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 It is generally agreed, by all sides of the debate on this matter, that the legislation itself is out of date and needs reform.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.
RICHARD WORTH (NZ National—Epsom)
: It is a privilege for National to speak in respect of this very important legislation. I was saddened to hear the Minister, in the mid-point of her speech, take the position—why she had to say this, I do not know—that because she did not have children she was in some way fettered in offering open and frank views on the merit of this legislation.
The reason National is opposing this bill is that within it we see some significant merit but we also see aspects of propaganda and political correctness that, in the context of family issues, seem to this party to be the watchwords of this Government. I have had the privilege—some might say the burden—of listening to the comments the Minister has made on the radio in respect of this bill. I have also heard the comments she has made in respect of the Families Commission Bill. I judge—as do my National colleagues, and I am sure those representing the centre-right parties—that in much of what she says on behalf of her Government there is little more than political claptrap.
The Minister dismisses the concept of the ideal family. That family is, in effect, parents and their children. She dismisses that concept, because she says, “Well, that may be an ideal plan, but that doesn’t really reflect the reality of society.”, and that is of course true. I acknowledge that, but it is not a reason for saying that that paradigm is not worth aiming for. I am saddened that the Minister should take the particular line she has in the setting of this bill. She offers to members of this House, and to those outside of it who care to listen to her comments, the statement that the intrinsic merit of this bill is the interests of the child. That is a fair enough comment but it is stupid sophistry, because the Guardianship Act of 1986, so many years ago, said exactly that.
Hon Lianne Dalziel: 1968.
RICHARD WORTH: The Minister corrects me by saying that the date is 1968, but it is a trifling point, because she has not dealt with the substance of the issue. So let me repeat the point, which is no more complex than this. The earlier legislation was about the interests of the child, so members should not let the Minister say to us that this legislation is all about the interests of the child, because that is what the Guardianship Act of so many years ago was all about. [Interruption] I am interested to face this barrage of interjection from the Minister. She may have little experience in these issues; we have that on her own frank admission, and that may be so. But, quite clearly, all these issues of parenting are about the interests of the child. It is complete subterfuge to talk about custody and access as being somehow antiquated concepts, and to say that they do not have any real relevance in 2003.
I reinforce the point that there is much in this bill that is of merit, but there is also much that is inappropriate. I suggest that some issues need to be considered by the select committee. Those issues include—
Hon Lianne Dalziel: So you are going to vote for it?
RICHARD WORTH: The Minister seems to be worried, fretful, and concerned to interject. She asks whether National opposes the bill, and I said at the beginning of my speech that we do. The Minister was clearly not listening, and she will need to listen if she is to interject in a meaningful way.
There are some issues in this bill that need to be looked at closely. I will number those issues—[Interruption] I will deal with the Minister’s interjections in a moment. She just needs to pause and try to rest and think. There are some issues in this bill that are worthy of consideration by the select committee. The first issue is that this legislation continues the present legislative trend of the Government to move away from support for the traditional family, signalling the acceptance of other arrangements, such as same-sex marriages. I see the Minister smirking.
The second thing I will talk about is something that she dismissed as a drafting technique. Although the Government dismisses it as a drafting technique, it nevertheless remains the case that the bill provides for the circumstance that same-sex de facto partners of the mother can be defined as the father.
