Relationship property, inheritance, trusts, DNA laws: Why help is not coming any time soon

It also recommended introducing income-sharing arrangements for a period after separation to address economic disparities between the couple.

However, once the report was filed, the Government asked the commission to examine outdated inheritance laws – including a 1949 act that allows individuals to claim against an estate if they were promised a reward for services in the past – before it tackled the thorny issue of relationship property.

That review, completed in 2022, proposed a new Inheritance (Claims Against Estate) Act tagged with 140 recommendations, which included several contentious proposals: that stepchildren should be able to make a claim against a step-parent’s estate; that adult children could not claim against a parent’s estate unless they were under the age of 25, or disabled; and conversely, that all children and grandchildren should be eligible to claim if the deceased had unjustly failed to provide for them, or has failed to recognise the child or grandchild.

Since then, relationship property and the succession laws have joined the queue of other laws waiting, sometimes for years, for someone in Government to pay them attention.

Two years ago, the Ministry of Justice indicated to the Herald that reforms on both pieces of legislation were likely to take years and would need to be balanced against other Government priorities.

Not much has changed since then. Justice Minister Paul Goldsmith told the Herald this month that the Government will progress some of the commission’s recommendations, including the Property (Relationships) Act 1976 (PRA), “when time allows”.

Not good enough, says former Labour Prime Minister and former president of the Law Commission, Sir Geoffrey Palmer. He blames the lack of action on politicians and Government ministers driven by ideology.

As a result, they ignore the commission’s analytical reasoning needed to draft sound legislation, he says.

“There’s a sort of fool’s paradise lived in New Zealand by ministers who think that they can do anything and that they know best and they hardly ever do.”

Palmer says the delays are symptomatic of a country plagued by inaction.

“We seem to have lost our mojo. We don’t have any confidence to do anything much. We just wait and see what happens.”

The point of the commission is to stop New Zealand law becoming an incoherent jumble, he says. But if governments don’t take the commission seriously, give it work to do and fund it adequately, laws become neglected.

“You can’t expect to have good laws on the books that are commensurate with public opinion if you don’t keep the law up to date.”

Waiting for attention are reviews that include transgender rights, surrogacy, the use of DNA in criminal investigations, search and surveillance capabilities, adult decision-making, the laws protecting the public from serious offenders, and victims of family violence who commit homicide.

Henaghan has an interest in family law and, over the years, has helped New Zealanders pro bono to battle the complexities of the 50-year-old PRA.

He views trusts and the ability to make wealth, in the form of property and assets, disappear into them as one of the major problems of the act that needs to be urgently sorted.

He questions why Kiwis should have to spend thousands of dollars, and in extreme cases millions, hiring forensic accountants and lawyers to unravel hidden wealth in a process that can take years in the courts.

In one case a claimant spent $6 million in legal costs, another spent seven years and $3m on lawyers. In a third case, lawyers involved allowed the woman to rack up fees of $2m, which she was able to repay when settlement was finally achieved, more than five years later.

The process of discovery needs to be improved, Henaghan says, and the law needs to be tougher. In cases of relationship property settlement, each side needs to openly declare what they are worth or risk losing it.

“It takes years to find out what they actually, how much they’re worth and by the time you’re done that, you’ve run out of money.“

Henaghan plans to push for reforms while a speaker at a conference marking 50 years since the PRA was introduced, to be held on July 3 in Parliament’s Grand Hall. Goldsmith confirmed he will be attending.

The commission, formed 40 years ago to recommend to Parliament how to update existing laws, has no power to push for change once it completes its reports.

On rare occasions, the Government will get cracking on law changes. But often the response, which must be made within 120 working days, is a polite acknowledgement tagged with “not a priority at this time”.

That was its response to the commission’s February 2026 report on protections in the Human Rights Act 1993 for people who are transgender, non-binary or intersex.

And so, outdated and not-fit-for-purpose laws sit there. One commentator who has followed the Law Commission’s work describes much of New Zealand’s law as unenforceable “because nobody can actually work out where it is, or what it is”, and predicts the increased use of AI will throw a spotlight on the resulting mess of legislation.

The term of each Law Commission president is limited to five years so in all likelihood, Judith Collins won’t see immediate results from reviews undertaken during her tenure.

