English Bill: Care of Children Bill — First Reading 
English Bill: Care of Children Bill — First Reading 
[Volume:609;Page:6714] 
Hon BILL ENGLISH (Leader of the Opposition) 
: 
 Like many other people in New Zealand I am a believer in the institution of the family in whatever form it takes because the family is and will remain the seedbed of love trust and security. Whatever we might think about how the world has changed in 35 years we know that most children are still brought up in families. Most of those families have two parents even if there is some shuffling around among those parents. It is still a minority of children who are raised in families of one parent and it is a very small proportion of our children who are raised in families after having been conceived by artificial means of human reproduction or in families where they have same-sex parents. 
This is not just a matter of looking at the statistics although the statistics bear out what I have said; it is also the experience of parents. If one spends one’s time around schools and sports grounds one does not find a huge variety in the living arrangements of children. One finds that children and parents tend to seek long-term stable relationships—parents seeking them for themselves and also seeking them as the best atmosphere in which to bring up their children. So I do not fear in any way that ill-judged legislation will undermine the institution of the family. It is after all the custom and the practice of the people. The institution of the family will persist no matter what. 
But this bill shows that this particular Government has a stunningly vacuous neutrality about how human relationships work in our community. It is one of three pieces of similar legislation. It is no wonder that my colleague says it does not place the family as the important framework for a child because— 
Government Members 
: It puts the children first. 
Hon BILL ENGLISH 
: Just hear me out. The reason this legislation does not place the family as the institution in which the child will have the best framework is that the Families Commission Bill according to this Government defines a family as a group of people with a psychological attachment. That is a bizarre definition of everything from a nation State to a “bikie” gang. If the Government feels that it has to go to the extent of defining a family as if it matters what the Government thinks a family is and if it feels that it has to put that definition in legislation as if that will make any difference to how people behave in reality there is no doubt that it is unable to put the family into legislation as part of the Care of Children Bill. 
This bill like the others—the property relationship bill and the Families Commission Bill—is completely devoid of support encouragement or recognition for the family. In fact all that legislation bears a deep ideological imprint of a group of people in a Government who want to go as far as they believe is politically feasible to eradicate the words “family” “parents” “husband” and “wife” from legislation. But as I said it is the custom and the practice of the people to live this way. 
I come to the bill itself. The Associate Minister of Justice and the Government are in an interesting situation. They are interested in everyone’s rights—except the rights of parents. We spend all our time acknowledging the rights of almost anyone else in the community except parents. This is what the Minister has to say about parents: “This legislation is getting away from the language of parents having rights.” And so it should. Let me say that again: “This legislation is getting away from the language of parents having rights.” And so it should. 
Darren Hughes 
: What’s the name of the bill? 
Hon BILL ENGLISH 
: —Lianne Dalziel is the name of the Minister—“Parents have responsibilities towards their children.” Well they do and they do not need the Associate Minister of Justice to tell them that. Parents face their responsibilities to their children every day. What backs this bill is a philosophy that goes like this: the first relationship of a child is with the State. 
Hon Lianne Dalziel 
: Nonsense! 
Hon BILL ENGLISH 
: It is. The State determines the parents’ responsibilities then puts in place a mechanism to ensure those responsibilities are carried out. [ 
Interruption 
] Well Government members can wobble their heads but that is absolutely the corollary of what the Minister said—that parents do not have rights; they have responsibilities. Then it can only be the State that defines those responsibilities. I say it is wrong. I say the family and the rights of parents exist prior to separate from and despite the State and the State performs a secondary not a primary role in looking after our children—the children of parents. So parents do have rights. 
It is precisely the problem with the Family Court that it has trouble recognising those rights. At times it has to make difficult decisions about distributing parental rights. We accept that that is part of its job and there are provisions in this bill that will certainly improve procedures that constituents of mine have had to deal with—and improve them quite considerably. But it is not up to the Family Court to decide who is a good parent. It is not up to the Family Court to hear from anyone with a connection to the child who might want to question the parenting that is occurring. I have looked through this bill to try to find the trigger or threshold that brings these provisions into effect and I cannot find one. The threshold— 
Hon Lianne Dalziel 
: It’s called a relationship breakdown. 
Hon BILL ENGLISH 
: So where is that in the bill? 
Hon Lianne Dalziel 
: Oh for goodness’ sake! 
Hon BILL ENGLISH 
: Actually a colleague of mine is in trouble with the Solicitor-General because he is dealing with a case where there is not a marital breakdown and where the Family Court has simply decided that the parents do not have the choice of raising their own child. 
We ought to be very suspicious as parents and as parliamentarians of the agents of the State that this bill gives greater power to. The counsel for the child and the cultural adviser are already there—we know that. It is not my experience that they always have good judgment about the conditions that children need. We should be careful that the bill does not give them much more power than they have. 
As Nick Smith has pointed out the Australian legislation is much more practical and much less ideological. This bill is the ideological child of the Labour Government and the Family Court industry. The Australian legislation reflects much more the reality of how people live their lives. For instance it acknowledges families the important role that families fulfil in raising children and the job of the Family Court to ensure that it supports and strengthens the family around the child. This legislation is based on the presumption that we remove the family; that it is just a wider pool of applicants for parenting orders and that the child is there wholly and solely on its own with its rights. That is not how people live and that is why this bill will certainly need to change. It has to change in some quite obvious ways such as the female fathers issue. Some people say it is a trivial point but I say it shows an attitude. Even the Prime Minister has now acknowledged that it was unfortunately drafted. That needs to change.