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OPINIONSocietyNovember 30, 2022

My marriage is finally over. My fight against New Zealand’s archaic divorce law goes on

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Last year Ashley Jones went to parliament to plead for ‘quickie’ divorces to be allowed in cases of violence or abuse. This week, almost three years after leaving her husband, she finally won her own freedom.

In June 2021 I brought my fight for changes to our archaic divorce laws to the steps of parliament. I was calling for New Zealand to change its divorce laws to remove the two-year stand down period for victims of abuse. In this country we recognise many forms of abuse: physical, mental, emotional, financial, sexual and spiritual. Yet we enable abusers by leaving them tied to their victim for two years and often longer, as in my case.

After presenting my petition to National MP Chris Bishop that day I witnessed it being presented to the house. It was an experience I will never forget.

That same week, Labour MP Angie Warren-Clark submitted a member’s bill on the same topic. I had never felt so heard and so hopeful of change.

I was invited to make a written submission to support my petition, which I was very eager to do. Then I learned that because the submission would make my husband identifiable, he would get a right of reply. I didn’t want to end up in a very public fight and so, at the end of the year, with tears flowing, I made the gut-wrenching decision to withdraw my submission.

It absolutely broke me – and it meant my petition was now closed. I didn’t get my chance to stand in the room with MPs and show them why this issue is so close to my heart. I didn’t get the chance to be heard. Again, the system allowed the abuser to be treated as victim. During this time, I was dealing with a lot personally. It was a rough but beautiful time of hard work, growth and healing. I had to put myself first.

For a while I felt so much shame around this decision, like I had let down the 5,310 people that signed my petition, and the countless others that were too scared to sign.

Fast-forward to 2022. On January 20 it was exactly two years since I made the brave decision to leave my husband. I had been counting down to that day ever since I walked out the door two years before. I turned up to the courthouse clutching my divorce papers, filled with hope that finally my life was about to change.

But then the court staff refused to accept my documents because I didn’t know my husband’s whereabouts. The same court that had granted me a protection order was the one that wouldn’t accept my application because I didn’t know where he was.

I was heartbroken. I had counted down those days. I had waited it out. And now I had to get back up and try again. There are only so many times one person can handle being knocked down.

I’d run out of fight, but thankfully a few months later a friend encouraged me to try again. Do you know the worst thing? I went back to the same court, with the same documents, and they accepted them.

On April 11 I finally filed my divorce – nearly three months after I should have been able to.

What followed was some very insensitive emails, from the many court registrars who use a shared inbox and don’t maintain consistent contact, asking me over and over to do things that my protection order does not allow. At this point, I had accepted that I would not be leaving 2022 divorced, and this draining process was going to continue into yet another year.

Many trips to file further affidavits and provide further information later, we were into October. It was then that I got the best news: I needed to sort out one last affidavit, and when they received that my divorce would be able to go through.

The weight that lifted from me when I got the news was immense. I still had some doubt that the system that had failed me for almost three years would actually come through. But then I received the letter stating my divorce date, and I realised that finally this chapter could be put behind me.

This Monday, November 28, 1,043 days since I left my husband, I became officially DIVORCED.

To those that know me, surprise!

To those that have followed my journey, shared their support, opened up to me, or just started the tough conversations: thank you. Your actions have never gone unnoticed.

I hold so much anger towards these outdated laws and systems that do nothing to help victims of abuse and instead only exacerbate their ongoing trauma. My petition may have been closed but the fire burning inside me to fight so others never have to experience the same thing remains. I cannot leave things how they are. I will not give up until change happens, and I believe it will.

This isn’t the end from me, but for now I am going to celebrate this huge personal win, and my newfound freedom. And then I’m going to use this extra time and energy to advocate for others.

Postscript:

When I was presenting my petition I was contacted by a brave woman who told me she was writing a submission on her own similar petition. When I withdrew my submission, I hoped hers would continue through the process… and it did! Meanwhile Angie Warren-Clark’s bill has attracted cross-party support. I hope the next time I update you it will be to celebrate an overdue end to this archaic and cruel law.

