Ghahraman GolrizGOLRIZ GHAHRAMAN (Green): Thank you Madam Speaker. I rise to commend this bill to the House. I come at this from a previous life working in part for Action for Children and Youth Aotearoa (ACYA) which was—it continues to be without me—the organisation that submits the shadow report or the non-governmental report to the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child. So the Government gets to submit its report and we also get a non-governmental report which means that that umbrella organisation—with member organisations as far-reaching as nurses unions and the Post Primary Teachers' Association as well as Unicef—gets to present a detailed research report that we used to put together over three years with consultation and with a human rights - based lens to the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child. And I can say this: throughout the last two terms of the National Party Government when I was the policy consultant for ACYA youth justice and the Family Court system were the main breach areas that we would raise again and again based on sector consultation with the United Nations body so that they could put that to successive Ministers. And our focus was the rights and wellbeing of children. So I commend this bill with a mind to the kind of work that the Family Court does which very intimately—and in some cases in very desperate situations—impacts the rights and wellbeing of New Zealand children and young people. So we're dealing with custody and access we're dealing with abuse we're dealing with serious serious issues. I can say that the bill does go some way to solving those problems and that I am shocked and surprised by the last National Party speaker Simon O'Connor who said that this doesn't go far enough—because all it does is really kind of fix the damage that was done back then: the things that slowed down the Family Court system the things that took away the child rights expertise the youth advocacy and essentially the access to justice that we want to see in all of our courts and justice system institutions. So yes it goes some way to upgrade the efficacy and the efficiency and the timeliness of decisions and processes in the Family Court. That's good; we need to do that. We need to better resource all institutions all processes that touch upon New Zealanders' rights and ability to access decisions that impact on their wellbeing and their rights. We have a saying in the rights-based system that Justice delayed is justice denied" and certainly for very young people who are in large part accessing the Family Court system that's redoubled because we know that time means a lot more when you are a wee young person. If you have a decision delayed in terms of access to a primary caregiver—or any caregiver—if you have a decision that's wrongfully made without your input perspective or wellbeing taken into account and you're waiting for an appeal or hearing and you are a small person of four years old and you have to wait two years then you're six; that's actually quite a long time in developmental time and it's quite a long time for those whānau to wait. So efficiency is a big big deal. And it's a big big deal in terms of our ability as a nation to say that we actually serve the rights of the child but also that we serve families. I do want to say that far far more needs to be done. And I do want to say that actually the Opposition needs to come to the table with not just a little bit supporting this but acknowledging the absolute wrong that was done. So this is a good bill but we need this House of Representatives to come to the table and talk about resourcing the Family Court resourcing youth advocates and to acknowledge that we need an expert body with the training and the focus on the rights and wellbeing of children and young people but also on processes that serve our families society and communities.We need it to acknowledge that much as we don't want to acknowledge it we live in a society in Aotearoa New Zealand that deals with a disproportionate rate of family and domestic and gender-based violence for example. And so delay is not OK. A lack of partnership with community-based organisations that speak to those issues is not OK and that takes resource; that takes a willingness to listen to the sector and it takes a willingness to prioritise the work of our very first Minister for the Prevention of Family and Sexual Violence the Hon Marama Davidson. So when those really difficult truths come to light we need to have courage as a society to shine the light into the little dark corners of our culture and our society that we don't want to look at but do exist and say we're going to solve this problem. We're going to do that with resource we're going to do that with legislation and we're going to do that by acknowledging the truth that it's been delayed for too long and that we need to partner with organisations that have been telling us what we need to do for a long time. And we need to acknowledge whether we are in the National Party or in the Government party—which is Labour right now—that sometimes mistakes have been made. That's what this bill does which I commend but I do want us to do far more and that takes a moment of listening acknowledging and in fact prioritising the work of the Family Court which in some cases is some of the most essential work that will be done in a child's or a young person's life. So I commend the bill but I implore us as a lawmaking body to do far more and to have the courage it takes to make systems change."