot of injustice that currently occurs will be perpetrated by the bill. It is such a shame that the bill does not do what it should have done and it is with great sadness that I say the ACT party opposes it.