Maintenance For Unmarried Mothers

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31088, 17 June 1966, Page 3

Maintenance For Unmarried Mothers

(New Zealand Press Association) WELLINGTON, June 16. A bill providing for maintenance of unmarried mothers was introduced in Parliament today by Dr. A. M. Finlay (Opp., Waitakere) At present the father of an illegitimate child may be ordered to pay expenses incidental to the birth. He may also be ordered to pay for future maintenance and up to £5O for past maintenance of the child.

Under Dr. Finlay’s Destitute Persons Amendment Bill, a magistrate would have the power to order the father also to pay for maintenance of the mother for a period of up to five years after the child’s birth.

Such a maintenance order would be made in instances where the mother’s pregnancy or the need to care for the child wholly or partially prevented her from supporting herself. Whether this step should be taken, and if so, what amount should be fixed, would be left to the magistrate’s discretion. He would be required, however, to consider all the circumstances of the case and to satisfy himself that such an order would be just and proper. The bill would also enable a magistrate, at his discretion, to order maintenance when, from evidence of other people, it could be inferred that any one of them could be the child’s father. If the Magistrate concluded he would have made an affiliation order if such evidence had not been given, he could order whatever liability he would have imposed on the defendant to be shared among all those who could have been responsible. Because the child could later be harmed by inferences that might be drawn from maintenance orders of this type, special provisions

have been included in the bill to prevent the disclosure of the name of the child. The Attorney-General (Mr Hanan) said the Government had for some time given thought to the legal position of the unmarried mother, and Scandinavian laws had been scrutinised in this regard. There was a comprehensive measure in view to bring the act up to date. Mr Hanan said the House would have to consider farefully matters such as compulsory blood tests which could disprove paternity, and the rights of inheritance. The bill would be given serious consideration, Mr Hanan added. Mr N. J. King (Opposition, Waitemata) said the bill placed a great share of the financial responsibility where it must rest. Every endeavour should be made to enable the mother who wanted to keep her child to do so, he said. Mr P. A. Amos (Opp., Manurewa) said that in New Zealand the rate of illigitimacy was 50 per cent higher than in Britain or the United States.

The bill touched upon one of the saddest phenomena in society at the present time. “Inevitably the woman must bear the child, but at least in my judgment, the man should bear the cost,” said Dr. Finlay.

The bill was set down for a second reading on July 7.