Dalziel Lianne: Care of Children Bill — First Reading 
Dalziel Lianne: Care of Children Bill — First Reading 
[Volume:609;Page:6539] 
Hon LIANNE DALZIEL (Associate Minister of Justice) 
: 
 I move  
That the Care of Children Bill be now read a first time. 
 I will propose at the end of this debate to refer the bill to the Government Administration Committee. 
The Guardianship Act which is replaced by this bill is over 30 years old. It is generally agreed by all sides of the debate on this matter that the legislation itself is out of date and needs reform. The current debate on the Care of Children Bill is on the nature of the reform. That is all we are debating. 
 So how do we approach the rewrite of laws that are 30 years old? Where do we begin rewriting the Guardianship Act? My view is that because the legislation is designed to promote the best interests and welfare of children it is their perspective that should guide the approach. Some commentators have started from the perspective of the parents and what they regard as the ideal family—mum dad married to each other and the children. This ideal however does not reflect the reality that many children are either born into or experience when mum no longer lives with dad. 
It is not my role to agree with any proposition about the ideal family relationship that forms the best environment for raising children. Many people have made references to the language of diversity in the introductory comments to the bill promoting different forms of family. However this bill does not promote different forms of family. It simply recognises that different forms of family exist today. 
The logical conclusion of those who argue that this legislation should exclude children who are not in the “ideal” family setting when the parents’ relationship breaks down is that those children are not entitled to the protection of the law and that the parents of those children are somehow not as responsible for their children if the relationship breaks down. Children do not choose the family arrangements that they are born into or that occur during their lives. We can debate the merits of diverse families for as long as we like but it is utterly and completely meaningless when we pretend that it would be all right to exclude family relationships that exist in fact but that some people would prefer did not. 
By excluding certain families children in those families would be excluded from the protection that should be available to all children. That is why I look at the legislation from the child’s perspective. Whom they regard as their parents matters. Their care when the parents’ relationship breaks down matters. Ongoing contact with a parent not involved in day-to-day care matters and ongoing contact with wider family members caught in a relationship breakdown between parents matters. If we place the best interests and welfare of the children at the heart of all the decision making when the relationship between the parents breaks down then those are all factors that matter and that is what this bill is designed to do. 
Clause 17(2) which is nothing more than a drafting technique designed to avoid the need to repeat 42 words every time the word “father” appears does not make women fathers. It does not make mums dads. It does not make women dads. I am sick of the commentary on this point. It refers to the amendment to the Status of Children Act which gives them parental status. The Act says they are parents. I ask members to allow me to explain that if a woman in a married or de facto relationship with a man uses a human-assisted reproductive technology procedure to have a child with the consent of her partner then he is by law the child’s parent. He is not the child’s father; he is the child’s parent. This is the existing law. The new law simply extends this provision to the partner of the mother when the partner is a woman. She is also regarded as a parent. 
I am happy to debate the policy; I am not happy to see such an important debate trivialised by saying that the law defines women as fathers. It does not; it never has; it never will. It simply could not be. It does not even attempt to do that. I have said that if the select committee wants to change the wording of clause 17(2) to clarify the point then that is fine by me but I am disappointed that the real debate is obscured by such nonsense. 
 I come back to where I began. The legislation is written from the perspective of offering a framework for resolving issues around the care of children when the relationship between the parents breaks down. The nature of the relationship should not matter to anyone. They like me should say that the best interests and welfare of the child are met when the parents whoever they are resolve between themselves to make the best care arrangements they can in the interests of the children. I have kept my personal views on the matter out of this because of some of the nonsense I have seen in the media coming from Opposition parties. Some would ask what would I know because I do not have any children. But my personal view is that those parents must take responsibility for their children. 
This bill is not about rights. It is about responsibilities. I hate seeing parents hurting each other and hurting their children in the process. When an application has to be made to the Family Court to issue a parenting order—which is the new language replacing a custody and access order—to settle a dispute around day-to-day care and contact it represents failure. It represents the failure of two adult people to set aside the differences the grief the concern the hurt and the pain of the breakdown of their relationship for the sake of the children. I am sorry if I use old-fashioned language. It is old-fashioned language to say that we do it for the sake of the children but we ought to. I applaud those parents who do it for the sake of the children because they are making decisions in the best interests of their children and for their welfare. 
Changes to the Family Court arising out of the Law Commission review will see development of non-judicial mediation processes which will improve these outcomes over time. They will get rid of the win-lose attitude that pervades the Family Court debate and that as I have said on more than one occasion actually involves a minority of cases. 
In an ideal world of ideal families we would not need a Care of Children Bill but the real world is not like that. Relationships do break down. The bill does not make judgments about the nature of the relationship between the parents. It says that all children should have the protection of the law when the significant adults in their lives cannot sort things out and the children themselves are entitled to a voice in the proceedings. Nobody wants children to be scarred by an embittered tug of war rather than reassured by parents who will not allow their children to suffer—using the war analogy—collateral damage. 
I look forward to the debate on the Care of Children Bill. I am sure the select committee will consider the submissions it receives very carefully but if anyone out there who is listening tonight is thinking of writing a submission I ask that person to start with the children. That is where I began when we started to rewrite a law that is over 30 years old.