DAIL JONES (NZ First) : New Zealand First is opposed to this legislation, and one of the main reasons for our opposition is that it does not do anything new. All it does do is alter some of the provisions that exist in the law today, and then go on ad nauseam in explaining what happens in the Family Court today.

Part 3 is one of the best examples of this volubility on the part of the Government. Part 3 talks about evidence. It talks about reports from the chief executive, reports from other persons, distribution of reports, costs of reports, and publication of reports. That is all stuff that one might expect would be in the regulations. Why waste the time of the Committee with this? If members have read the Guardianship Act of 1968 and if they have any familiarity with the practice of the courts, they will know that these sorts of things get done automatically as part of general rules and regulations of the court today. The Government seems to be of the view that if one presents a report that is hundreds of pages long, it must be good, whereas if the report is short and precise it must be bad.

Currently, the Guardianship Act is a short, precise, clear piece of legislation and we have worked very well with it over the years. Some improvements were needed, and the question of opening up the courts is one of those areas. We in New Zealand First have said that this bill should have taken into account bringing domestic violence legislation within the scope of this bill, and this Government has failed to do the only thing that is really necessary to improve the current Family Court structure.

As I say, this bill is just a waste of the Committee’s time. It was a waste of time for the select committee and the submitters, and New Zealand First does not want to waste any more time on this stupid part of the legislation. I have nothing more to say about it.

JUDITH COLLINS (National—Clevedon) : As the honourable member Dail Jones has said, Part 3 is just another example of the Government saying it will reword the law a bit, and we will all feel a lot better for that. Well, we will not—not one bit.Some of the provisions in this bill need to have a very good looking-at. One of them relates to the opening up of the Family Court. There is one person in this Parliament who needs to be congratulated on the work he has done to open up the Family Court, and that is the Hon Nick Smith. Nick Smith has put himself, his career, his family, and his money on the line. He did that for his constituents, and it has resulted in a huge groundswell of support for the opening up of the Family Court. But the Government has responded with a whimper and nothing more, and that is why we are not supporting this part. The whimpering-type openingup of the Family Court is just that, and nothing more than that.

I am very concerned about the term “accredited media”. The accredited media will be allowed to report on the Family Court, and will have their reports looked at and approved by the judge. What sort of accredited media are going to report on that basis? Well, I have been told by the news media who might have been interested in looking at the workings and non-workings of the Family Court that they simply will not be interested in reporting like that. The news media are not there to put out the politically correct nonsense that comes from this Government. They are not there to pander to the will of incompetent people who happen to be practising or not practising within the Family Court—and I have certainly seen a lot of that in my time. I have seen people who, as counsel for the child, did not even bother to see the child before they made reports, supposedly on behalf of the child. I have seen social workers who did not get reports back to the court in time, and I have seen people who abused the secrecy in the court and hid behind it, so that their incompetence and greed were hidden.

The losers from all that are, of course, the poor little children who happen to be the subject of the proceedings. That is who loses. Dr Nick Smith went out for those kids, and he went out for parents, and this Government, every day that it gets the opportunity to do so in this Chamber, slams him for it. This part of the bill was the Government’s opportunity to make a few amends for children, and it has not done that. The Government members whimpered—because they are not there for parents and for children. They are there for the so-called professionals who are currently not doing their jobs.

This provision is a big whitewash. It is a cop-out. It is everything we would expect from this Government when it comes to family issues, and nothing more. This bill will not improve the situation very much, at all. It will improve the reporting for lawyers by lawyers, and that is all. It will improve the system for the professionals. What will it do for those families who feel that their views as families are being ignored? Nothing. What will it do for families who feel that their professional advisors, or their social workers—the people who are there for them and their children, supposedly—are not doing their job? What about the people who feel that those social workers are kowtowing to the political correctness that this Government loves so much, and what about the people who are, in fact, lazy, incompetent people who are not doing their jobs? What will this legislation do for the really good professional people, who are struggling in that environment, and who look around and see their colleagues sit around wasting time, wasting taxpayers’ dollars, and wasting the youth of those people? What will it do for those good professionals? Nothing, because they will not have the opportunity to use this law to expose that. Yet again, secrecy is there for the benefit of the professionals.

Hon DAVID BENSON-POPE (Associate Minister of Justice) : I would just like to respond briefly to the comments that Ms Collins has made in relation to Nick Smith’s championing of the causes of families. I would like to do that by putting on the record a couple of quotes from the judgment of the court case that was referred to. In quoting from that judgment, can I first inform the Committee of this comment from the presiding judge. “The fact that pressure was applied privately to a litigant did not prevent the action being a contempt of court. All improper pressure, whether applied publicly or privately, had to be considered. The comments to the caregiver were neither fair, nor reasonable, nor moderate. They were contemptuous because their purpose was to persuade the caregiver to give up the case and concede custody to the parents. The comments were not bona fide persuasion”—[Interruption] I say to Ms Collins that she seems to operate, as do many members on that side of the House, on the theory that the fantasy often repeated becomes the truth. I think it is quite important for the people who are listening, and for the parliamentary record of this debate, that people hear just how much that champion of the family and justice, Nick Smith, was in contempt of the Family Court.

The second quote I would like to put in the record is as follows: “Dr Smith had sought to influence the Family Court’s decision. He sought to bring about the return of custody of the child to the parents. He did this by propounding that outcome, by denigrating the other possible outcome, and by calling for an inquiry.”

The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson): Members need to confine their speeches to the content of this part. Passing references to other matters have to be very narrow.

Hon Dr Nick Smith: I raise a point of order, Mr Chairperson. I am very happy to have a debate in this Chamber about the issues that brought about the contempt of court charge, and I seek leave of the Committee for the Minister to be able to stray in that area, providing members on this side of the Committee have the opportunity to respond.

The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson): No, the Committee has no authority to do that.

Hon Dr Nick Smith: I seek leave.

The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson): Well, the member can always seek leave, but whether it is granted is another matter.

Hon Dr Nick Smith: I seek leave for the debate to be widened so that the aspects of the contempt of court charge that led good parents in my electorate to lose their child are able to be debated in terms of this debate about opening up the Family Court.

The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson): The Committee actually has no authority to do that. It would require the authority of the House to do so.

Hon DAVID BENSON-POPE: I am confining myself, absolutely, to the matter of this section in direct response to the matters raised by the previous speaker, Ms Collins.

The final three sentences of my contribution are as follows, and I quote from the judgment, which I will seek leave to table in a moment. “By making public comments and statements that undermined the public confidence in the Family Court decision, Dr Smith at the same time, undermined public confidence in the court itself. The intemperate, derogatory, and unfair remarks of Dr Smith assaulted the authority and integrity of the Family Court and the fairness and legitimacy of its decision.” I seek leave to table the decision of the Solicitor-General v Smith in the High Court in March this year.

The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson): Is there any objection to that course of action being taken?

Hon Dr Nick Smith: I raise a point of order, Mr Chairperson. The Minister’s point of order actually breaches the Standing Orders in that one cannot seek leave to table a document that has already been tabled. The decision of the Solicitor-General—the Crown’s top law enforcement officer—versus myself has already been tabled in the House, and it is not within the Standing Orders to seek leave to table something that has already been tabled.

The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson): I just say to the member that it is a public document, and it is up to the Committee as to whether it agrees to that.

Hon Dr Nick Smith: But it has already been tabled.

The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson): It has been tabled, but the reality is that it is still—

Hon Dr Nick Smith: No—there is a very specific Standing Order that says that one cannot put—[Interruption]

The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson): Points of order are to be heard in silence.

Hon Dr Nick Smith: It is a very clear Standing Order, and I have to say, Mr Chairman, that the Speaker has ruled on this. This is the fourth time that Labour has sought to re-table this document. [Interruption] I tell Marian Hobbs that the Speaker ruled—[Interruption] Mr Chairman, you have already told members that they should not interject during points of order. Marian Hobbs has been repeatedly interjecting. What are you going to do about it?

