Smith Nick: General Debates 
Smith Nick: General Debates 
[Volume:608;Page:5196] 
Hon Dr NICK SMITH (NZ National—Nelson) 
: 
 During the adjournment the Law Commission delivered a report on our Family Court system which showed some of the huge delays and problems that there are for families. I do not want to talk about the trifling political games that Labour seems focused on this afternoon but about some of the real hard issues that do matter in this country. People rely both on the Government and on this Parliament to fix those issues and they have been let down. 
A family in my electorate—a husband and wife with three children—has been stopped from having access to its fourth child for over 3½ years. It is an absolute disgrace that through delays in the Family Court and poor law that family has been totally ignored. Its pleas to the Prime Minister the Minister of Maori Affairs the Minister for Courts and the Minister of Justice have been totally ignored. As a parent I have never had a case about which I have felt so emotional or where such an awful wrong has been done. 
 I want to ask a number of questions. I notice that the Minister of Social Services and Employment is trying to interject. I ask him why a domestic purposes benefit is being paid to a person to care for a child when the mother and father of that child are living together and are desperate to care for that child. The Department of Child Youth and Family Services has never inquired into that family in respect of the care of its children. 
Hon Mark Burton 
: Has the member ever raised the case with the Minister? 
Hon Dr NICK SMITH 
: In fact not only has the family written to the Minister of Social Services and Employment the Minister of Justice and the Minister of Maori Affairs but it wrote to them over 2 years ago. 
I want to ask a second question. I ask Government members whether they think it is appropriate that parents who are desperate to support their child are being asked to pay child support for someone else to care for that child. I say that is wrong as well. I also say that I find it extraordinary—[ 
Interruption 
] I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. For the last 90 seconds I have had nothing but continuous interjections from Government members. I can hardly hear myself think. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: The point is well made. Members will now keep a little more quiet. 
Hon Dr NICK SMITH 
: I also ask why the Government is providing legal aid for someone to fight those parents for the custody of their child. There is absolutely no evidence that there is any risk to the children. 
Families are one of the most important things that hold this country together. Families are even more important than this institution—Parliament. That case brings to my attention nothing less than State-sanctioned child stealing and I use those words carefully. I am appalled by that case and I have asked for an inquiry into the matter because I think those questions are important and need to be answered. The Family Court is in such a mess that we have examples such as that case. We have parents who are desperate to be good parents and to be involved in raising their children. Those parents have the care of their other three children and I ask about the right of that fourth child to grow up with its siblings. For 3½ years that family has been struggling through the Family Court without being able to get a resolution of that matter. 
I challenge Government members to tell us what they will do about the Law Commission’s report on the Family Court. Is it acceptable to have parents blocked from being able to care for their own children? Is it acceptable that we pay a domestic purposes benefit for a carer when the mum and dad want to care for their own child and are quite fit to do so? Is it proper that we provide legal aid for people to fight in the Family Court against parents being able to have custody of their own child? Those matters go to the heart of the sort of nation we want to be. I say the system has let people down something awfully. 
My last point is that I believe that the fuzzy notions in our law that whatever is in the best interests of the child—whoever will determine that—must prevail should not override the fact that parents should have custody of their child unless it is shown that it is inappropriate for them to do so.