Having given the bash to beneficiaries, kneecapped those in trouble with the law, slapped parents of pre-school children, and slammed the door on educational opportunities for older people looking to retrain, the Government is now turning on families in trouble.
Simon Power wants to rein in the ballooning costs of the Family Court, without really understanding why those costs have risen so sharply.
The Family Court is an institution whose role is to clean up the mess when families crumble. It has a critical role in sorting out issues concerning child custody, relationship property and domestic violence, to name but a few areas the court is active in. Generally it does a pretty good job, but it has its work cut out. The rise in reports of domestic violence over recent years, as a consequence of anti-violence campaigns, has led to the court having a greater workload, while the stress and anxiety caused by both economic and natural disasters will be causing many families to fall apart.
In times of stress it makes sense that there will be a greater demand for the services of the Family Court. Simon Power has claimed that too much court time is being wasted by trivia, but this has been disputed by lawyers working in the field, and Power has provided no evidence to back his theory up - just anecdotes. It's what we have come to expect from a government immune to evidence-based policymaking, and unable or unwilling to look ahead to see the potential effects of its policies.
We continue to wallow in the depths of a downturn, and debt issues and job losses are putting enormous stress on families. It doesn't make a lot of sense to take away some of the services offered by the Family Court that are helping to keep families functioning. Services that may prevent some troubled families from turning into breeding grounds for crime and substance abuse.
The Family Court is very often an emergency service, acting swiftly to sort out violence and child custody issues, and intervening in family crises. An effective intervention by the Family Court can reduce cost to the taxpayer later on.
If we were in the middle of a pandemic it would be the height of absurdity to respond to the additional demand on our hospitals by cutting funding to the health system. Nor would we slash police funding as a response to a crime wave. So why are we contemplating cutting Family Court funding in the middle of a downturn?
Wednesday, April 20, 2011
8 comments:
I welcome comments, but I ask commenters to follow a few simple rules:
1. I delete anonymous comments. Please use either a name or moniker. I am not asking anyone to reveal their secret identity. Just don't call yourself "Anonymous".
2. Please don't abuse or defame others.
3. Moronic or nonsensical comments may be deleted.
4. I don't often exercise the heavy hand of censorship, but I do reserve the right to delete any comment I don't like, for any reason.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
I am not a family lawyer, but it isn't difficult to see the amount of good the Family Court does, in what are almost by definition tough circumstances.
ReplyDeleteI'd agree in particular that the Govt is wrong to be focusing on the "preventative" side of the Court, like counselling. It's symptomatic of the Govt's typical short-sightedness that it would prefer to save a few bucks in preventative measures, while showing no indications that it has considered the long-term implications of doing so.
I see a public consultation paper is due in September, meaning that Simon Power will be handing over this project to someone else before it is complete. Let's hope the next Minister of Justice takes a more sensible approach.
Given that the favourite to succeed Power is Judith Collins, I'm not holding my breath.)
Great post. In fact so great that I quoted the whole thing and nicked your title to boot.
ReplyDeletehttp://thestandard.org.nz/leave-the-family-court-alone/
I was going to quote from it, but I couldn't find anything to cut damnit (please stop writing so well!). I would have done the usual republish under The Standard author, but I really wanted to assert how much I thought Power was being an ideologically stupid idiot.
Please please stop writing such complete posts. Put some junk writing in there for us to ignore :)
Also most of the NACToids belong to the class of men who regards women and children as possesions and don't like the idea that they can get independent advice.
ReplyDeletePlease please stop writing such complete posts. Put some junk writing in there for us to ignore :)
ReplyDeleteYour words are very kind, but I fear that you give me too much credit. A good proportion of my work is hastily written and untidy, given the constraints of time I am always working under, and yet it seems that the work I bash out quickly and without much thinking gets all the accolades. These internets are some truly odd things.
Meanwhile not a soul comments on my carefully crafted homage to Bernard Cornwell...
Am glad you're enjoying my blog anyway.
Gee, I really wonder: are you speaking with any experience, and from which side of the coin?