The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson): I have already called for order on this side. If the member made such comments—I am sorry; I did not hear them—I request her to stand, withdraw, and apologise. She has her first yellow card; the next time she is out.

Hon Marian Hobbs: I withdraw and apologise for the interjection.

The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson): Thank you.

Hon Dr Nick Smith: As I said, this issue has previously been raised, and the Speaker ruled on it. His ruling was quite clear: one cannot seek leave to table a document if the House has already granted leave and the document has already been tabled. The Standing Order is quite simple, and it is one that has been repeated often: one cannot put the question to the House after it has already been put to the House.

The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson): I just say to the member that it is within his jurisdiction, simply, to deny leave. That has always been the case, and it is a simple matter. Leave has been sought. Is there any objection to that course of action being taken? There appears to be objection.

Hon Dr NICK SMITH (National—Nelson) : It was interesting that during the Associate Minister’s contribution, in quoting from the contempt of court proceedings in which I was involved, he chose not to say that the judge had concluded that at all times I had acted in good faith. I hold a very basic view, and that is that good mums and dads in this country have an absolute right to be able to raise their children. I find it absolutely remarkable and gutless for members opposite to raise repeatedly—

The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson): The member is a longstanding member of the House, and he knows very well that to imply that a member lacks courage is a personal reflection and is out of order.

Hon Dr NICK SMITH: I withdraw and apologise. The interesting point is this. At the time I was convicted I said: “Let’s have a by-election in Nelson. Let’s have the people of Nelson decide.” The Labour Party was nowhere to be seen. Its members did not have the courage of their convictions to argue that issue in the public arena of my own community of Nelson. Six months later they sleaze around in this Chamber, trying to relitigate those issues, when they did not have the capacity to put those issues to the public at the time.

Hon David Benson-Pope: I raise a point of order, Mr Chairperson. I do not know a lot about sleaze—that member might—but I take exception to any member of the Government being referred to as sleazing around the Chamber. The member might like to explain just what it means, because, clearly, he knows.

The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson): The Minister has taken exception to the word used—I would assume, rightly or wrongly, that that is under Standing Order 116. As the Minister has taken exception I ask the member to withdraw.

Hon Dr NICK SMITH: I withdraw. How sensitive members opposite are! I shall put this very simply. Ever since May members opposite have been very keen to quote all the time what happened in the court.

Hon Marian Hobbs: That’s dead right.

Hon Dr NICK SMITH: When Marian Hobbs was caught cheating on her provision—[Interruption] She was caught out cheating. She was sacked as a Minister.

Hon Marian Hobbs: I raise a point order, Mr Chairperson. I take exception to that man lying about the actual circumstance and the court order. I ask him to withdraw.

The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson): All members should just take a deep breath. It is not acceptable in this House to say that a member is not telling the truth. That is absolutely out of order. Here, a member’s word is his or her bond. If there are any circumstances where that is found to be otherwise, members have a course of action that they can take. I would ask the member to withdraw.

Hon Marian Hobbs: Do you want me to withdraw?

The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson): The member will withdraw.

Hon Marian Hobbs: Can I have a point of clarification?

The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson): No, I am asking the member to withdraw.

Hon Marian Hobbs: I withdraw first; then can I ask a point of order, for clarification?

The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson): Yes, the member may have a point of order.

Hon Marian Hobbs: I raise a point of order, Mr Chairperson. If the speaker on his feet alleged something that put me in a criminal position, that was incorrect, and that had been proven before an authority to be incorrect, can he continue to say that? What is the difference between that and lying?

The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson): All I can say is that if the member is concerned about the manner in which a speech has been delivered in this Chamber, and if the member believes that it was incorrect, the only position available to me is that I have to take the word of the honourable member. If the Minister herself is not satisfied with what is being said across the Chamber, then she can take a breach of privilege. There is a course of action available for her to do that.

Dail Jones: I raise a point of order, Mr Chairperson. As a New Zealand First member I ask you to bring the Labour Party and the National Party back to the bill. They are wasting the country’s time talking about something that is not related to the bill. New Zealand First supports entirely the decision of the Family Court judge and the High Court, which was absolutely right. Clearly, Mr Smith did not support the interest of his—

The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson): I have heard enough. I am on my feet. I am in the process of dealing with the issue. I am the sole judge of relevancy. I ask members to come to the bill. The Committee’s term of reference is what is in the bill.

Hon Dr NICK SMITH: The part of the bill we are dealing with is the issue in respect of the opening up of the Family Court. I very strongly hold the view that we need to provide for public accountability of an institution that goes to the core of the most important relationships that we have during the course of our lives.

Yesterday in the Chamber it was interesting to note that the Minister in the chair was very keen to quote editorials. When it came to Judith Collins he did not come up with his own words. He had to quote editorials from newspapers up and down the country. Well, I want the Minister to look at what editorials state about his provisions, in respect of the opening up of the Family Court. Under those provisions, it appears that he is making our judges editors of our newspapers. It is a flaky and inappropriate form of State control when a judge in the Family Court can tell journalists what they can, and cannot, write.

Judges are just people. They are lawyers who have gone on to take up that office. The only accountability of our judiciary is through opening proceedings to the media. The only time I have ever seen a judge resign is when he or she has been exposed by the media. If we have a secret court that is closed, where is the check on those people, who make absolutely critical decisions about people’s families? That is why I have argued consistently that the Family Court needs to be opened. That is why I say that the Minister must reconsider the State control and the editorial control that judges are given in subclause (2AB) of clause 131. I simply say that I could quote editorials up and down the country in which editors have said—and the New Zealand Press Association and the New Zealand Press Council have also said it—that those provisions are wrong.

My challenge to Mr Benson-Pope is very simple. Why did he quote editors yesterday but not today? Why is he so keen to quote editorials in the Otago Daily Times, the New Zealand Herald, and the Dominion Post when it suits him, but he is not prepared to take any notice of them when they do not suit him? His provisions in the bill do not provide the open accountability that the people of New Zealand need from our Family Court. Do Government members opposite really believe in open justice? It is one of the absolute, most important principles of any system, and even more so when it involves families. I ask them to reconsider.

Dr MURIEL NEWMAN (Deputy Leader—ACT) : As I said from the outset, the ACT party will be opposing the bill, largely because, although it sounds and feels good, it will do little to change the terrible problems that do exist in family law in New Zealand.

But I would like to bring the Committee’s attention to an amendment in my name that inserts a new clause 131. The amendment would effectively introduce into New Zealand a truly open Family Court. The problem we all have with the bill as it stands is that, although the Associate Minister of Justice has put forward provisions for a so-called opening up of the Family Court, they are Clayton’s provisions. The bill still enables censorship of whatever is reported by the media. As I understand it, anyone can object to the media being present. I suspect that very rapidly a pattern will develop of the court appearing to be open to the media, the media turning up, but then having to leave because somebody objects; and if they do stay the distance, then whatever they write up will be censored. So I say the Committee should look carefully at my amendment to insert new clause 131. It is based on the member’s bill to open up New Zealand’s Family Court that parliamentary counsel drafted for me. If the parties represented here want to see more open democracy in the Family Court, they are urged to support that amendment.

The issue is this: family law in New Zealand, at the present time, is hurting children. It is as simple as that! Family law in New Zealand is denying kids their right to be able to have an ongoing relationship and frequent contact with their non-custodial parent. That is how the system works in this country. If people end up in the Family Court, one parent comes out the winner—gets custody of the children—and the other one is the loser. What we have seen over the years is that the family member who loses out on custody—the non-custodial parent—has to pay large amounts of child support, and often that person’s right to be able to maintain contact with the children is eroded away. We end up with kids who no longer see that parent—usually a dad—or the grandparents, uncles, aunts, and so on, on that side of the family. We end up with kids being cut off from what should be their right: contact with their biological parent and that part of the family.

