Collins Judith: Care of Children Bill — Second Reading 
Collins Judith: Care of Children Bill — Second Reading 
[Volume:621;Page:16418] 
JUDITH COLLINS (National—Clevedon) 
: 
 A bill of this nature is one that would normally be expected to have the support of every party in this House. This particular bill however has the support from the select committee of the Greens and the Labour members. It was my privilege to be one of the members of the Justice and Electoral Committee which held the hearings on this bill. 
I take this opportunity to mention and pay tribute to some of the members of that committee. Certainly I will start with the chairman Mr Tim Barnett. He was a very good chairman and he dealt with this matter—which is a very sensitive matter and was very emotional for a lot of the people who came to the select committee—in a very kind and caring way. Mr Stephen Franks was the deputy chair and Lianne Dalziel Russell Fairbrother Dave Hereora Dail Jones Moana Mackey Murray Smith Nandor Tanczos and Richard Worth were all members of the committee for the purposes of this bill. 
When I read out that list members might have noticed that several lawyers are on it. Actually only three of us have any experience working as lawyers in the Family Court and they are Mr Dail Jones Mr Murray Smith and myself. I think we are the only lawyers in this Parliament who have had any experience working in the Family Court and it is very interesting that not one of us supports this legislation. Perhaps that is because we happen to have had a bit of a taste of life and have had dealings with people who are extremely distressed and do all sorts of silly things to themselves their families and their children because they are hurting so. 
Parts of this bill are very good and I am really pleased that an effort is being made to open up the Family Court. The Family Court is a secret court. It is however a court where some very very good people are working particularly the Family Court judges. Over the years I have found Family Court judges to be in the main extremely caring and kind people who are very sensible and do not like to see people using their children to beat up on their former life partner and they have been greatly assisted by the appointment of Judge Peter Boshier as Chief Family Court Judge. He had a reputation of trying to have as open a court as possible when he was sitting as a Family Court judge rather than Chief Family Court Judge. Frankly it is refreshing that a new person will bring in new ideas and openness. He has been very open to opening the Family Court. 
One concern that I certainly have in relation to the opening proposed in this particular bill is that relating to accredited media. I am very concerned that we have a term like “accredited” in relation to the media. The media should be accepted warts and all in my opinion. They do have a role that is incredibly important to a democracy. Sometimes we do not like everything they do. Sometimes we do like everything they do but mostly we do not. Having said that I have to say that I think that having a media person present and able to report what has happened in the court without actually naming names—without letting people know who is involved—adds a whole lot of credibility to the Family Court and its processes. To say that the media have to be accredited concerns me. If a media person a journalist happens to report a proceeding and in that report is critical of the judge’s decision or of something else that happens in the court then that person could be under the threat—in his or her mind anyway—of being thrown out and not allowed to report Family Court proceedings. That is a concern I have in relation to the bill. 
One of the problems with the Family Court is that people expect the court to solve their problems. The Family Court can never solve people’s problems. All that the Family Court can ever do is to try to help people through a process so that they can solve their own problems. For some people that will never happen and unfortunately it is their children who lose every single time. It is well known in this House that Ms Dalziel and I are not always the closest of friends. Having said that I noticed all the way through that we did agree on one thing—and that is what we thought about parents who use their children to beat up on each other. Certainly we agreed in that area. Some of the things we thought should happen to such people would never be able to be put into this bill—they are probably against the law. 
Having commented on some of the things about the bill that are good I want to point out that some things about it are bad. It is bad that guardianship will now be so easy to get. The current situation requires that for someone to be appointed a guardian there needs to be a hearing of the Family Court. Papers and affidavits need to be filed and people need to be investigated to a degree. The process being promoted in this bill is that a parent can appoint as a guardian a short-term—as in 1 year—partner of that parent simply by completing a form and registering that form with the court registrar. No one else gets to look. That is a huge concern to me. The obligations and responsibilities of a guardian which are incredibly similar in law to those of a parent should never be taken lightly. For someone simply to be able to fill out a form and get that position is downgrading the role of guardians and it is downgrading the role of parents. Parenthood and guardianship are extremely important and should never be left to the whim of people who think that just because someone happens to have been living with them for 1 year that will turn them into happy families. It will not. It never does. Children have never been able to turn things into happy families. Children are themselves and are simply part of families no matter what the rest of the family looks like or acts like. 
This bill is predicated on a view that the current law the Guardianship Act does not reflect families as they are today. That is bunkum. It is wrong because families have always been mixed. It has always been a fact that they have not performed to  
The Brady Bunch 
 ideal. In fact  
The Brady Bunch 
 ideal was not the ideal either. This bill starts off on a PC bandwagon—the PC bandwagon of saying: “We’re going to have to change it.” We know what this bill is all about. There are some quite good things in it but mostly it is about making it easier for people to become guardians for taking away concepts of custody and replacing them with terms like “day-to-day care” which reduce parenthood and guardianship down to a level slightly less than a caregiver in a childcare centre. Yes custody does imply a sort of ownership and that is because parents have rights and responsibilities in relation to children. A parent will say: “Yes my husband and I are in charge of our child. Yes we do make decisions for our child. We don’t just provide day-to-day care.” We cannot do that as a parent—we cannot say as in this particular provision: “Oh this is great because as the Minister said more people can now be responsible.” Responsibility by committee means that nobody is responsible for a child and that is one of the biggest problems for children in this country. So many people are interested but who is responsible? My answer is that mum and dad are responsible or their legally appointed guardian is if they are not there. That is who it must be. Certainly wider whanauainga family must be there too but all children are born with a mum and a dad somewhere and it is those people who must have the primary responsibility for their children. If they do not nobody eventually will be responsible. 
So unfortunately I do not feel able to support this bill. Unfortunately it contains too many provisions. I have not even dealt with the provision dealing with consent to medical procedures because I will deal with it more fully in the Committee stage. This bill could have been something we could have supported—if the Government had listened to us. But unfortunately the Government has not listened to those of us who have been family lawyers and have had actual experience—Mr Smith Mr Jones and myself.