ReplyDeleteI have long experience of the Anti-Family Court, and I think I have seen inside this secret institution quite enough to well know what it's really about.
Unlike what you say, it is not there "to clean up the mess when families crumble." To the contrary.
It is a vile and nasty institution, basically created by parasites (aka lawyers) so that they can suck the life blood out of more and more people, in the name of "doing good", and, basically, do it secretly and silently, behind closed doors, out of the public eye.
It's there, not to clean up the mess, but create one, to exacerbate resolvable problems, to the point of destroying any relationships. (Are you kidding, you think lawyers want to HELP people??? Which planet are you from?)
Lawyers are the masters of game playing. They are friends, and always refer to one another as "my friend". The animosity is feigned, part of conning the client into greater and greater levels of anger and hatred. It's not about love and solving problems and working things out. It's all about milking money from hapless victims. And, of course, one of the biggest victims is the taxpayer, who gets lumbered with the bill more often than not.
So, HEAR, HEAR to Simon Power. He knows the Truth. Open up the evil Family Court and let everyone have a look. Then watch the cockroaches scurrying for the darkness.
If you want a handle to refer to me by, call me
tttwtanbtt
tttwtanbtt, I am in fact a lawyer, so I do speak from some experience. I did a little bit of Family Court work in my younger days, so I'm somewhat familiar with the institution.
ReplyDeleteYou don't find it ironic to be blasting all lawyers while at the same time praising Simon Power - a lawyer?
You obviously had a bad experience. That doesn't make the place evil. For all I know there might be a good reason why you didn't enjoy your experience.
Hi Scott,
ReplyDeleteAre you saying "once a lawyer, always a lawyer"? You poor bastard! Last time I knew, Simon Power was a politician, which is a good notch above "lawyer". And I know he has aspirations - maybe a return to law is not one of them?
Anyway, as I'm sure you know, the family courts are kinda unique. Until one's been there a few times, one may not realise that. But you ought to know, through your own experience and your lawyer friends, that the family courts are the lowest of the low. Why else would you quit working there?
(Of course, I do know that, being a closed and secret, mickey mouse court with no real standards of justice or professionalism and no risk of "bad press" for making a complete arse of things, the family courts are where most green lawyers get sent to gain a bit of practise and confidence, etc. That would fit with your knowledge, wouldn't it?)
For one thing, they're highly secretive. Their decisions are not really open to public scrutiny. (And there are very good [real] reasons for that.) As I guess you know, secrecy is anathema to justice... I needn't say any more. So people just don't know what they're really like, and with the exception of North & South (which was apparently "fined" $10,000 for criticising them) the media won't go near them.
Yes, I had a bad experience, if you want to minimise and understate it. It virtually wrecked my life - which is, of course, the REAL purpose and intention.
But I can tell you, my experience was tame compared to the experiences of MANY of its victims.
How about we talk about the number of family court provoked murders in New Zealand.
And how about we also talk about the other side of the coin: the numbers of family court provoked suicides?
Then, we'll have something worth taking the time to debate.
Cheers,
tttwtanbtt
P.S. Apologies for the poor punctuation and less then ideal word here and there.
ReplyDeleteTwo further subjects that would be very worth discussing in relation to the (evil, destructive) NZ family courts:
1. Mental Health
It's the same scenario as the Road Toll. For every fatality, whether by murder or suicide, there are maybe hundreds if not thousands whose Mental Health is severely impacted by their being victimised by the family courts. I am sure (without ever going near another nutbar psychologist) that I am one such victim of the family courts. Maybe I now have PTSD. I dunno. It's only a label. I know I've been adversely affected.
2. Loss of Productivity
Most (the very vast majority of) people who are victimised by the "family" courts suffer greater or lesser loss of productivity. Again, I am one. There is another category of f.c. victims who go on to become great pests to bureaucracy. I know a few. Of course, not only are they not personally productive, they cost the country MILLIONS in legal bills and so on.
Yes, the family courts are evil, in my understanding of the word. In fact, if you believe the Devil is real, you might easily find his mark right there!