I say that the fact this practice has gone on and on for years and years is a reflection of the fact that the secret Family Court has not allowed publication of this information. This information is known to those families who are caught up in family breakdown, but not to the wider public. The public have no idea of the pain and suffering that goes on through the Family Court. That is why it is so important that the media are allowed to attend, and to report on what goes on—obviously, with name suppression and all those other protections. In general, the court should be open and should have a presumption of openness, like our select committees of Parliament. It is important that the media, as the fourth estate, as the fourth leg of our democratic system of Government, can take part in what is going on in the Family Court. The reason why family law in New Zealand is such a mess, why so many families are suffering as a result of family law, is that the public have not been allowed to see what has been going on.

I want to set the record straight by saying that the first time this Parliament actually dealt with this issue was in 2001 when a bill in my name was introduced to open up the Family Court. The number of people supporting that move back then—I suppose one could call it a movement; it had been pushed by the media and individuals—became a groundswell, and that groundswell has now caused changes, but they are not enough.

JUDY TURNER (United Future) : I rise on behalf of United Future to take a brief call on this part. United Future does not have huge problems with this area, other than to say that a huge opportunity for the Government has been missed. A really big opportunity was afforded the Government to have a fresh look at the procedures around the Family Court. When we look at what has just been developed in Australia, with funding of mediation services in this regard, we see that a hugely innovative approach has taken the sting out of what has been going on in the Family Court, and it is making a huge difference. So Part 3 represents a lost moment in time in New Zealand history, and I look forward to the day when we can redress that issue.

I want to raise a couple of issues. Last Wednesday in the House I questioned the Minister for Courts, the Hon Rick Barker, about a programme called Children in the Middle, which is being piloted in the Family Court on the North Shore. That Minister did not even know about the pilot programme that is going on in the courts—which are under his jurisdiction. It is an incredibly innovative programme. The Law Commission has recommended the rolling out of this programme, and that was my question to the Minister. I asked whether he was planning to take up the recommendation. He had been quoting the commission all the way through his answers, yet did not know anything about that recommendation.

Part 3 could have included aspects of that pilot programme. Let us remember that parents who are using the Family Court to settle custody and access issues are parents who are at war with each other. Most parents who separate and divorce manage to sort this out in a reasonably amicable way with the future of their children in mind. But when couples are unable to do that, they find themselves in the Family Court. The pilot programme on the North Shore requires those parents, prior to getting their date in court, to have participated, separately, in two sessions of parent education that very clearly show them the impact of what their ongoing conflict is having on their children. The evidence is very clear: serious ongoing conflict is one of the most damaging factors of divorce on children.

I have offered to help the Government. I have drafted a member’s bill to amend the Family Proceedings Act. It is now in the ballot, waiting to be drawn, but I invite the Government to take the work I have done and make it a Government bill, and get it through the House and into action so that this wonderful pilot that is happening now in the Family Court on the North Shore can be rolled out and become standard Family Court procedure. Then, every couple who are in dispute over the looking after of their children would, first of all, sit down for about 4 hours and have a very serious, heart-searching look at the impact on their children of what they are doing. It would be a chance to be brought to their senses. The strengthening of mediation provisions at this very crucial moment in a family’s life is absolutely vital, and we have the opportunity to look at what is happening in Australia in that regard.

Part 3 has some good points. It offers an improved level of accountability, but, really, it is just a missed opportunity to have done so much more. When we are talking about families that are before the court, we need to understand that the needs of children at this time are absolutely vital. The outcomes for families who have to go through this process are usually pretty appalling. I think it is a huge shame that we did not take up the Law Commission’s recommendations and make Part 3 a much more humane and sensible provision.

RICHARD WORTH (National—Epsom) : Mr Chairperson, may I start by reciprocating the greeting you gave to members when the Committee resumed this morning—mōrena to your whānau. I want to talk about Part 3. This part, which is headed “Jurisdictional, procedural, miscellaneous, and saving and transitional provisions”, is more significant than at first blush might appear. There are two particular issues that I would like to deal with in this call, which I hope is the first of many calls on a complex and tricky part of the bill.

The first clause I would like to deal with is clause 120, which states in summary that “the Court may receive any evidence that it thinks fit, whether or not it is otherwise admissible in a Court of law.” Some would say that those sorts of provisions, which are becoming increasingly common in legislation, are well and good, that they are in some way a reflection of a people’s court approach. But in a court like the Family Court, particular care needs to be taken in respect of the material that the court receives because the judgments that are being made on the welfare of the child are just so critical.

It is right to say that this is a court where there is a lot of unreliable evidence. There is a lot of double-type hearsay evidence, for example. One of the things that I would have liked to see in this bill, if this were a caring Government—and we know it is not—would be a provision that where allegations of sexual abuse, for example, are made by a mother against a father in respect of a child who is the subject of the proceedings, and those allegations on their face do not seem to be well supported, there should be a clear obligation before that sort of evidence is relied upon that there be proof that a complaint has been made to the police in respect of the particular incident or incidents referred to in the affidavit material.

Those who have experience of the Family Court would know that allegations of this type are quite commonly made, are difficult to refute, and are often not true. Sometimes they are true, but often they are not. That is the danger of the wording of a clause like this, that it permits a mass of evidence—so-called evidence, in any event—to flow into the record, without a proper opportunity to assess the probative value of that sort of material. Therefore, I note clause 120, and it is an issue that I plan to come back to in later calls, probably this afternoon.

Dr Paul Hutchison: Or tomorrow morning?

RICHARD WORTH: My friend says “Or tomorrow morning”, but regretfully I think we can only sit as late as 10 p.m. without—

Simon Power: Start again Saturday.

RICHARD WORTH: Yes, perhaps we can do that. Perhaps we can start again tomorrow.

The second matter that I wish to deal with is clause 129, which is about attendance at hearings generally. Dr Muriel Newman has made some comment about this, but not in the context that I will seek to advance. I would say, though, in respect of the issues that she raises, that she has exemplified a really good comment that Justice Brandeis once made, which is that sunlight is the best disinfectant—the concept that if the Family Court is open, its transparency can be better assessed, and the consequence, of course, is a greater degree of confidence in the administration of justice.

It is not that point that I want to take up. It is the point that is referred to in clause 129(1)(g). Clause 129 lists the people who may attend a hearing of proceedings under this Act, other than criminal proceedings. There are some obviously identified categories of person. But paragraph (g) states: “any other person(s) whom the Judge permits to be present.” I just caution members, in looking at paragraph (g), to reflect on what its consequences might be. It will be possible for a determined litigant in the Family Court to seek an outcome, where a significant number of supporters are sitting in the back of the court—

MARK PECK (Labour—Invercargill) : I move, That the question be now put.

Hon Dr NICK SMITH (National—Nelson) : I, too, want to highlight some of the provisions in Part 3 that deal with court procedure. The fundamental concern I have, as a parent, is this: what is the legal process by which the State can take my child from me? That is a very strong power for the courts and the State to have. If we ask people who are convicted of criminal offences and sent to prison what is the worst thing that can happen to them, we hear that it is to be separated from their children.

This Parliament needs to be very clear about the circumstances when the State will take children and prevent them from having contact with their parents. Yet if we look at this part and its procedure, and sit it alongside that of the earlier parts we have dealt with, we see that the court can take a child from a parent simply when the court sees that as being in the child’s best interests. Well, that is so vague and open that I do not think it provides anything of the sort of protection that we need in law. In fact, what I would like to see in this part is a provision that is at least as strong as the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, which says that the State should break the contact between a child and its parent only when the child is at risk or where there is clear evidence of risk to the child. But this part does not say that. All it says is that that contact may be broken if the court deems it to be in the best interest of the child, and I believe that that is quite flawed.

