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The Improving Arrangements for Surrogacy Bill (the Bill), which is progressing through Parliament, proposes two significant amendments to New Zealand's surrogacy laws. First, it creates a surrogacy order to enforce surrogacy arrangements and immediately transfer legal parenthood from the surrogate to intending parents. Secondly, it broadens the range of compensable payments legally available to the surrogate. This article adopts three feminist perspectives of relational, dominance and pragmatic feminism to critically analyse these proposed reforms. This article finds that, as an inherently vulnerable group, surrogates face disproportionate disadvantages under surrogacy orders. The proposed reforms rely on a single-stage consent model at odds with informed consent and place the onus upon the surrogate to regain custody of the child if she changes her mind about the arrangement. Although the Bill's efforts to broaden the range of reimbursable payments to surrogates are a step in the right direction, they do not go far enough to compensate surrogates. This article proposes two reforms to the Bill. First, it advocates replacing surrogacy orders with surrogacy consent orders, which require multiple stages of consent throughout the process in the interests of the surrogate, while avoiding the lengthy adoption process that currently frustrates intending parents. Secondly, this article proposes the inclusion of a compensatory payment available to the surrogate beyond her immediate incurred expenses to recognise the time and labour she has expended. This would better recognise and mitigate the historic underpayment and neglect of domestic work performed by women. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The mental health consumer movement initiated the development of the recovery approach, in which self-determination, human rights and the living of a hopeful life superseded merely symptom management for people living with mental illnesses and addictions. To what degree has this reimagined path to recovery shaped social work practice? In this paper we analyse the perspectives of eleven social workers doing child protection work in Aotearoa New Zealand. We examine also the accounts of thirteen parents living with mental illness or addiction who have been involved in child custody investigations in Aotearoa New Zealand. We ask whether the social workers understand recovery as possible for such parents, and if so, how they see it occurring. We found that there is a substantial difference between the way the social workers and the parents conceived of such ‘recovery’. While parents' descriptions of recovery reflected those of the mental health consumer movement, social workers tended to operate with a focus on clinical intervention, symptom and risk management. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article considers the trajectory of children from state care to imprisonment in relation to 105 New Zealanders who spent time in residential care between the 1950s and 1990s. Following previous research, the article demonstrates how children in state care are far more likely to progress into prisons as a result of maltreatment, multiple care placements, damaging residential cultures, social disadvantages and psychological harms, as well as differential treatment in the criminal justice system. This New Zealand research also shows how the interconnected and long-standing processes of victimization and criminalization increase the likelihood of a child transitioning from care to custody. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article, an addition to the issue in honour of Bill Atkin, Sir Kenneth Keith considers the growing impact of international law on family law in New Zealand. The article begins by broadly outlining shifts in society and legal approach that impact on the field of family law. This leads to a discussion of the Hague Conference on Private International law, the conventions that came out of the conference, and the extent of New Zealand's adoption of those conventions. The different ways in which these conventions have been implemented in national law, both historically and in the present day, are then addressed. The article concludes by noting New Zealand's failure to accede to various conventions touching on family law, and suggests that international law will yet have considerable impact in family law development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Children born to opiate-dependent women engaged in methadone maintenance treatment are at high risk of child welfare concern. However, few studies have examined the early child protection service (CPS) contacts of this group or the risk factors that place some but not other mother–infant dyads at increased risk of serious concern resulting in the removal of the child from the family home. As part of a prospective longitudinal study based in New Zealand, 73 women enrolled in methadone maintenance treatment during pregnancy and 54 non-methadone maintained comparison mothers were recruited during pregnancy and interviewed close to delivery, 18-months and 4.5-years. At each follow-up evaluation, detailed life history methods were used to describe children's family circumstances and all CPS contacts. By 4.5-years postdelivery, methadone maintained mothers were ten-times more likely to have been investigated by child protection services than comparison mothers (59% v. 6%, p <.001). Of these contacts, almost half (44%) resulted in the removal of the child from the family home compared to no comparison children (p <.001). These children were most frequently placed before age 1, with an average of 1–2 caregiver changes (range: 0–7). In addition to maternal methadone maintenance treatment during pregnancy (p <.001), significant independent predictors of child out-of-home placement included maternal depression (p =.01), maternal history of child custody loss (p =.02), and to some extent, high levels of family socioeconomic adversity (p =.06). Findings highlight the complex psychosocial needs of this high-risk group, as well as the need for careful monitoring and parenting support following hospital discharge. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