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— Production editor
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Image: Tina Tiller
Image: Tina Tiller

SocietyNovember 30, 2022

New Zealand’s other looming housing crisis

Image: Tina Tiller
Image: Tina Tiller

NZ Super was designed with the assumption that most people will own their home and be mortgage-free by the time they retire. That’s increasingly not the case.

This article was first published in Bernard Hickey’s newsletter The Kākā.

Retirement commissioner Jane Wrightson published her three-yearly retirement policy review yesterday with a warning that the number of retirees renting is likely to double to 600,000 by 2048, and that an increasing number of both renters and those with mortgages are spending more than half their pensions on rent and borrowing costs.

This challenges the entire basis of New Zealand’s universally available and non-means-tested superannuation system, which is based on providing enough income to live well – but only with the assumption that the retiree owns their own home.

The review recommended:

  • the retention of the universally-available and wage-linked nature of NZ Super available from the age of 65;
  • an increase in the asset threshold for Accommodation Supplement access to $43,700 per person from the current $8,100, which is unchanged from 1993, and to look at inflation-adjusting the threshold;
  • finding ways to stimulate an increasing supply of affordable, healthy and accessible housing for pensioners, including smaller properties for downsizing and larger properties for multi-generational living;
  • removing barriers to building on collectively-owned Māori land; and,
  • researching whether to encourage the availability of hard-to-access reverse equity mortgages and home reversion schemes that would allow home owners to draw down on equity while living in their homes.

The review commissioned research that found the Accommodation Supplement (AS) was already being paid to 50,808 pensioners as of March 2022, up 14% from three years earlier, but that the share of the pension-aged population on the AS had increased only marginally to 6% from 5.8% – in part because so many were ruled out by having KiwiSaver accounts and other assets worth more than $8,100.

“The dominant narrative of retirees as people who own their own home outright is certainly not true for all,” said the retirement commissioner. “It has always been significantly more reflective of Pākehā than Māori or Pacific People.”

Overall, 66% of New Zealanders aged over 65 own their home outright, but this is the case for only 47% of Māori kaumātua and just 27% of Pacific matua. Overall, 13% of people over 65 have a mortgage, but that includes 18% of Māori kaumātua and 27% of Pacific matua.

And overall, 20% of over 65s pay rent, but this increases to 35% of Māori kaumātua, and 46% of Pacific matua.

“This is important because there has been an implicit assumption underlying NZ Super that by the time people become eligible, at age 65, they will own their own home outright or be in secure and affordable public housing,” Wrightson wrote. “This is not explicitly stated in legislation, but reflects the dominant narrative of retirement as experienced largely by Pākehā.”

The report also found a growing proportion of pensioners with mortgages that were consuming most of their pensions, although some may also have other incomes.

Of those people still paying off mortgages, 80% were spending the equivalent of more than 40% of NZ Super on housing costs, and more than half were spending the equivalent of more than 80%.

Of those people paying rent, two-thirds of those aged 65-74 were spending 40% or more of NZ Super on housing, as well as over a third of those aged over 75. Some were paying more than 80% of NZ Super on housing costs, including 40% of those aged 65-74 and 16% of those aged over 75.

Those who own their homes outright much lower housing costs. About 80% of outright homeowners spent less than 40% of NZ Super on housing costs and more than half spent less than 20% of NZ Super on housing costs.

Treasury found that mortgage and rent costs had risen faster than outright ownership costs, with rents increasing at a higher rate than mortgage costs.

The Commission also recommended a closer look at the assumptions about living costs for those on their own, as opposed to couples.

The numbers have changed dramatically since NZ Super’s current settings were locked in place in the early 1990s. In 1986, 87% of those in their 60s were homeowners, with mortgages paid off, and for the most part were not in paid work. In 2018, 80% of those in their early 60s were homeowners, but 1 in 5 were still paying off mortgages, 20% paying rent, and many still in paid work.

The balance of home ownership is expected to shift to 60% homeowners and 40% paying rent by 2048 – up to 600,000 people.


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