Furthermore, we have in this part another dose of Labour’s political correctness. Clause 128 deals with a child’s cultural background. Of all the things we think are important for children—a loving environment, committed parents—what is the thing that Labour is now going to add in? It is a cultural background report. With regard to determining the interests of children, it is their ethnicity that is at the top end of Labour’s list of importance. I say that those members are mistaken. They are so immersed in their own political correctness about Māori rights, Pacific Island rights, and all that stuff, that they have actually forgotten the most important thing for children. What really gives me the willies is when I read the Law Commission report, endorsed by a Minister of this Parliament, that says that if people are part of Māori families, then their rights to their children are different from others’ rights. It says the children belong to the iwi and the hapū and one’s rights as a parent are somehow lesser. Well, I say to members opposite—[Interruption]—and to Ms Mackey, that whether a person is Asian, European, Māori, Pacific Islander, or whatever, human beings have a natural bond between parent and child that no amount of political correctness should cut across.

What we have in clause 128 from this Government is a provision that gives a level of importance to cultural considerations that actually loses the plot about what is important for children in this country to get a good deal. We will have courts side-tracked into arguments about the treaty and all sorts of cultural issues, rather than being focused on those things that are in the best interests of children. So I say to the Government that this dose of PC nonsense is not what the children of New Zealand need. I say that all this focus on taking away the rights of parents will backfire on children; they deserve far better.

Hon GEORGE HAWKINS (Minister of Police) : I move, That the question be now put.

MURRAY SMITH (United Future) : Unlike the Opposition parties that can find nothing good about this bill and a Government that, of course, will not admit to any weakness in it, United Future, as a centre party, likes to see good where it can and criticises where it knows there are failings. I refer particularly to the comment of my colleague Judy Turner about the missed opportunities in this bill. Notwithstanding those missed opportunities, in terms of Part 3, I believe, and United Future accepts, that there are some good aspects to this bill. I want to dwell on two or three of those, and perhaps, if I have time, on some we do not agree with.

I look firstly at the question of openness of proceedings. There is a distinction in the Family Court, as opposed to other courts, and that is that the Family Court deals with situations that are quite different from the sorts of situations that come up in criminal or civil courts. The Family Court is dealing with people who are in very emotive situations and need some help to try to get the best result possible with the minimum of damage to the family relationships involved.

I know as a lawyer—and other lawyers in the Committee will have had this experience if they have been involved in family work—that the whole area of family work is very, very different from every other area of law because of the emotional loading there is. It was always difficult, I found, in family work to be able to really get to grips with where the truth lay. I would see clients who were on one side or the other, and the amount of emotion colouring their perspective of situations was so heavy that it was very hard to sit down and analyse the truth. In a civil or criminal situation I could sit down and say: “Well, tell me now exactly what the facts are here. Leave aside your own interpretations. Let me just get the solid detail so I know the factual basis, and we’ll work from there.” It was almost impossible to do that in family situations, because the emotions were so dominant in the parties involved. I believe that that is important, and the Act is right in giving flexibility to the courts in the way they deal with things.

In terms of the openness of proceedings, United Future believes that the bill has pretty well got it right. We disagree with the view of ACT and National that the proceedings should be open to the public generally. We do not want situations where nosy neighbours can go along to see what the people next door are doing, and we do not want them to have the right to sit in courtand do so. We have a situation where anyone whom the judge thinks it is appropriate to be there can be there. I think that is the right balance. If there are people who should be involved in the proceedings and who have an interest there, and if it is appropriate to have them sitting in the courtroom, then the flexibility is there to do that.

There is an automatic right for the media to be there. The National Party is raising the fear that judges will habitually exclude the media. I do not think that will happen. I think we will find that the courts take the view that the media can sit in unless there are exceptional circumstances in which that should not be allowed. Effectively, the Principal Family Court Judge told the select committee that he welcomed the fact that the media would be able to be present. That in itself is a signal that that is the way the judges will approach the situation. I think that is appropriate and I therefore think the balance we have is right. There is an automatic right for the media to be there. They need to be accredited, otherwise anyone could turn up and claim to be a member of the media. Anyone could say that they were the publisher of the local neighbourhood newsletter and, as a result, they could turn up to find out what their neighbours were doing. So there does need to be an element enabling the judge to say no—there is a bottom line in terms of accreditation. I am confident that the courts will handle that properly.

I do have a bit of concern about the Supplementary Order Paper that the Government has suddenly put in allowing for the publication of proceedings in legal, psychological and other medical journals. That is wider than the scope that was there before. I thought what we had was quite good. It allowed automatic publication as long as the names or particulars likely to lead to identification of the parties were excluded. I can understand that the legal profession, particularly, might say that they do not want to have to go through every judgment and pull it out, but this leaves the legislation open to abuse.

MOANA MACKEY (Labour) : I move, That the question be now put.

JUDITH COLLINS (National—Clevedon) : Part 4 has some quite good provisions in relation to tidying up the law on paternity for children born as a result of assisted human reproduction. However, yet again there is an opportunity missed. It seems to me that it is great to have some acceptance that the definition of blood tests will now include not only blood samples but also buccal samples and DNA profiles.

That is really important for children because under the old law, blood testing for parentage could only really say whether the alleged father, for instance, was not the parent. It could not say that the father was the parent. It was always in the negative. But with the new technology in relation to DNA, that sort of certainty can now be given with about 99.9 percent accuracy. It does not require a blood test; now only a buccal sample is needed. For the benefit of people listening, that just means a swab in the mouth with a cotton bud for some saliva. That is all that is needed.

I would like to hear from the Minister whether that will be something that a child or a mother can require someone who claims to be a father to undergo—not just in relation to the assisted human reproductive technology, but also in relation to paternity generally, because this country has a problem with fatherless children. We are constantly told that Mum does not know who the father is. The last time I heard the total, there were 36,000 children in this country who do not have any father registered for them on their birth certificates. One of the awful things is that those children—and those children’s children and their children after them—do not seem to have any right to know for certain who their father is.

One of the problems at the moment, as I understand the law, is that fathers are not required to undergo those paternity tests. The old restriction on the fatherhood test has been because of what is considered the invasion of blood testing. We do not need blood testing now, so I would like to hear from the Minister whether there will be a change to the requirement, so that someone whom the mother claims to be the father of her child can be forced to undergo buccal testing. Perhaps the law has been changed since I last looked at it but I recall, and Mr Jones from New Zealand First just told me that he also recalls, that we discussed the issue during the select committee process. However, in the end nothing was actually decided about it.

Perhaps the Minister could look at the issue, because it seems to be a real anomaly. On the one hand, we stand up in Parliament day in and day out talking about the need for children to know who their fathers are—well, some of us do—and, on the other hand, we have an opportunity with this law to change the rules so that those people who do not want to take on the responsibilities of fatherhood, even though they should, do not get away with it.

That is very, very important. It is for the benefit of children, for the benefit of mothers, and of course for the benefit of generations to come because, as I constantly say in this Chamber and will continue to do so, every child needs to know his or her whakapapa. Every child needs to know where he or she comes from—even if that might cause some people some embarrassment—because the child should be first and foremost in our minds. One thing the child needs is a father.

I am pleased to see there is some attempt to deal with assisted human reproductive technology and with the way parenthood needs to be established for the benefit of children. Having said that, I think the wording around some of these things is very complicated and fuzzy. I note there is still provision for the lesbian fathers’ clause. I see that Mr Jones from New Zealand First has put forward an amendment, which I will suggest we should look at because it deals with the absurdity of that.