This article reports on how workers and clients in child protection social work services manage the return home process. Social workers in these cases attempt to build relationships with clients that have therapeutic, educational and social control functions. Within these relationships, workers must manage competing tensions between ‘risk’ and ‘safety’ while they attempt to build collaborative relationships with parents. This article draws on a qualitative study that interviewed workers and clients within a child protection agency in Aotearoa/New Zealand. It found that workers constructed clients' problems in ways that avoided attributing moral failure or judgment, resisted ‘knee-jerk’ reactions, and had high frequency contact with both parents and children. They viewed ‘good enough’ parenting within the context of the case, believed in parents’ ability to change, and used solution focused approaches combined with contextual support to build parenting competence and confidence. These findings are discussed with regard to concepts of risk and in light of the aims of social work. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The article focuses on several New Zealand court cases dealing with topics including contract law, family law, and intellectual property law. Information is provided on jurisdiction protests, contractual term limits, and the wrongful removal of a child from a parent's custody. The article also discusses substantive obligations to pay debts under contract.

This article is located in the field of custody and day-to-day care, with a focus on experiences of mothering where mothers no longer have everyday care of their children. At the time of writing, tens of thousands of mothers live separately from their children in Aotearoa, New Zealand. However~ there is a general perception of rarity associated wi:h non-resident mothers, partly due to their reluctance to speak of loss of custody In this article, we develop a theoretical discussion around the inside/outside relationships between non-resident mothers and their children that informs therapeutic practice. We argue that mothers who live apart from their children are situated at the edge or periphery of their children's day-to-day lives and experience this as outside the lives of their children. Nevertheless, mothers' stories speak of qualities of (m)othering that have been born of and nurtured by longstanding and long-term commitment to their children. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Different countries have different approaches to relocation disputes, with some described as pro-relocation, some anti-relocation, and some in between. The law in England and Wales is generally considered pro-relocation, while New Zealand's approach, although formally neutral, is generally considered anti-relocation. Crucially, though, both jurisdictions place the welfare and best interests of the children concerned at the core of relocation law. This article draws on qualitative interviews with judges, lawyers and welfare advisors in these two jurisdictions to explore the reality of relocation disputes under the two systems. To do this, participants were asked to assess three hypothetical case-studies, which represented a range of issues which arise in relocation disputes. Both the analytical approach and the outcomes predicted by practitioners in the three cases varied between the two countries, with New Zealander practitioners generally less favourable to relocation than their counterparts in England and Wales. This article presents these findings and discusses what might be learnt from them about the different interpretations of the welfare principle in the two countries. This discussion is linked to the recent calls for a more unified international approach to relocation law, and the difficulties which may arise from attempting to base such an approach on the welfare principle. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Twenty-one women who had disputes over care arrangements with the fathers of their children and were involved in New Zealand family law processes related to those disputes were interviewed about their experiences. On some of these women's accounts individual family law professionals appear to be adopting an idealistic approach to 50:50 shared day-to-day care, viewing it as the presumptively right arrangement for all children and, on this basis, one the New Zealand Family Court is likely to award. This article contrasts such an approach with the research literature emerging from Australia and elsewhere which suggests that post-separation care arrangements for children must be crafted in response to the unique circumstances of each case, and, in particular, the practical resources available to both parents, the parenting skills of the respective parents, the nature of the co-parenting relationship, and the age and temperament of the child in question. The literature raises serious questions about the advisability of 50:50 care arrangements in situations where the parents are in conflict and are unable to prevent children from witnessing or becoming involved in that conflict, or where the children are very young. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article deconstructs news media representations of two custody abductions that took place in Aotearoa New Zealand in the mid-2000s. In the first case, the father abducted his five-month-old daughter; in the second case, the mother was held responsible for the abduction of her six-year-old son even though he was in the presence of his maternal grandfather. The analysis demonstrates that the media's pejorative construction of the mothers at the center of both cases was facilitated by a number of significant gaps and silences in the narration of the abductions. These silences, in lending support to a fathers' rights construction of custody disputes in which mothers are to blame for dispossessing fathers of their children, reveal the media's reliance on pro-father discourses, particularly fathers' rights discourse. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article analyses case law from the UK, New Zealand, and Canada relating to claims for recognition of refugee status presented by divorced Muslim women, revolving around the issue of child custody after divorce under conservative Islamic law, which deprives women of any meaningful relationship with their children. The negative attitude of the UK authorities is compared to the open and positive approach of decision makers in New Zealand and Canada. The use and interpretation of aspects of the refugee definition, such as persecution, particular social group and the standard of state protection, are analyzed in more detail. The article argues that, in order to adequately evaluate this type of claim, decision makers should take into account all aspects of a woman's experiences including the consequences of the decision on their children. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The article discusses a court case wherein a father, living in New Zealand, fight for a custody right on his child, now living in Australia with the appellant mother. The father applied to the Family Court of Australia under the Family Law (Child Abduction Convention) Regulations 1986, for orders to return the child to New Zealand. The Family Court of Australia favored the appeal of the mother and terminated the invocation of Convention by the father and the New Zealand Authority.