She declined an interview for this story, saying she did not want to comment until she had taken over as president later this year.

Asked what he would advise Collins to do in her first year as president, Palmer said he’d be requesting “a much bigger [annual] budget“ (currently $4.2m).

He would also ask the Government what problematic legislation needed sorting.

“I always said you couldn’t do self-referred stuff because the Government wouldn’t enact it.”

Palmer warns there is a need for political sensitivity at the Law Commission, adding that the purpose of a new law is to get it passed.

The commission’s current projects include reviewing the law relating to hate crime (but not hate speech), reviewing the duties and liabilities of company directors; and how the justice system responds to people with mental impairments who are facing criminal charges.

On the commission’s suggestion list to the Government for its next round of work are: sovereign immunity (international law); genetic discrimination in insurance; a review of the Charities Act 2005 and the definition of “charitable purpose”; bylaws; a review of the ACC law; defamation law; and exploratory work on legal issues arising from the increasing use of AI.

Sometimes, patience pays off. The commission reviewed the Privacy Act 1993 in 2006 but it wasn’t until 14 years later that it became law, in December 2020. Last year changes to insurance law drew on two historic reports from the commission, one of which was 26 years old.

However, the Government can work fast when it wants to. The abortion laws were updated just over two years after the commission’s 2018 report; media reporting on suicide and the introduction of a new offence of non-fatal strangulation were both implemented in 26 months.

Without cross-party support, laws are unlikely to change in a hurry, Henaghan says.

“A Law Commission report has its day when a politician can persuade its party that putting it into law will be a vote-getter.”

He points to the speed with which Labour MP Kieran McAnulty’s private member’s bill to amend New Zealand’s alcohol laws on four public holidays was approved this month because it had support on both sides.

But Henaghan knows fixing the PRA won’t be that easy.

“All the debates on the Property Relationships Act have been very, very divisive. They [politicians] just kind of put it to the bottom of the pile.”

Politicians who want to survive in Parliament test the wind as to what will get them into power or keep them in power, he says. The PRA will be controversial for voters, including farmers and business owners, who don’t want to share their property equally.

There’s little doubt that the commission does sterling work. Henaghan describes the commission’s work as “outstanding” and others spoken to commended its reports for their extensive research, analysis and public consultation.

Retired District Court Judge David Harvey, writing in the Herald last year, said the reports were often invaluable starting points for lawyers, researchers and policymakers, providing analysis around complex legal questions.

“Yet for all their quality, many Law Commission recommendations are never implemented. Reports are acknowledged, praised and then quietly shelved,” he said.

Depending on viewpoints, the reasons for the neglect of outdated laws are varied: an overloaded Government trying to get through workloads in a three-year term; lack of time and resources; lack of willpower to upset voters by changing laws that may disadvantage them; a report being commissioned by one government and then ignored when a new government comes into power; various ministers with different priorities; and trying to get agreement in a coalition government.

The commission’s current president, Mark Hickford, says governments of the day have huge priorities for policy, and legislative time is a scarce resource in the three-year cycle.

He points out that when Palmer was asked to review the commission in 2000, the success rate (of Government action) was 48%. Now it’s 71%.

But that figure is hard to judge because it’s made up of a complex scoring system, derived from practices used by 10 other commissions in Australia, Canada and the UK, that allows points if a government agrees in principle to a report but takes no further action, implements some or all of the recommendations, and includes work underway.

Writing in the commission’s 2025 annual report, then-president Amokura Kawharu said she was concerned that the time taken to implement law changes was increasing.

In a statement to the Herald, Goldsmith said it was ultimately up to the government of the day to weigh up progressing the commission’s recommendations against its own priorities.

“There is, in any case, an enormous amount of work required to take these recommendations and turn them into policy proposals, specific legislation, and then to progress it through the House.

“Our priority in the justice space is to fix the basics in law and order, and build a future where all New Zealanders can feel safe in their communities.”

Harvey issued a warning in his Herald column, saying the Government’s failure to act illustrated a recurring problem in New Zealand’s policy landscape, which was a reluctance to follow through.

“In some cases, the shelving of Law Commission recommendations reflects more than caution. It suggests policy blindness – and missed opportunities whose consequences become clear only years later.”

Jane Phare is a senior journalist based in Auckland.

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