Jones Dail: Family Courts Matters Bill — In Committee 
Jones Dail: Family Courts Matters Bill — In Committee 
[Volume:646;Page:15691] 
DAIL JONES (NZ First) 
: 
 I rise to speak on this Family Courts Matters Bill about the matter that I raised earlier and I thank the Minister for getting a briefing earlier on this particular provision. I think that the type of embarrassing court case he was thinking of involved what used to be a ground for divorce known as a restitution of conjugal rights. As it happened the case of that kind in 1963 that I heard about involved a former Deputy Prime Minister of New Zealand. With Mr Leary QC on one side and Mick Robinson on the other it was a very interesting case. The marriage had obviously broken down and I do not want to say any more about it than that. But those types of court cases were all got rid of when we introduced the Family Courts Act in 1980 and I happened to be in Parliament at that time. 
I want to raise with the Minister new clause 42A on Supplementary Order Paper 201 which inserts new sections 7A and 7B into the Family Courts Act. It seems clear that the person who could be appointed as a senior Family Court registrar may or may not be a lawyer. I would ask whether that is the Minister’s understanding of the matter. He may wish to comment on that because on the face of it that person does not have to be a lawyer. 
New section 7A states that a person to be appointed to this role is “by reason of training experience and personality”—I have never seen that in an Act of Parliament—“a suitable person to hold office as a Senior Family Court Registrar.” I ask whether that means that the person has to be able to tell jokes all the time sing or be on  
Dancing with the Stars 
 or something like that. Why do we have the reference to personality? It is a very new one and I will be interested to see how it goes. 
Hon Clayton Cosgrove 
: Rodney wouldn’t get there! 
DAIL JONES 
: No? All right. I would ask the Minister to explain whether that person has to be a lawyer or whether on the face of it it could be anyone. 
The other thought that occurs is whether the Minister has any idea as to how well these people will be paid. This is quite a practical consideration and it is often not set out in legislation. Will they be paid on some known State scale be paid on a legal aid rate—in which case we will never get anyone to do the job—or be paid on some other basis? I think that the public could find that quite interesting. 
New section 7B(4) provides: “Any party to any proceedings who is affected by any order made or direction given by a Senior Family Court Registrar may apply to a Family Court Judge to review that order …”. One can see that happening quite often on the part of the recalcitrant types of litigant one can often get in the Family Court. They believe that they could never possibly be wrong and believe that the other party is in the wrong and that they are always right. I ask whether the Minister has given any consideration to the question of orders for costs and suchlike and to making it a little more punitive for people who waste the time of the senior Family Court registrar and the court—those who just appeal for the sake of appealing or seek a review for the sake of getting a review. 
I see that new paragraph (g) which is to be added to section 16B(1) of the Family Courts Act in an amendment to clause 47 on Supplementary Order Paper 201 states: “prescribing the qualifications required to be held by persons appointed as Senior Family Court Registrars.” There is a bit of a conflict between new section 7A(2) and this provision and perhaps the matter could be clarified by the Minister or his officials as the case might be.