The article presents information on the restrictions imposed on lesbian couples to have a family, along with a note on the regulation of lesbian sexuality in New Zealand. It informs that the nature of the lesbian family challenges the notion of the traditional nuclear family and is restrained in some areas by the country. It is stated that while single lesbian and heterosexual women are able to adopt children, same-sex couples are not allowed to adopt. The country also prevents free access to fertility treatment. It is maintained that in the areas of adoption, artificial insemination, and child custody, lesbian women are disadvantaged in relation to heterosexual women.

In 1995, as part of a major review of domestic violence law, the New Zealand Parliament amended the legislation under which disputes about custody of and access to children are determined by the Court. Specifically, the amendment introduced a rebuttable presumption that a parent who had used violence against a child or against the other parent would not have custody of, or unsupervised access to the child unless the Court could be satisfied that the child would be safe during visitation arrangements. Three years after the implementation of this legislation, it is timely, to reflect on the impact of this major domestic violence law reform initiative. Our findings indicate that there are indeed advances. Psychological violence is now clearly being considered when Courts are assessing the issue of children's safety. As well, the delineation of mandatory risk assessment factors has led many judges to see a continuum of power and control tactics as relevant in domestic violence related visitation proceedings; the previous emphasis on physical violence has given way to an analysis which more closely reflects accords with women's and children's realities of the abuse they are exposed to. Some of the old problems continue to exist despite the law changes. There arc still recent cases where perpetrators of serious violence tire awarded unsupervised access and where their violence continues to be construed as ‘out of character,’ arising because of the perpetrator's ‘despair’ about the breakdown of his relationship. These and other issues are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Issues, policies and legislation in respect of the rights and welfare of children are examined in the context of some key dimensions of Aotearoa/New Zealand society. These include: a multicultural population within a largely monocultural social structure (with emerging bicultural aspirations); a post-transition demographic structure; an extensive and long-standing social welfare system associated with a widely perceived (though this is now changing) lack of serious social problems; urbanization at different periods for different ethnic groups; major recent economic change with associated social costs; and a relatively high degree of political participation. The normative social and cultural framework is discussed in terms of policy and legislation on such topics as marriage, fertility regulation, parenthood, and guardianship. "Exceptional" situations encompassed by legislation, such as marital dissolution, child custody and access, children in need of care, and children charged with criminal offences, are also discussed in terms of policy and legislation. More extensive and/or diffuse topics, such as child abuse, for which policy aims legislation are inchoate, are discussed in a brother context. Issues of sexism and institutionalized racism are identified as underlying a variety of topics and issues relating to children. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents a discussion on the issue of relocation in the Family Law Act in Australia. It also offers a discussion on how and whether relocation should be defined. It also reviews the existing law on relocation and invites proposals for the amendment of the Family Law Act concerning the issue on relocation. It also outlines the proposed reforms to the family law contained in the Family Law Amendment Bill 2005 or the Shared Parental Responsibility bill. It also presents the law in other jurisdictions such as United Kingdom, New Zealand, Canada, and some states of the United States.

The article focuses on the New Zealand court case RCB v. Forrest, which dealt with the legal representation of children in Hague Convention proceedings. Topics include the New Zealand Family Law Act of 1975, international laws governing parental abduction, and the rights of the children in custody disputes.

The article offers information about the family law court case MK v. CK in New Zealand that related to the issue of relocation. The case involved a dispute between a mother and father over relocation and custody of the children. The court examined laws related to care of children and custody in the precedent case Payne v. Payne.