McKee NicoleNICOLE McKEE (ACT): Thank you Madam Speaker. I stand and take a short call and I won't be taking the full 10 minutes on the Family Court (Supporting Children in Court) Legislation Bill. Now that we are at our third reading we know that this bill is actually going to go forward into law without our concerns having being met both from this side of the House and from the National Party. But there are some things that we do like about this bill and I think it's important that we pick out those things because the ACT Party will be supporting this through its third reading and I think it's quite important to pick out what we like about it.What I do like is the stocktake that's going to occur because what we are effectively doing is assessing in real time what works well and what doesn't and then we look to implement what works well in our Family Court system. I think that that's a far better try than doing nothing at all and after many years of watching our Family Court system fail our children I'm pleased to see that we have a way forward. I think a stocktake in the first instance is pretty good because we don't have the ability right now to be able to say that certain things that will be implemented will work. We need to trial them first. We know as well that the Family Court are struggling under tremendous pressure at the moment. Their workload is absolutely huge. And with that I do understand what the National Party has raised those points that they've made but don't feel that doing nothing at all is right. I don't feel—well the ACT Party does not feel—that that's an option to do nothing and we're willing to back this bill because of that. One of the other things I like is the implementation dates. If used smartly they can ensure that when parts of the trial are proven they can be confirmed instead of unnecessarily waiting for a magic date for it all to happen. So I think that being able to have that stocktake and then implement a rolling implementation on the Act is actually beneficial for our children. That brings me to what I like the most about this bill and that's the focus on our tamariki the focus on our children making sure that they have an understanding of what is actually going on around them. We've raised concerns during the select committee process and also during the committee stage about how we would like to ensure that the best lawyer is appointed for the child not a lawyer based on what their ethnic group is or their skin colour may be and that has been ignored. But hopefully during the stocktake and during the trial we can find what works and what doesn't work. We have put our concerns on record and we will be looking to see how that actually works out in practice. Nevertheless we still think that this is a good way forward and the setting out of both the stocktake and that staged implementation should mean that we see some improvement overall and better outcomes for the families at the end of it. There was much to be agreed upon here and it's sad when so many raised concerns that were brought before the House hoping in a way to get some sort of middle road and finding that there was no middle road to be got at all; it was just forging ahead. Ultimately the middle road would have seen benefits not just for our tamariki but also for the families and hopefully for the courts as well. Because at the end of the day when we do create these laws we are placing them on the communities and hopefully for their benefit. In that respect I hope that this does go through for the benefit of families as well as our tamariki. ACT believes that this is a good bill for our children and we do support this through its final reading. Thank you Madam Speaker.