Mooney JosephJOSEPH MOONEY (National—Southland): Thank you Mr Speaker. I rise to speak on the Family Court (Family Court Associates) Legislation Bill. I'm happy to commend this bill to the House as one that National supports. This came out of the independent panel that examined the 2014 reforms of the Family Court in their report Te Korowai Ture ā-Whānau and recommended the Family Court Associate role which is a judicial officer role but not for the purposes of section 12B of the Remuneration Authority Act 1977. As judicial officers Family Court Associates will be independent of the executive and will have powers additional to those of the registrar. They'll be able to take on some work currently undertaken by judges including decisions made at early stages of proceedings and this will enable judges to focus on progressing case work. Substantive decisions in proceedings however will continue to be made by judges because of the social significance of those decisions the impact those decisions have on human rights and the complexity of the decisions.This is trying to solve a complex issue. As the speaker just immediately before me said very correctly justice delayed is justice denied and that is a real systemic problem in our court system. Certainly as someone who practised for many years in our court system one problem I have seen personally time and time again is people who are waiting to have their matters heard in court. A lot of the problems come through the uncertainty that is generated by waiting for their court case to be heard because there's no clarity about what the final position is going to be. People's lives are effectively put on hold. And as another Speaker before me said time is different for children. So these matters that come before the Family Court unfortunately often involve children and unfortunately often—quite accurately as the Hon Judith Collins said—it's parents who are not putting their children first. That's something I have personally seen in our courts. In fact we do see some quite inane things like parents fighting over calendars—so determining when the kids can be where on what date and on what time. So these are things that take up a lot of the judges' time and unfortunately it isn't good for our kids. But we do need to find solutions for these intractable problems that people who have come to the court system can't for whatever reason sort out with each other. So this comes to the Family Court.This will not solve everything I have to say though as there are a lot of other issues. Pre-COVID we had some significant delays in our courts; COVID has just exacerbated those and people are waiting a lot longer now for cases to be heard which have been delayed in some cases to a point where one wonders whether justice delayed; justice denied" really even has validity anymore because people are waiting for so long. This is however a good step to address that issue and to try to reduce that delay and enable in particular children who are caught up in the Family Court system to have their matters heard hopefully faster. That is a good thing.I note that point around the Family Court Associate. The pre-requisites are that they have held a New Zealand practising certificate as a barrister and solicitor for at least seven years which is similar to what is required for someone to be considered for a judicial role who also must have practised for at least seven years. I note it says that by reason of their training experience and personality the person is suitable to hold the office of the Family Court Associate. It will be interesting to see whether anything comes back from the select committee just going into a little bit more depth about what that means. This bill will say that they can be appointed for a term of up to seven years and may be reappointed for further terms. So there is some correlation between the time this person has practised as a barrister and solicitor and the time that someone who would be considered for a judicial role would have had to have practised as well. That is a good thing because this is a court system that has a huge impact on families and in particular on children.I have practised as I said for years in our court system. I have seen the impact of delays on people on families and on children. This bill as I said will not solve everything. In particular it won't solve the issue of people who need to apply for legal aid to get a Family Court lawyer. It's incredibly hard in my region for anyone to find someone to do that role and I know that's an issue right around the country. But this is a good step in the right direction and I am happy to commend this bill to the House."