Family laws about fairness for all

Children's representation will be beefed up and couples in marital disputes will have the right of access to legal advice for the full duration of their case under a Labour government, Labour’s Justice spokesperson Andrew Little says.

"For the law to work, parties must know what their rights are,” he told a meeting of family lawyers in Auckland tonight. “Then if they are asked to compromise them or to make concessions, they know what they are giving up or trading off.

"We still need the outcomes of our family dispute resolution system to bear some relationship to the law as we have it.

“Having a system that leads to widely disparate results is no system of law at all.

"Labour will review the operation of the new Family Court arrangements. We will keep the best of what works and we will institute our bottom lines.

"In the end, we want a system equipped to deal with the fraught and difficult task of helping separating couples come to the best possible arrangements for their, and their children’s, futures,” Andrew Little said.

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