Summarised by Centrist
Researcher Lindsay Mitchell writes that a law change in 2020 repealing section 70a of New Zealand’s Social Security Act made fathers less accountable by allowing mothers to apply for sole parent benefits without naming the child’s father for child support collection.
“The last Labour government made fathers increasingly irrelevant,” she writes.
Mitchell argues: “Legality and morality are not hand-in-glove. The basis of social security law is now amoral. The failure to hold fathers financially accountable is just one of the many perversions of its original strongly moral basis.”
She also cites a recent Court of Appeal decision, which reduced a sole mother’s prison sentence for the manslaughter of her infant. The mother’s pleas and warnings that she was unfit to care for her children were ignored by the father of the deceased child.
The court acknowledged her mental health struggles and traumatic upbringing, and condemned the “failure” of the fathers of her children “to perform their obligations as parents.”
Yet, as Mitchell observes, unlike decades ago, when courts fined or jailed men for neglecting child maintenance, today’s “obligations” lack legal weight.
“The messages young men receive are badly mixed. On one hand the state says they can impregnate at will and bear no responsibility. On the other, an Appeal Court judge, mopping up after the too-common horrible aftermath, claims there is responsibility,” she argues.
