Flavell Te Ururoa: Family Courts Matters Bill — Second Reading 
Flavell Te Ururoa: Family Courts Matters Bill — Second Reading 
[Volume:646;Page:15596] 
TE URUROA FLAVELL (Maori Party—Waiariki) 
: 
 Beautiful Madam Assistant Speaker. Kia ora rawa atu. Tena tatou katoa e hoa ma i tenei ahiahi. 
[ 
Well done. Greetings to us all this afternoon fellow colleagues. 
] 
The Family Courts Matters Bill according to the commentary on the bill seeks to make Family Court proceedings more open and to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of the Family Courts. In giving consideration to matters covered in the Family Court I say that the goal is all well and good but it would be our observation that there seems to be a preoccupation with adult problems that have the harshest impact on children or a focus on restoring relationships between former partners at the expense of the child. We say that there is a need to get it right to stop the cycle and to restore wellness hauora and well-being to the whanau if we are to prevent sad life stories playing out in subsequent generations as alluded to by Mr Jones. To that end the Maori Party has a keen interest in ensuring that the promise of the Law Commission report of “delivering justice for all” will be given priority through the Family Courts Matters Bill. 
We are pleased to see that two very significant issues have been raised by submitters—the proper protection of the children in court proceedings and the provision of counselling for children. Both of those issues we believe have been addressed through the select committee process. We are particularly pleased to see protections in place to ensure that the leave of the court must be sought before reports on Family Court proceedings involving vulnerable persons or children can be published. We agree with the focus of the family violence protection alliance that the proposed greater openness of the Family Court needs to be balanced with protecting a child’s right to privacy and the paramount need for his or her protection and safety. It was the recommendation of the alliance that detailed guidelines need to be provided to the news media about what can be published when a child is the subject of proceedings. 
I recall the devastating photographs published last August of a young boy battered to death by his mother and her partner. At the time the Children’s Commissioner Dr Cindy Kiro spoke out about a horrifying email petition that was circulating the autopsy photograph. She said: “Circulating them allows for further abuse in death of a child who was abused in life”. That matter was a cause for concern and it was one that was close to the heart of my colleague Tariana Turia who some years ago laid an official complaint against Television New Zealand for allowing footage to be shown featuring a tupapaku the body of a murdered child. Although both of these actions represent the extreme end of the continuum they illustrate how blasé some of our media have become about what information should become public fodder. We hope the advice of the family violence prevention alliance will be taken into account in the amended reporting provisions to ensure the ongoing and further protection of vulnerable persons. 
The other significant advance in this bill is the three amendments that extend counselling services to children. We note the view of the Families Commission that recent research shows that child-inclusive mediation lowers parental conflict and greatly enhances conciliation. We were however concerned that the needs of Maori and other cultural groups have not been adequately covered in looking at how groups may wish to access conciliation services. The bill has respected the right of children to have access to counselling which also helps them to distil their views prior to mediation. 
That is all well and good but the crucial feature missing from the bill is the need to provide more fully and appropriately for whanau. I remind the House that the current demographics indicate that one in four children under 5 is Maori and that the trend is all about growth in terms of a young Maori population. Although the Children Young Persons and their Families Act 1989 made specific provisions for whanau hapu and iwi involvement in decision making about the lives of children and young persons there are other pieces of legislation that feed into the Family Court that do so without necessarily considering Maori views regarding whanau. Legislation such as the Guardianship Act 1968 and the Domestic Violence Act 1995 can also result in the involvement of the Family Court as does the Care of Children Act 2004 and the Family Proceedings Act 1980. 
In this respect I was very impressed with the joint submission from Te Korowai Aroha and Relationship Services Whakawhanaungatanga. While Te Korowai Aroha has been operating for some 16 years delivering culturally appropriate services to tangata whenua Relationship Services Whakawhanaungatanga is the single biggest provider of counselling services to the Family Court. Therefore the collective authority of these organisations is pretty much beyond doubt. Their view was that as Te Tiriti o Waitangi promised to protect Maori custom and cultural values Maori expect that the Family Court and its processes should promote partnership between Maori and the Crown. They went further and constructed a model of practice that represents the development of a parallel process which reflects Maori world views. Some of the guiding principles that would underpin such a process include every Maori child having whakapapa; tamariki Maori belonging to whanau hapu and iwi; the rights and responsibilities for raising children being shared; and children having rights and responsibilities to their whanau. 
The submission from Amokura a collaborative iwi-led community change initiative to address family violence in Te Tai Tokerau reflected this same commitment to seeking alignment of the new policies and procedures to tikanga Maori. The Amokura project advocates the recognition of whakapapa whanaungatanga and the roles and responsibilities of whanau hapu and iwi. Amokura also highlighted that seeking recognition of the significance of whakapapa in Family Court dealings in respect of whanau Maori requires an understanding that the broader whanau other than birth parents also have responsibilities and obligations in determining the future of tamariki Maori. It is not simply a matter of mum and dad and the nuclear family. Whanau oranga whanau well-being is absolutely linked to child well-being and the reverse applies. 
The significance of whanau was given explicit recognition in another model put forward by Te Korowai Aroha o Aotearoa and Relationship Services Whakawhanaungatanga. They endorsed a proposal for non - judge-led whanau mediation seeing it as a crucial means of respecting whanau involvement at all levels of decision making. Te Korowai Aroha has trained and licensed some 250 whanau practitioners from across 70 Maori social and health non-governmental organisation providers in whanau conciliation practices. The very successful project called Project Mauriora is in itself based on Maori mediation and conciliation practices. The organisation estimates that it has worked with 19000 whanau in the past 5 years and one would imagine that 19000 whanau cannot be wrong. 
Although the submissions referred to lent their support to the bill—a position that clearly influences us in the Maori Party—it was ultimately disheartening to read the select committee report and see that there was no reference to non - judge-led whanau mediation that there was no reference to the crucial role that whanau hapu and iwi play in resolving disputes and that there was not even a cursory acknowledgement of Te Tiriti o Waitangi. We will support the bill at the second reading but we hope to anticipate changes at the Committee of the whole House stage that will reflect the very useful contributions made by Maori throughout the consultation process.