Focus on Safety
Violence prevention experts envisioning a safe family justice system in Aotearoa New Zealand: Safe outcomes for children, adults at risk*, and all victim-survivors of family violence (FV) and sexual violence (SV)
*While the term ‘vulnerable adult’ is used in legislation, ‘adults at risk’ is the preferred term, for adults who need care or support because of their age, sickness, mental impairment or other cause, and because of these needs, they are unable to protect themselves when they experience or are at risk of experiencing FV, SV, neglect or exploitation.
All of Aotearoa New Zealand wants a family justice system which protects child and adult victim-survivors from further violence and abuse, enabling them to heal and live free, independent lives.
But right now, in most parts of Aotearoa New Zealand, the Family Court is failing to protect many children, adults at risk and victim-survivors from family violence (FV), sexual violence (SV), neglect and exploitation, and failing to support their recovery and wellbeing.
“A parenting order is supposed to provide stability, but in cases involving family violence, it frequently becomes just another tool of coercion. Protective parents are forced into impossible choices: break an order and risk losing your children, or comply with an order and send your frightened child into an unsafe situation. We need a complete overhaul of the family court system.”
Victim-survivor
Other countries have similar problems, and some are taking steps towards safer Family Justice systems to enable consistently safer outcomes in cases involving family violence, sexual violence, neglect or exploitation – in particular Australia and the UK. It is high time Aotearoa New Zealand did too.
We are not alone in our call for reform of the Family Court. A wide range of people agree the New Zealand Family Court should be safer:
including researchers (Williams, 2025a&b; Leonetti, 2025a), family violence service providers (Wiliams, 2025c), the Ministry of Justice (2025), and United Nations committees (CEDAW, 2024) and UN investigators (Alsalem, 2023), lawyers (Inder, 2022) and politicians on both sides of the house (NZ National Party, 2021; Williams, 2025a). The Principal Family Court Judge has requested changes to the Family Court so judges can know when the cases before them involve disclosure of family violence (Williams, 2025d).
“A family court system that gives out protection orders one week and then, a few weeks later, pressurises a mother to go into a shared-care arrangement, is unacceptable and completely lets down those women and children whom protection orders are supposed to help. How can protection orders have any weight and be taken seriously by perpetrators in such a case?”
Victim-survivor
The Family Court is a key barrier to victim-survivor safety and healing
Time and again, victim-survivors name the Family Court as the key barrier to their safety and healing. We hear about outcomes of Family Court proceedings that include:
Parents with a history of perpetrating FV and/or SV towards children and/or their protective parent given care or shared care of their children, or unsupervised access, including where this history involves a criminal court conviction.
There are countless documented cases of the Family Court ordering children into the day-to-day care of their abusers (Mackenzie et al, 2020; Hay, 2025; Leonetti, 2025a; NZ Psych Society, 2015). See ‘The Evidence’ page for more resources and references.
Mothers who experience family violence being urged by their lawyer to participate in family dispute resolution (FDR), to not disclose family violence, and to agree to shared care with their abuser so that they are not seen by the court as obstructive.
The Family Court system does not routinely respond safely when one party (parent) in care of children court proceedings is violent and/or coercively controlling the other, and does not address power imbalances nor provide safe processes for victim-survivors and children. The result is abusers being empowered to use the Family Court as a weapon to continue to control and abuse victim-survivors who are less safe by being required to participate in mediation, agree to orders by consent, or participate in court hearings without protections such as separate waiting areas, support people or the use of screens.
Mothers who refuse to participate in FDR, who disclose family violence, or who don’t agree to shared care, being disbelieved and labelled by lawyers, psychologists and/or judges as an ‘alienating parent’ and are thereby misidentified as the abusive parent.
Research and reports from Aotearoa New Zealand and overseas have found that when women disclose the abuser’s use of violence and abuse towards their children, they are often not believed, the abuse is minimised, reframed as irrelevant or historical or their fault, and instead mothers are accused of alienating their children from the abusive parent, which is then seen as a form of psychological abuse. Through this use of the unscientific and internationally discredited concept of ‘parental alienation’ (Leonetti, 2025; Alsalem, 2023; The Backbone Collective, 2022; 2017; Mackenzie et al. 2020), which refers to the idea that one parent is deliberately destroying the child’s relationship with the other parent, victims are reframed as abusers.
In situations involving family violence and sexual violence, this concept is dangerous and harmful. Other terms are commonly used in New Zealand to have the same meaning, e.g. Post Separation Parental Rejection, Enmeshment between the mother and child, Resist and Refuse dynamic, coaching, over-anxious mothering. In Backbone surveys, 55% to 62% of mothers said court professionals accused them of parental alienation or associated concepts/terms.
Protection orders being withdrawn by the Family Court against the will of victim-survivors and/or their children.
Our organisations frequently hear from women who have been granted a Protection Order by the Family Court however, the Protection Order is either not made final or is discharged at a later date even when the protected person still believes the order is still necessary for their own protection and that of their children.
Oftentimes, this happens as a result of contested Care of Children Act proceedings where allegations of parental alienation or other related concepts are being made against the protective parent, and are in response to an application made to the court by the abuser (the respondent). Other times, this is at the recommendation of a Lawyer for Child, or what a Judge deems to be the best course of action.
Children who are victims of FV and/or SV being denied access to counselling or healing therapies or having their counselling records subpoenaed by the Family Court acting on behalf of the parent who perpetrated the violence.
Our organisations experience children being blocked from attending family-violence and sexual-violence counselling sessions, including with government-funded and GP-referred providers because the abuser withholds their consent to such a service or the Family Court prohibits such a service (Backbone 2017 & forthcoming). We also experience abusers’ lawyers demanding the case notes of sessions with children to be shared with the abuser and the Family Court. In these actions, the Family Court enables abusers to continue to abuse and control adult and child victim-survivors post-separation.