Dr PAUL HUTCHISON (National—Port Waikato) : The purpose of Part 4 is described in section 13(a) of Part 2, inserted by clause 167, as being “to remove uncertainty about the status of children conceived as a result of AHR procedures:”. It seems extraordinary that that is the stated purpose, because what the Labour Party has created in this morass of politically correct nonsense just cements, once more, total uncertainty over the status of children conceived as a result of assisted human reproductive procedures. I believe that Dail Jones will move an amendment to try to clear that up, but with this Labour Government it is very difficult to do so, because the Government is absolutely all over the place.

The offending part comes in section 14(2) of Part 2, inserted by clause 167, which points out: “A woman who is not the birth mother of a child but who, by operation of this Part, is a parent of the child must, for the purposes of an enactment or rule of law (other than this Part) that refers to, or contemplates, a mother and a father of, or 2 parents of, a child, be treated so far as practicable in the same manner as the father of, or as the other parent of, the child.”

Well, which way does the Labour Party want to have it? It just cannot help mixing itself up in a morass of political correctness. Why can it not call a spade a spade? Why can it not call a woman a woman and celebrate that, and a man a man and celebrate that, and celebrate whatever might be the combination? But, no, the Government has to jumble it up in a combination of gobbledygook. That is all this Labour Party can do.

My colleague Katherine Rich has quite clearly said that there are situations in New Zealand whereby parenting by same-sex partners is carried out wonderfully, in an absolutely ideal form. That is not the argument. I totally accept that there are a whole range of parenting arrangements in New Zealand, and that in many respects some of those combinations do absolutely wonderful jobs. That cannot be denied. But what is of huge worry to me is the way this Labour Party dances around the edges and refuses to define or to celebrate either masculinity or femininity, or whatever the mix is in-between. It is totally fixated on jumping around the edges and confusing the public with politically correct gobbledygook.

Muriel Newman has often pointed out that more children are losing fathers on a daily basis in New Zealand through separation or divorce than they did during the entire Second World War. My colleague Judith Collins has also made the point about how hugely important it is to know one’s parentage. We certainly have the modern technology, and it is very simple these days—through buccal smears, tissue samples, and, of course, blood—to be extremely certain of parentage. Yet we have this ridiculous situation in New Zealand, perpetuated by the Labour Party, whereby 19,000 women refuse to name the father. The majority of those women are not in situations where there is violence, a threat of violence, or a danger. The Labour Party has just said: “Oh, no. We are going to make some penalties.”

MOANA MACKEY (Labour) : I move, That the question be now put.

DAIL JONES (NZ First) : That closure motion shows the absolute arrogance of this Labour Party—its total arrogance. Here we are debating a bill that the Labour Party says is extremely important, but after only one Opposition party has spoken, it wants to shut up the debate. I take that as a great compliment to New Zealand First. Obviously the Labour Party does not want New Zealand First to make a contribution in this debate.

Darren Hughes: The two-party club.

DAIL JONES: Yes, it is the old two-party system. Labour and National want a closed shop—although it is more that Labour is wanting the old ways than New Zealand First or the National Party.

This is a very, very complicated part of the bill. I really appreciate the way in which officials explained it to me, because the situations we get ourselves into today are extraordinarily complicated. The part relates to the status of children generally. Part 1, inserted by clause 157, is about parents having equal status, whether or not they are or have been married to each other. Part 2, inserted by clause 167, is about the status of children conceived as a result of artificial human reproduction procedures.

There seem to be so many statuses that one gets confused about the whole thing. I think that the Labour Party is totally confused about the whole thing. It could not understand a simple amendment to clause 37 yesterday, and it clearly cannot understand what it is doing today.

I am indebted to the Auckland District Law Society subcommittee that took the trouble to make a submission on this bill. It made a suggestion as to an amendment to this part, which I am putting to the Committee, because obviously the Labour Party did not wish to have it considered. In paragraph 52 of its submission, the Auckland District Law Society referred to clause 167: “The amendment proposed in this clause to section 14(2) of the Status of Children Act states that a woman, by operation of the Act deemed to be a parent of the child, must be treated as far as practicable in the same manner as a father of a child. The Sub-Committee considers this clause is clumsily worded and could be more appropriately and sensitively phrased.” The subcommittee asked for the words “the father of, or” to be deleted, and that is my amendment.

I believe that as it stands, this bill really continues with that gender-bending, mother being father, lesbian father / homosexual mother approach that the Labour Party originally wanted in this bill, and that the strong Opposition on this side of the Chamber made sure was deleted from the bill. The Labour Party had to be cut down at the knees. That was done by the Opposition in a show of strength that this Labour Party, even with its entire arrogance, had to submit to.

The same thing continues in this clause 167, which effectively states that a mother is the father of a child. That is absolute nonsense, and the Auckland District Law Society says so. It is not just said by Dail Jones from New Zealand First, an old-fashioned conservative who never changes his views and who always supports family, married life, and all those things. It is not said by me alone; it is said by the Auckland District Law Society subcommittee.

There must be quite a few trendy liberals on the Auckland District Law Society subcommittee, if I may say so. I know a few of them, and I mean that in a very good spirit, but it is that subcommittee that says this amendment should be made. The reason is so obvious. It is clumsily worded and could be more appropriately and—I emphasise this word—sensitively phrased. The Law Society wants it to be more sensitively phrased. The current phrasing is insensitive. That is the polite way of saying it is gender-bending, hopeless, Labour Party claptrap that gives way, as usual, to Labour’s “trendy leftie”, politically correct supporters. It is totally insensitive. That is what the Auckland District Law Society says.

It is an example, really, of designer children. That is what we are getting in our society today. That is what we are moving more and more towards, and that is what is here already. That is what this type of legislation will and does support.

New Zealand First says that that is absolute nonsense. Let us call a spade a spade, as Dr Hutchison said—I appreciate his comments—a father is a father, and a mother is a mother. A mother cannot be a father, and a father cannot be a mother. That is biologically impossible. Yet this Labour Party is trying to gender bend. It is a bunch of gender benders as far as this legislation is concerned.

Let us call a father a father. I am proud to be a father. I can never be a mother—I am biologically incapable of it. But this bill is saying that mothers can be fathers and fathers can be mothers. That is absolute nonsense. It is insensitive, inappropriate, and wrong. The Auckland District Law Society subcommittee says so in nice wording, and I say so as well. It must be changed, and I will be moving an amendment accordingly.

Hon GEORGE HAWKINS (Minister of Police) : I move, That the question be now put.

Dr MURIEL NEWMAN (Deputy Leader—ACT) : I rise to take a call on Part 4. I want to put on record what I think is the absolutely appalling situation that we are in today. We have had the Care of Children Bill before Parliament for almost the whole year. Hundreds and hundreds of people have made submissions, and the committee has travelled up and down New Zealand to hear those submissions.

Now we have a situation whereby the Labour Government, in urgency on a Friday—when we have the whole day ahead of us, right through to 10 o’clock tonight—is cutting off all the speeches and contributions that parties want to make. It is absolutely appalling, and it is simply a denial of free speech in Parliament. Just to set the record straight, I say that Opposition parties can do nothing absolutely nothing about it. The Chairperson is the master of what happens in the Committee stage. When Government members start to take calls for closure, the Chair can ignore them—which he should be doing—or he can heed their calls and close down the debate. We used to have clause by clause debates on parts such as Part 3, which has 37 clauses. I put in an amendment and got one call. That is an absolute disgrace. The Labour Government does not want to debate the bill openly.

We are now debating Part 4. It is a much smaller part, because it deals with smaller, more complicated but also more concise, issues. The rest of the bill is where the bulk of the debate should have occurred. I feel that that is an important point to be made.

