Jones Dail: Care of Children Bill Status of Children Amendment Bill — Third Readings 
Jones Dail: Care of Children Bill Status of Children Amendment Bill — Third Readings 
[Volume:621;Page:16719] 
DAIL JONES (NZ First) 
: 
 On behalf of New Zealand First I say we oppose this legislation which has failed to consider the major issue affecting the Family Court and that is the way in which domestic violence orders coupled with interim custody orders result in usually the father of a child not seeing the child for a considerable length of time. Often if he does get the opportunity of seeing that child it is in a situation of supervised access in the company of some of the heaviest people in this country—and I mean “heavy” in all its shapes and forms. It is not good that the child has to go to such a centre and see those types of people. 
The Government trumpeted far and wide that this legislation was going to solve all the problems of the Family Court. Clearly that has proved to be wrong. It does not. Even the Associate Minister of Justice today confessed that there needs to be more legislation to try to overcome the problems of the Family Court. One wonders why we have wasted our time on this legislation when today Mr Benson-Pope said that more legislation is needed and more work needs to be done on the Family Court. This legislation has probably cost the country somewhere around $15 million when one takes in to account the time of members and all the studies that have taken place to give effect to it. 
I was reminded today by the Hon Brian Donnelly that after I believe a member’s bill with regard to shared parenting came into the House in about the year 2000 New Zealand First took the matter up with the appropriate Minister. He promised that as a result of that bill and New Zealand First’s suggestions there would be further legislation and this legislation is the result but it is not the legislation we would have hoped for at the time. 
When the Associate Minister introduced this legislation he made comments that the welfare of the child would now be paramount and would have to be the first and paramount consideration—as if that was never before the case. Of course he has been learning on the job but that has been in the law since probably 1926. He also trumpeted the fact that for the first time in his understanding for the purposes of the welfare of a child and regardless of a child’s age there would be no presumption that the placing of a child in the custody of a particular person will because of the sex of that person best serve the welfare of that child. He thought that was new but it came in during 1980 during the 9-year period when I was in the House. So this Minister has absolutely no idea what he is doing. I do not blame him. He has no experience in the area of the Family Court. He is not even a lawyer. There are a number of lawyers in the Labour Party caucus but none of them has much court experience so would not know much about the Family Court. As far as this Minister is concerned he has shown that he is hopelessly at sea in this area. 
The Labour member who spoke before me somehow made a comparison between a child with tonsillitis telling her parent about it and a girl having got herself pregnant telling her parent about it. 
Jill Pettis 
: We do not get ourselves pregnant. 
DAIL JONES 
: Actually that does happen today. Women do make themselves pregnant using artificial means. 
Hon Annette King 
: They have to have approval to do that. 
DAIL JONES 
: No they do not. Two women who were living with a male person appeared before the select committee and I incidentally mentioned that I thought that might be polygamous as far as the male person was concerned but no that is not polygamous today—although the Labour member has got upset about it. Those two women used a non-sexual means to get themselves pregnant and they did it themselves. So I do not think the Minister of Health is fully understanding of what happens in our communities today. It is a very depressed depraved community that is out there today. 
If a girl has tonsillitis which is a minor thing she can tell her mother about it but the Labour member Moana Mackey says that if she is pregnant and is thinking of an abortion that is not so important and therefore she does not have to tell her mother. She has got it all twisted and that is the problem with the Labour Party members. A group of members of that party are deeply involved in social engineering and their whole policy around this legislation is based on what we call gender bending. Those members support the mother being the father of a child and the father being the mother of a child. Although the Opposition got rid of clause 17(2) in this respect—we managed to get it taken out—the Labour Party members refused to amend section 14(2) in clause 167 which makes it clear that the mother could be the father of the child. I moved an amendment to delete the reference to the mother being the father of the child and to make it clear that the mother could only be the mother of the child but the Labour Party members voted against that. 
Labour wants women to be males. It wants mothers to be fathers. It wants fathers to be mothers. That is what we referred to. That is a fact. Labour was very embarrassed about it in the first instance and forgot about that particular provision until I brought it to the attention of members. I did so not because of my very conservative—one might say—viewpoint. The amendment had been suggested by the Auckland District Law Society subcommittee which said that the provision in the legislation was insensitive. That was a very nice way for lawyers to say that it was a form of gender bending—something that most normal people would not accept but something that the Labour Government wants to have. It would not accept the suggestion of the Auckland District Law Society subcommittee put forward by me that those words should be removed from the legislation. That is the way in which Labour works today. It has no regard for normal family relationships. 
During the Committee stage the Labour member Moana Mackey asked me what normal was. She did not know what normal was. She had to ask me what normal was. As far as New Zealand First and all normal people are concerned normal is a man and a woman and man means man and woman means woman and they are that. Normal means a normal male-female family life. There can be occasions where that is not the case and some excellent people came before the select committee such as a lesbian family who were bringing up a child and I am sure they do a very good job. And I am sure there are situations where what I would refer to as a normal way of life is totally unsatisfactory for the child—I do not deny that. But a normal way of life is meant to be a man and a woman and their children but Moana Mackey obviously does not understand that. I am not surprised her being a member of the Labour Party. 
During the Committee stage amendments were put to clause 37 and they have been touched on by me already. As it happens in 1977 I voted against the equivalent of clause 37. Three of us voted to have that provision removed that day. I am pleased to say that since that time there has been a vast improvement in the attitude of members of the House because 22 voted against it the other night. I suppose if I came back often enough and live long enough clause 37 might one day be repealed. From my point of view that is an interesting statistic that shows that Parliament has a slightly more conservative tinge to it than was the case way back in 1977. We think of previous Parliaments as being more conservative but I am very confident that this Parliament is what one would call in normal parlance a more conservative Parliament than was the case on that occasion. 
This legislation could have been a lot better. It could only have been a lot better. It has failed to take into account the largest problem before the Family Court. I tried to make some amendments from time to time and I am pleased that the Government did take note of one or two of my suggestions. At the same time I tried to make sure that amendments were made to the legislation that would help to make it better—based on all the knowledge that the members of the committee had. It is regrettable that we have spent all this time and money on Family Court legislation that when it goes back to the Family Court will probably cause confusion. I refer to areas such as what is really meant by a parenting order what really is a day-to-day order and how does one work out some sort of interim arrangement for those situations as well. This is unfortunate legislation it is poor legislation and New Zealand First opposes it.