Ethnic and migrant women experiencing FV and/or SV without access to protection or visas being deported and separated from their children as immigration and family law systems are not joined up.
Recent research confirms what we see in our services - that “New Zealand’s immigration and family law systems operate in harmful isolation. When family lawyers don’t understand immigration implications, immigration officers don’t recognise family violence dynamics, and the Court doesn’t see visa status as relevant to protection order applications, women fall through the gaps—facing deportation despite experiencing violence, or remaining in abusive relationships to retain visa status.” (Nightingale, 2026).
Adults at risk being left in the care of someone who is perpetrating FV, SV, neglect or exploitation towards them.
Aotearoa New Zealand does not have an adult safeguarding statutory framework in place to identify, protect, and support adults at risk. Unlike children and young people who are protected through a dedicated statutory care and protection framework, Adults at Risk are not covered by a comprehensive safeguarding system.
Family Court processes do not have adequate safeguards to ensure that applications and orders made under the Protection of Personal and Property Rights Act (PPPRA) for the appointment of a welfare guardian, enduring power of attorney, or to administer property do not appoint abusers in these roles, and thus place adults at risk in greater and ongoing danger of family violence, sexual violence, neglect and exploitation. The Family Justice System also does not have processes to identify and remove abusers who have been appointed as a welfare guardian, enduring power of attorney, or to administer property.
The family justice system can be, and must be, changed.
“I applied for protection order when my [child] was [under 5]. I was forced to interact with the police on numerous occasions as my ex- partner breached this order continuously. I also applied for parenting orders in the Family Court when I sought to get my primary care put in place officially. My ex then countered this with an application for shared care. … I was in the family court for around [nearly ten years] in total and this took away many years of enjoying my [child] grow up and was emotionally and financially draining.”
Victim-survivor
“The Family Court system in fact fosters his abuse of us. IT IS NOT OK!!!”
Victim-survivor
Thousands of children and adults are impacted by the Family Court’s decisions each year; there were 13,162 children linked to all Care of Children Act (CoCA) proceedings in the 2024-25 financial year (OIA 129671), and Australian evidence suggests the majority will be in situations involving family violence.
The numbers of people impacted are significant:
Approximately 16,025 Care of Children Act (CoCA) applications were filed at the Family Court in 2025 (MOJ Data Tables accessed July 2026), and there were 13,162 children linked to all CoCA proceedings in the 2024-25 financial year (OIA 129671).
Significant numbers of these children are experiencing FV and/or SV. In Australia, 86% of Family Court parenting and property proceedings involved a party self-reporting FV, and 81% self-reporting that a child had experienced FV (Federal Circuit and Family Court of Australia Annual Report 2024-25). There’s no reason to believe these percentages would significantly differ in New Zealand, as reported FV rates are higher here than in Australia.
After separation, research concludes that more parties have parenting arrangements determined by the Family Court when there are safety concerns, and that FV is a significant barrier to separated parents making their own parenting arrangements (Gollop et al, 2020, p.2).
There were 8595 substantive Protection of Personal and Property Rights Act (PPPRA) applications to the Family Court in 2025 (MOJ Data Tables accessed July 2026), but there’s not yet any published data about the incidence of FV, SV, neglect or exploitation in PPPRA proceedings. The Law Commission cautions that “people with affected decision making can be particularly vulnerable to abuse by people supporting their decision making or making decisions on their behalf” (Law Commission, 2026).
There were 1223 FV Work Visa applications and 532 FV Resident Visa applications submitted from 2015-2024 (OIA: DOIA-REQ-0008184 Appendix 1), but not yet any published data about the percentage of FV Visa applicants who are also a party to FV or CoCA proceedings.
Focus on Safety proposes seven reforms to the family justice system
1.
New FV, SV Specialist Roles
These new roles will provide fuller and better information that is analysed and interpreted with FV and SV expertise to inform court decisions, and they will provide a safe voice for children and adults at risk to participate in decisions about them.
2.
A FV, SV Specialist Family Court
FV, SV Specialist Family Court and FV, SV Family Dispute Resolution Pathways will be created by introducing policies and processes that enable the court to identify and safely respond to FV, SV, neglect and exploitation.
3.
FV Visa Proceedings Connected with the FV, SV Specialist Family Court
A victim-survivor without NZ residency or with a visa dependent on an abusive partner or family member who is involved in Family Court proceedings will have interim visas granted for them and their dependent children, and FV Visa proceedings will be informed by reports from the FV, SV Specialist Roles.
4.
Oversight by an Independent FV, SV Prevention & Response Commissioner
An independent Commissioner will provide expert oversight and systems level recommendations to support continuous improvement for the Family Court and adjacent systems’ responses to FV and SV.
5.
A Transparent Family Court
Designated FV and SV specialist researchers, accredited media and the Family Violence and Sexual Violence Prevention & Response Commissioner will have access to all Family Court data and processes, with requirements for anonymising data, in order to support public scrutiny, continuous improvement and safety.
6.
Access to Legal Aid
FV and/or SV victim-survivors will have access to legal aid for FV (protection order) proceedings, as well as CoCA, PPPR, and FV Visa proceedings, regardless of ‘official’ income to provide equitable access to justice and safety.
7.
Adult Safeguarding Statutory Framework
A dedicated adult safeguarding framework with statutory powers will identify, protect, and support adults at risk.
Read about why these reforms are needed, what we are proposing, and how these reforms will work to make the family justice system safer