Part 4 deals with paternity testing. We have already heard some contributions on the issue, but I make the point that the Labour Government has such a double standard—given that we passed a bill the other day about human reproduction that ensured sperm donors had to have their identities recorded so that children at some later stage would be able to find out who their fathers were, and given that we have the domestic purposes benefit in New Zealand, which is being used by 19,000 women who choose not to name the father of their child. As we have already heard, that is around 36,000 children who do not know who their fathers are, and this Government has failed to do anything about it.

If the Minister for Social Development and Employment were here, he would stand up and say that that is not correct, and that he has made all those changes. But again, the changes are Clayton’s changes. The issue is whether those children have a right to know who their dads are. In the majority of cases the mothers know who the fathers are. There is absolutely no doubt about that. Should Parliament pass a law ensuring that those children get to know their paternity—get to know their history and who their dads are? I say “Yes”. The Government should be doing everything it can to ensure that the loophole is closed. Otherwise, we have a bizarre situation in New Zealand. We have rules and regulations—and rightfully so—stating that family members who are very close to one another are not able to marry, for well-recognised reasons, yet we have 30,000-odd kiddies out there who would not even know whether they were marrying their cousins, because they do not know who their fathers are.

It is an absolutely stupid situation, and the point is that those numbers have escalated under Labour’s watch. When Labour took over, there were 12,000 women who failed to name the fathers of their children. That number has gone up to 19,000 and is on the way to 20,000—one in six women now on the domestic purposes benefit. Nobody can tell me it is because they do not know who the father is.

DAVE HEREORA (Labour) : I move, That the question be now put.

GORDON COPELAND (United Future) : It would be churlish of me not to say that a great deal of improvement relating to the care of children will result from the passage of the bill. I know that many members of the Justice and Electoral Committee worked very hard, and very cooperatively and constructively in that regard. At the same time, however, I want to say how disappointed I am, at times, that for whatever reason, common sense does not seem to apply when it comes to drafting our legislation. I say that because I drew the following situation—which I will describe to the Committee—to the attention of the select committee, but it fell on deaf ears and I cannot for the life of me begin to understand why.

I want to explain a real-life situation to the Committee. A few years ago a beautiful little baby girl was born to a couple living together. As far as everyone was aware, everyone bonded with that little girl, and that was not only her mum and dad but also her grandparents on both sides. Both the maternal and the paternal grandparents bonded with that little girl. However, the story does not have a happy ending because a couple of years later the mother of the child basically showed the father of the child the door. There may have been some good reasons for that. The father of the child then went to court to try to establish his rights for ongoing access to that beautiful little girl. At that point in time, the mother of the baby suddenly said that he was not the father. There was no name on the birth certificate. Now, the little girl happened to be the spitting image of her dad, but that made no difference. When the mother was asked who the father was, she named a second male, a different person, and said that he was the father of the baby.

I cannot begin to explain to the Committee how much grief that caused the father and his parents, the grandparents of the child, and that remains the case 3 years later. Years ago we would have said that in this situation only God knows who the father is, but we forget that today we have DNA technology and it would be a simple, straightforward matter to prove once and for all who the father of the child is. Has that happened? No, it has not. This young man has been to the courts—I might add, on legal aid—and he has been to lawyers for the last 3 years. They told him that nothing can be done about the situation. I refer members now to new section 10 in clause 165. New section 10 states: “Declaration as to paternity (1) In this section, eligible person means a person—(a) who is a woman …” and then it goes on to state “who alleges” so and so, and then “who can prove paternity”. Why in God’s name does that section not state “a woman or a man”? Why is it that we, as a Parliament, are prepared to tolerate this unacceptable situation?

We have the science—we should use the science. We should determine the paternity of this little girl once and for all. We should do that in the interests of the father, we should do that in the interests of both the maternal and the paternal grandparents, and we should certainly do it in the interests of the child. What will happen to this little girl as she grows up, when she knows? She will find out because in spite of all the court orders and so forth her father—who, by the way, is in a new relationship now—will not give up. He believes with all his heart that that little girl is his child. So why cannot we in Parliament realise these practical human situations, have some compassion, and exercise some common sense? Why can we not do the right thing instead of deciding, on the basis of a sexist decision, that while women clearly have the right under this bill to establish the paternity of their children, men do not? I cannot for the life of me understand what kind of ideology takes over a select committee so that it will not bend an issue like that. It is absolutely unacceptable. I fear for the psychological development of that little girl growing up.

Hon Dr NICK SMITH (National—Nelson) : I am not surprised that Labour members want to shut down this debate, particularly the male members opposite, given the pathetic way in which they have allowed feminists to dominate this important area of law. Let us just remind ourselves what the Labour caucus and the Labour Cabinet wanted to put on the law books of New Zealand: “To avoid doubt… ‘the father of a child’ is a reference to the same-sex … partner of the mother of the child …”. What sort of people, what sort of men, are in the Labour caucus and Cabinet that they would approve that sort of nonsense being put on the law books of this land?

The arrogance of the Prime Minister and the Ministers in charge of this bill is such that they believe that this Parliament can overrule nature. They believe they can somehow pretend that a child has a father and a mother where the father is female. That is how bizarre the world view is that Labour members of this Parliament have.

I say to those members opposite, particularly the male members, that no amount of politically correct legislation can overrule the basic rule of nature—that is, that children have a mother and a father. Labour members can pass all the laws they like, but fathers are men in this country.

I am sorry to tell the Labour Minister in the Chair, the Hon David Benson-Pope, and the “squawkish” sounding female senior whip that somehow in this bill a father can be a woman, because in clause 167 we see that a woman is to be treated the same as the father of the child. Under this bill a lesbian partner is to be treated as though that person were the father of the child.

I say to the Committee that that is trying to create a sexless society in which there are not fathers and mothers; there are just—

Darren Hughes: Nonsense!

Hon Dr NICK SMITH: The member said it was nonsense. Was he in the caucus when they said, to avoid doubt, that the father of the child could be a woman?

Darren Hughes: Why has nature been so mean to this man?

Hon Dr NICK SMITH: That member does not want to talk about the law that he approved as a caucus member to be passed in this Parliament. I am not surprised that Dave Hereora does not want to debate it; he just wants to shut the debate down. He is so embarrassed that he is just kowtowing to the Prime Minister—the Prime Minister who believes that the father of the child can be a woman.

I simply say that those members do not understand that children in this country actually need fathers and mothers, who are equal but different. Why on earth will that member and the Minister not take a call to justify the provisions in this law that say a lesbian is to be treated as the father of the child? That can never be in nature, and it should not be in law.

I challenge Mr Darren Hughes, who has all the time in the world to interject, to take the next call and to tell Parliament why we should pass law that states a woman should be treated the same as the father of the child. That is what is being imposed on the people of New Zealand, but did Labour put that in its manifesto? Did Darren Hughes tell the men in his electorate that he thinks mothers can be fathers—that women can be fathers? [Interruption]

Maybe Lynne Pillay will take a call. I think Lynne Pillay is a lovely lady. She would make a great mother, but she will not be the father of a child in this world or the next.

DARREN HUGHES (Junior Whip—Labour) : I move, That the question be now put.

JUDITH COLLINS (National—Clevedon) : This bill is about lost opportunities. That is a comment that has been made throughout the long hours of the debates on this bill. This bill, if the Government had had the courage to talk to people who work in the area of family law, and listened to families and children, would have gone a lot further when it needed to. Unfortunately, when the heat came on, the Government just whimpered on it. This was an opportunity for parental rights and responsibilities to come to the fore—and note, I say parental rights “and responsibilities”. Children in this country do not have enough by way of parental oversight in what they do. Instead, the Government’s big issue here is turning custody into day care. One of the big concerns it has is that custody of a child for a parent denotes some sort of ownership. Well, parents do own their children, and children do own their parents. That requires responsibility. Unfortunately, one of the great plugs from the Government is turning custody into day-to-day care, which is nothing more than childcare—unpaid childcare work. That is what the Government says of parents now.

