Peter Dunne: Putting Children First

When relationships break up, it is frequently any children involved who suffer most. They often become pawns in a wider game – the struggle between parents over custody and access rights, or questions of responsibility for their financial upkeep, for example. Sometimes, the struggle goes beyond the parents, and involves the wider family, or even the community in which they live. But whatever the circumstances, the innocent children at the centre of the dispute generally have the least say in its resolution.

Point of Order: Buzz from the Beehive - 7/2/25

Health NZ looks for a new head while Matt Doocey tells how he got a $10m thrill

It’s the resignation that surprised nobody.

As RNZ tells it,

Point of Order: Buzz from the Beehive - 21/3/24

Willis is undeterred by GDP slowdown and IMF advice, although she is talking of “tax relief” rather than tax cuts

One minister is talking tough while a colleague – whose ministry had acted tough and drawn a barrage of flak – has shown an official softening.

Some ministers are doing what Labour was good at, which is distributing public funds to causes regarded as worthy or needy, while another has portended the prospect of a contentious Labour decision – to shut down the Marsden Point oil refinery – being reversed.

Point of Order: Mātauranga Māori will propel Pāpāmoa school kids’ science learning (in te reo)

Two ministerial press statements today draw attention to the Government’s incorporation of mātauranga Māori in its science policies and programmes.

One of these announced the launch of the national space policy, which will oblige our space boffins to bring indigenous knowledge into their considerations.

The national policy document tells us:

Karl du Fresne: Tony Ellis ups the ante in the Callinicos affair

The Callinicos affair – or should that be the Callinicos scandal? – continues to simmer, no matter how much the judicial establishment might want it to evaporate.

Regular readers of this blog will be familiar with the background. There’s a good summary here, but to recap briefly: Hawke’s Bay Family Court judge Peter Callinicos made himself unpopular by upsetting Oranga Tamariki social workers with his no-nonsense questioning (entirely justified, in the circumstances) during the racially sensitive “Moana” custody case, and subsequently appears to have been stitched up by senior judges who disapproved of the way he conducted proceedings.

Karl du Fresne: The disturbing case of Moana

The disturbing case of Moana, the heavyweight influencer and the judges.

Dominion Post journalist Marty Sharpe has reported a disturbing case in which Oranga Tamariki and a Hawke’s Bay iwi tried to have a young Maori girl removed from a safe, loving and secure Pakeha foster home because her cultural needs were supposedly not being met.

That in turn has led to an even more disturbing development, also reported by Sharpe in today's paper. I can’t recall a New Zealand judge ever rebuking two of his judicial superiors and effectively telling them to pull their heads in. But that’s what Family Court judge Peter Callinicos did when two senior judges appeared to interfere in a case he was hearing that related to the girl.

Their action created the appearance of the judges, both of whom were appointed during the term of the Ardern-Peters government, exerting influence behind closed doors in a matter that raises politically sensitive race issues. It’s not a good look.

Joanna Moss: How A Financial Crisis Might Turn Into Much Needed Reforms

The financial blow-out in the Family Court could be a blessing in disguise if the crisis is put to good use in terms of understanding the wider system and bringing in much needed reform. The Family Court is the court that most New Zealanders have contact with either directly or indirectly. It plays an important role in defining what courts are like and how they operate and also in upholding the rule of law. For these two reasons alone we need it to work well let alone considerations of the children and the family as the building block of society.

But let’s take a step back and look into why this crisis happened before we can look at the much needed reforms. Previous Minister of Justice Simon Power ordered the review when it became obvious that the costs had gone up 63% over the period 2004/2010 and the number of cases had remained roughly static. The figures showed clearly that cases were taking longer to resolve and that the Care of Children Act was the chief culprit.