www.republicans.org.nz

Date 8th February 2008

Press Release
For Immediate Release.

New Zealand’s Stolen Generation.

As the Australian Government prepares to offer an apology to aboriginal children removed from their families, the Republic of NZ Party accuses the New Zealand state of creating its own stolen generation.

Will this Labour Government apologise to the thousands of children whose lives have been damaged by the failed experiment called the New Zealand family court, asks Napier Candidate Karl Brett.

Mr Brett claims that New Zealand’s family law and child protection laws also steal children from their fathers in huge numbers, with no obligation to provide evidence or proof justifying their removal.

“The DPB and Child Support systems operate mainly as a tax convenience, providing an efficient way to evict fathers from homes and families ensuring that they are forced to keep paying for children they can no longer take responsibility for,” says Brett

“Protection orders remove fathers from children’s lives on the basis of unsubstantiated accusations, even if is no suggestion they have ever harmed their children,” he adds.

Fathers are treated as guilty until they can prove their safety, and it is their children who suffer through unnecessary ongoing court proceedings. Child, Youth and Family are quick to remove children rather than providing support to parents, and use faulty risk evaluation processes that lead them to remove children unnecessarily for ideological reasons while they leave other children exposed to obvious and real danger.

Republican policy will protect children’s relationships with both parents. We want government out of the business of destroying children’s relationships with fathers.

There is significant research showing that fatherlessness damages children across all areas of development, yet we continue to do what we are doing says Brett, leaving the apology and the mess to future governments to contend with.

Ends/.

© Scoop Media