Simpson Scott: Care of Children Law Reform Bill — First ReadingText is subject to correctionSimpson Scott: Care of Children Law Reform Bill — First Reading[Sitting date: 23 October 2013. Volume:694;Page:14237. Text is subject to correction.]SCOTT SIMPSON (National—Coromandel): The sponsor of this Care of Children Law Reform Bill Jacinda Ardern has nominated the Justice and Electoral Committee to scrutinise the bill should it pass this first reading. Therefore as chairman of the committee it falls to me to have a first go at what can really be described only as a very sloppy and lazy member’s bill by this member.The purpose of this bill on the face of it is to facilitate an evidence-based modernisation of the law relating to the care of children in New Zealand. The bill if passed would require the Minister of Justice to request the Law Commission to review the law relating to the care of children in New Zealand including preparation of a draft bill. The Government is absolutely aware of issues surrounding adoption legislation and the Government has identified this as clearly an area for potential review. A review of the Adoption Act is on the Government’s work programme.But at a practical level adoptions currently in New Zealand function pretty well. Most adoptions are open adoptions and there is a much-reduced demand for closed adoptions these days. As the sponsor of the bill indicated same-sex adoptions can now be dealt with under both the Adoption Act and of course the recently passed Marriage (Definition of Marriage) Amendment Act which makes it clear that the term “spouse” absolutely includes a same-sex spouse.The background to this bill according to the sponsor is that in the year 2000 the Law Commission produced a reportAdoption and its Alternatives: A Different Approach and a New Framework and Parliament then enacted some of the report’s recommendations when it enacted the Care of Children Act in 2004. The Care of Children Act replaced the outdated Guardianship Act 1968. It firmly centred all decision making around the care of children on the principle—the very firm principle—that the interests of the child must be regarded as the paramount consideration when making decisions affecting children’s care health and well-being.However adoption was left out of that Act so therefore this bill would require the Law Commission to update the 2000 report and the 2004 Act on the basis of subsequent relevant developments and then this bill would require that the report back from theLaw Commission be presented by the Minister of Justice to the House of Representatives with its recommendations as a draft bill. This is in complete contradiction to the work already being undertaken by the Government on the care of children by way of the Family Court reforms and the work being done by the Ministry of Social Development in terms of its reforms.So as I said earlier if this bill were passed it would require the Minister to request the Law Commission to review the law relating to the care of children in New Zealand. Doing so would involve the preparation of a draft bill and the reality is that there are very few stranger adoptions in New Zealand these days—in fact fewer than 100 a year. So I think that although most New Zealanders would support the modernisation of our adoption laws they are as one commentator has said “literally a relic from the 1950s.”But I am very aware that in contrast to this once-over-lightly bill that is being presented by Ms Ardern the Green MP Kevin Hague has actually done a very significant and substantial piece of work and has a bill in the ballot on this very matter. His bill remains in the ballot. It is a hugely complex area. It is emotional and it has huge impacts on people’s lives. Just identifying the key policy issues is itself quite a task but if Jacinda Ardern genuinely wants to make a real contribution to serious and meaningful law reform in this area then she needs to put in a bit of serious work. This bill that she has put forward is basically little more than a legislative request for the Government to do something. It is not a solution; it is not even an attempt at a solution. The sponsoring member has acknowledged in her opening speech that it is an unusual unique approach and that it is.This bill is a very light piece of work. Essentially it requires the Minister to ask the Law Commission to review the law relating to the care of children and update its September 2000 report on adoption. It requires the Law Commission to report within 12 months with a report recommendations and indeed a draft piece of legislation and further it requires the Minister of Justice to introduce that bill as drafted by the Law Commission without amendment within 7 days—without amendment within 7 days. So there are significant constitutional flaws in this member’s bill. There are absolutely shabby constitutional issues that the member clearly has not addressed or even thought about.The first major flaw with this very sloppily drafted piece of legislation is that if passed under this bill there would probably be no law change for at least 4 years or more. Let us just have a look at the likely timings. A select committee would take about 6 months or more to give this member’s bill consideration given the looming summer break ahead of us. Then there would need to be a second and a third reading—that would easily take a further 3 months or more. Then the Law Commission itself would need to draft its report and that would take at least a year—probably longer. Then of course once it came back from the Law Commission under instruction the Government bill would have to have its first reading scheduled and that could take up to another 12 months. Then there would be a select committee process which would be another 6 months or more. Then there would be a second and a third reading and at least another 3 months after that.So the problem is that the member sponsoring this bill is essentially trying to use her member’s bill to get the Law Commission to write her bill for her. That is sloppy. That is lazy. It is a lazy approach. It is politically lazy—it is politically lazy—and it is intellectually lazy. It is symptomatic of what we so often see on the Opposition benches. We see that the members of the far left the socialist side of the House make a lot of noise but they do not offer any solutions and then they ask someone else to sort it out for them. That is the approach that we see so often from the far left on that side of theHouse. The member is trying to legislate to force the Minister to introduce a bill but via the Law Commission.The second flaw with this bill is that it does not actually specify a single policy principle—not one. It does not identify a single policy principle. It actually gives no direction at all to the Law Commission as to what should be in the bill or what its scope should be. The bill does not even indicate whether it should discriminate against same-sex relationships. Every single detail is left to the Law Commission. It would effectively give the Law Commission a blank piece of paper. It is a constitutional affront to this House and to the members who sit in this House. Surely if the Law Commission had an opportunity it would merely go back to what it reported in 2000 in its initial report.The third flaw that is worth noting about this bill is that the Minister of Justice would be required to introduce whatever the Law Commission drafts without amendment—without amendment. Putting aside the rather important constitutional issues of making the Law Commission able to bypass Cabinet it means that if the first reading is scheduled the MPs have to vote on whatever the Law Commission drafts. It could not be amended unless it survived until the select committee stage. I am doubtful that the sponsoring member has even given any thought to the constitutional consequences or the precedent-setting aspects that this bill should it be passed would cause.It is very easy to write a nine-clause bill and trumpet that as some kind of solution claiming that it would address a wide range of concerns about the outdated Adoption Act. But sadly for the member sponsoring this bill lawmaking is not that simple nor is it that easy and it absolutely should not be. If she wants to do some serious work then she should put in the hard work. She should put some intellectual grunt into it and actually apply her not insubstantial brain to the matter at hand and actually proffer a solution—she should actually proffer a solution.Simply drafting this bill and asking someone else to do the job for you is a lazy way of ensuring that a prospective glittering political career falls in the dustbin. The National Government MPs will be opposing this bill. It is a sloppy lazy piece of legislation and it deserves to be consigned to the legislative rubbish bin.