Media release from the Family Law Section

12 June 2003

Care of Children Bill
Family lawyers are optimistic about the Care of Children Bill tabled in Parliament yesterday. The Family Law Section of the New Zealand Law Society has welcomed its provisions, particularly the focus on a co-operative approach by parents and the emphasis on parental responsibilities rather than parental rights.

"These will help advance the best interests of children," Section Chair David Burns says.

"The provision for ‘parenting orders’ will send a useful message that parenting is a co-operative exercise rather than one involving control by one person. It is gratifying to see the bill doing away with the archaic terms ‘custody’ and ‘access’.

"This bill will bring our legislation into line with family law in other jurisdictions.

"The Section has always supported allowing Family Court proceedings to be more accessible to the public. Provided care is taken to ensure that the privacy of the families involved is protected, the Section welcomes the publication of reports of proceedings which lead to a greater and more balanced public understanding of how the court operates.

"It is also good to see the bill address the issue of enforcement and compliance with orders the Family Court makes, which has sometimes been a problem. There can be significant difficulties in ensuring compliance. Penalising parents with fines or imprisonment can sometimes make a situation worse as a child might interpret that punishment as having been imposed unfairly by the other parent.

"The bill properly focuses on the need to educate parents who do not comply with orders about the likely consequences in their own relationship with their child, while still providing sanctions where necessary.

"We also support the provision for increased counselling. This dovetails well with the recent Law Commission recommendations in its report Dispute Resolution in the Family Court.

"And it is great that the Government plans to help fund ordered supervised access by approved providers, as under the current system some parents have not been able to see their children because they have not been able to find someone to supervise the access, as required."

David Burns says the Family Law Section welcomes "this much needed and long awaited rewriting of guardianship laws". While further discussion may be needed in some areas, the Section looks forward to a healthy debate focusing on children and to making submissions to the select committee.