One of the other opportunities lost was that in relation to guardianship. Guardianship is a very, very important concept in our law and for children. It is for the benefit of children. Yet this Government has decided that a partner of a mother can, after only 1 year, and with no court intervention, just fill out a form, trot along to the Family Court, give that form to the registrar, and become a guardian. In the select committee process those of us who actually care about parents, care about families, and care about children, had to fight to get some changes to actually show that at least these people who were going to be given this guardianship would have to front up with a criminal conviction record.

Having said that, that would not have helped those little girls in Masterton, because their mothers would have just gone willy-nilly along with this sort of process and thought it was fantastic. This was a lost opportunity to take guardianship and be even more serious about it. It was a lost opportunity to open up the Family Court. We have this morning talked extensively about why the Family Court must be more open. It was an opportunity to let the sunlight into the Family Court and to free people who are currently feeling that they are subjected to two very, very strange practices from some people who work in that area.

It was an opportunity to open up so that parents know what is going on with their young children. It was an opportunity for consent to medical procedures to actually extend through a little bit. It was an opportunity for notification for parents when children were having an abortion. Because the stupid thing about this law is, of course, that any parent needs to consent to his or her 15-year-old undergoing a dental procedure. Yet the Government whipped its people; it would not let them really go to their hearts and go to it.

Hon David Benson-Pope: That is not true. The member is telling lies.

JUDITH COLLINS: The Government did that. This was an opportunity to take paternity seriously. It was an opportunity for this Government to say: “Children need to know who their fathers are, and they need to have their father.”, but it did not. What did the Government do? It wimped. It wimped out on it because all it wanted to do—the whole purpose of this bill—was to say that men are women, women are men, and we are all the same. Well, we are not all the same, and I celebrate the fact that we are not the same. I have no problem—and I want to put this on record—with lesbian couples having children, or gay men having children. I do not have a problem with that at all. What I do have a problem with is when we have to say that a lesbian is a father. Well, she is not. She might well be the partner of the mother. She might well take over a lot of the parenting role, but she is not a man.

DAIL JONES (NZ First) : I speak to Clauses 1 and 2, and on behalf of New Zealand First I wish to make it clear that there is no way that we can support this gender-bending legislation. Legislation that states that a father is a mother, and a mother is a father, is gender-bending, and absolute claptrap. It is supported by the Labour Party, which has no regard for natural, biological family relationships. It is absolute common sense. A man can only be a father. A man cannot be a mother. A woman can only be a mother. She cannot be a father. Yet we have deemed in legislation that a woman can be the father of a child. I tried to move an amendment to clause 167 a little while ago to amend the Status of Children Act, which is part of this legislation, to make it clear that a woman could not be the father of a child in those circumstances.

That amendment was put forward to the select committee by the Auckland District Law Society subcommittee on those matters. That is not a trendy lefty or a trendy righty organisation. It is a good bunch of lawyers trying to make a good contribution to our society, free of charge. One must remember that the work done by the Law Society, and all those lawyers who contribute to it, is done for the benefit of the public. That subcommittee proposed an amendment to the Status of Children Act, which states currently that a woman, by operation of the Act, deemed to be a parent of the child, must be treated as far as practicable in the same manner as the father of a child. The Auckland District Law Society subcommittee said that that clause was worded clumsily and could be more appropriately and sensitively phrased.

The Law Society is being extremely polite in using the word “sensitively”. It means that it is gender-bending, absolute claptrap that shows that the Labour Party has no regard for the normal family relationship, which is the backbone of our society in New Zealand.

It is interesting in the United States that President Bush seems to have won the election, to a large degree, on the support of normal family relationships. New Zealand First would like to put a challenge forward. Let us have an election where we will see who stands for normal family relationships. We in this House are behind normal family relationships.

Moana Mackey: Define “normal”.

DAIL JONES: Moana Mackey asks what is normal. A female Labour Party member does not know what “normal” is, so I will tell her what normal is. Normal is a man; normal is a woman. Transsexual and transgender is abnormal. That is common sense. Homosexuality is not normal; it is abnormal. A man is normal. A female is normal. The Labour Party, with its female takeover of it, has men who should not be called men. Labour Party men are not men. We know by this bill that Labour Party men are women. We know by this bill that Labour Party women are men. Members of the Labour Party do not know what is normal. They are horribly mixed up, and that is what will happen to this country if the Labour Party anti-family claptrap continues by young members who have absolutely no idea, no experience, and who want to take over this country. That is unlike Craig McNair in New Zealand First who is solidly behind normal family relationships, and exhibits that in his own life as well.

This legislation does little to change current practice. It is an utter waste of the taxpayer’s money and time. There is more important legislation that we should be confronting in this House, rather than this absolute nonsense that the Labour Party has spent tens of millions of dollars on to try to enforce the view that men are women, and women are men.

I have no objection to lesbians having custody of children. They can do a very, very good job in the circumstances in which they find themselves. But, there will be situations where lesbians will have the custody of children of natural parents, and we saw that in the select committee. A lesbian mother came along, she was doing a very good job, but she had the custody of the children of a normal father in the earlier relationship of her lesbian partner. The world is getting terribly complicated these days.

Darren Hughes: Catch up with it.

DAIL JONES: The member wants to deride me. Darren Hughes does not support normal fathers and normal mothers. That is his choice. I support normal fathers and normal mothers. The people in Levin should know that Darren Hughes does not support the natural father or the natural mother. He can interject as much as he likes. I remind the people of Levin that that is what he stands for.

Dr MURIEL NEWMAN (Deputy Leader—ACT) : I rise to make a contribution to this part of the bill that talks about the title, the “Care of Children Bill”, which Opposition parties have realised is a complete and utter misnomer. This bill is replacing the Guardianship Act, an Act that has withstood the test of time, and does need a little bit of tweaking, but not in the way in which the Care of Children Bill has done. I guess that one of the most concerning aspects of the legislation is that it is another step in the relentless drive of the Labour Party to thrust political correctness down the throats of unsuspecting New Zealanders.

This bill redefines the family. I looked through it to see where it celebrates marriage, because this is all about children. Of course, as we all know, and common sense tells us, kids in a good married relationship family do better than children who have gone through family breakdown and all of the other trauma that that brings. Yet this bill does not celebrate marriage. In fact, when members look where marriage is defined they will find that it has been redefined. What is now in its place is that, according to Labour Government law, a married woman is no longer a married woman, but a partnered woman. A partnered woman means a woman, one, who is married; or, two, is married, but living with a man, or with another woman as a de facto partner; or, three, is not married, but is living with a man, or with another woman as a de facto partner.

This bill dilutes what has been an institution in New Zealand that has long been regarded as something that should be protected. In fact, Governments in other countries go so far as to encourage marriage. They do not do it for any moral or religious reasons, but simply because marriage is an institution, and kids do better when they are brought up in a family where mum and dad are committed, both emotionally and through law, to the ongoing family relationship.

This bill is a lost opportunity. It was an opportunity to put right family law in New Zealand—a law that has seen the marginalisation of children, and certainly the marginalisation of fathers. I was very hopeful that the Government would see fit to introduce concepts like shared parenting, like a proper open Family Court, and I have been disappointed to see that the Government has voted those amendments down.

One of the real concerns about the bill is that although it sounds good and has a “feel good” feeling about it, if it were renamed the “Marginalisation of Children Bill”, then maybe people would realise: “Hang on a minute! This bill might not do the things the Government is telling us.”

One of the real concerns is the concept of guardianship in the bill. The old way we looked at guardianship was that there was a mum and a dad and they were the guardians of the child, and other people could become guardians, in exceptional circumstances. But this bill totally erodes that concept. The Government will claim that it extends the status of guardianship, but effectively it erodes guardianship, because under this bill one can have any number of guardians. As we heard in the debate, another person could come into a child’s life, for no longer than a year, and then be made a permanent legal guardian. I say that that may be not very wise, and we may, in the future, regret the passing of this bill with such a provision in it.

But, more worryingly, we have already heard a lot about fatherlessness in New Zealand. It is a huge cause of concern, I believe, when one in three New Zealand children is growing up in families without a dad; and one in two Māori children is in that situation. Under this bill, because of the erosion of guardianship, the poor old dad, the biological father, who is no longer living with his child and in that family, is marginalised even further. So I say it is a sad day for New Zealand that this bill, which really gave so many people such a great deal of hope that family law was going to be fixed once and for all, is failing those people.

MURRAY SMITH (United Future) : This bill, to my mind, reflects the Labour Party’s term of Government. It started off with some promise, but as it has gone on through the last 2 years it has deteriorated. We have had legislation such as the Prostitution Reform Bill and the Civil Union Bill, where the Government has started to introduce the social engineering that is so damaging to our society. We also have examples like the Supreme Court Bill, and now the Foreshore and Seabed Bill, where the Government rushes things through Parliament, contrary to widespread public opinion. We have just seen that occur with regard to clause 37 of the Care of Children Bill.

The bill starts off with very nice-sounding principles. They are ones that United Future welcomes, although I suggested in Supplementary Order Paper 294 in my name on Part 2 that they do not go far enough. Nevertheless, those principles reflect the important role that parents have in their children’s lives. New clause 4A states that the child’s parents and guardians should have the primary responsibility for the child’s care. Further on, the bill states that there should be continuity in the arrangements for the child’s care, and that the child’s relationships with his or her family group, whānau, hapū, or iwi should be stable and ongoing. That is excellent. It refers to both of the parents. It states that the child’s care and upbringing should be facilitated by his or her parents and guardians, and by all persons exercising that role. It also states that relationships between the child and members of his or her family should be preserved and strengthened. Those are really noble principles, so the bill starts off fine.

But by the time we get to the end of the bill, we find that it has degenerated into situations that are nothing like those concerning the care of children, and they are totally contrary to what is in the best interests of children. So the Care of Children Bill should be renamed “The Care of Children (but only if consistent with our PC social engineering ideology) Bill”. That is effectively what happens, because as soon as anything that is in the best interests of the child gets in the way of the ideology of this Government, then the Government moves away from that and follows its ideology, even though that will be damaging to families, to parents’ relationships with their children, and to the children themselves. United Future is strongly opposed to this bill for that reason. In this bill the Government has moved away from fine principles, and has started into those other things.

The obvious example of that is the debate we had last night on clause 37 and the Government’s refusal to interfere with the secret abortions that go on, whereby nobody knows that an abortion has happened except the doctor and the girl concerned. Parents do not know about abortions, and that has serious consequences for their children. I quoted an example of a rape situation that fortunately did not result in a pregnancy, but did result in sexually transmitted diseases and serious psychological harm to the daughter. The parents did not know about the rape and were not told about it, because the misguided codes of ethics of the medical practitioners’ bodies state that privacy rights extend to not telling parents what is going on in the lives of their young children. That is reprehensible, but there is nothing that this Government is prepared to do about that. It thinks it is just fine that parents do not know about the serious consequences that happen to their children.

I was just rereading my Hansard notes about the case I mentioned that happened earlier this year. A girl was raped, and the parents did not know about that. Let us think about the distress of those parents, who were left in a situation where they had a girl who had changed in her behaviour and who was clearly affected by certain situations. There were bizarre situations when the girl was in a restaurant and she would suddenly flip out, and the parents had absolutely no idea what was causing that. They were at their wits’ end. They came to the conclusion that it could only be the result of the school environment. They got to the point of thinking that they had to do something, and about what they could do, so they thought they would withdraw the girl from her school and put her in another school—that maybe there was a problem at school. Only then, when they approached the school about that, after having been distressed for 2 months about the girl’s attitude, were they told that in fact their daughter had been raped.

I think that is absolutely reprehensible. When this Government allows that sort of thing to happen without the parents having any right to know what is happening, then it is moving right away from the care of children, and from a situation where the best interests and welfare of the child are paramount, to a situation where it is prepared to protect doctors and allow that sort of thing to go on. It is prepared to protect criminals. That was a criminal offence—the rape of a girl. Yet the medical profession did not even report it to the police. Nor did the school report it to the police. That is a reprehensible situation.

United Future will not support this bill.

LYNNE PILLAY (Labour—Waitakere) : I move, That the question be now put.

Hon Dr NICK SMITH (National—Nelson) : I am not surprised that the Labour Party, under urgency, is trying to shut down debate on one of the most critical areas of New Zealand life, which is the area of family law. This bill is a radical experiment in social engineering. It is about undermining the critical role that parents play in children’s lives. What this bill does—and we can talk about the detail of it, as we have over this morning and last evening—is to increase the legal rights of the child, of new partners, of social workers, of lawyers, of judges, and of the police, and to improve the legal rights of iwi, family groups, and hapū. Every time we do that, we take away the legal rights of parents.

I was just astonished that when the Government introduced this bill, the Minister had the audacity to say in this Chamber that Labour was interested only in parental responsibilities, not in parental rights. It is interested only in parental responsibilities, not in parental rights. Is that not interesting? How many speeches have we heard from Labour Party members talking about gay rights, workers’ rights, and indigenous people’s rights? They are interested in all those rights, but when it comes to parents’ rights they do not give a toss, and that is a disgrace. It was interesting for me that again the Minister in charge of the bill, David Benson-Pope, said that we have a simplistic view in the Chamber that it is a parent who raises a child, and that that is wrong—that it is the community that raises a child. Do members know what my wife said about that? She asked whether the community would come around and change my son’s nappies at midnight. Will the community ensure that my child receives his food, and receives the love and care that is needed to bring him up? Of course not! That is political garbage, and this Minister and this Labour Government are imposing that on our country.

The Labour Party somehow believes that the family—a mother and a father who are bringing up children—is dead. I say to Labour members that the institution of the family predates the Labour Party, predates this Parliament, and predates the very philosophies that may drive them. The family is a lifelong institution that will survive. The people of New Zealand know that the only way they will stop this sort of PC nonsense is to sack the Labour Party at the next election.

Hon Mark Burton: Oh!

Hon Dr NICK SMITH: I wonder whether Mark Burton told his constituents in Taupo that he wanted a law that stated women could be fathers. Did Mark Burton tell his constituents in Taupo that he believed that in this country women can be fathers? Did that member tell his constituents that the momentary de facto partners of this country will have all the legal rights of guardians? Well, we will be telling the people of Taupo that, which is one of the reasons that the member for Taupo will be out on his tail at the next general election. The people of New Zealand know that we cannot separate children’s best interests from the best interests of families. The most important thing for children is the family. What we should have is a families bill that states how this Parliament will support the work of families, in order to ensure that children get the very best deal.

I say that the National Party looks forward to being in Government, when its members can put in place some laws that will work for children. We on the Opposition side of the Chamber understand that parental rights are important, and sit right alongside parental responsibility. In contrast with the Labour Government, which wants to water down both rights and responsibilities, we on the Opposition side of the Chamber say that parental rights and responsibilities go hand in hand, and that children’s interests are best served when this Parliament recognises that it is parents who are the most important people in children’s lives. But sadly, that will not occur without a change of Government.

Hon DAVID BENSON-POPE (Associate Minister of Justice) : I move, That the Committee divide the bill into the Care of Children Bill and the Status of Children Amendment Bill, pursuant to Supplementary Order Paper 290.