Opposition parties are in an uproar over the Government's new Care of Children bill, which seeks to extend legal guardianship rights to same-sex partners of parents, saying it that it creates "lesbian fathers". The objection centres around the wording of a clause in the new bill, which states "the father of a child, may by operation of the part 2 of the Status of Children Act 1969 ... be a reference to the same-sex de facto partner of the mother of the child". Associate Justice Minister Lianne Dalziel says that opposition parties are mischief-making, and that they know very well the intent of the legislation. "The bill can't only apply to traditional nuclear families where mum and dad are married to each other, because that's not the reality of many families," she said. National leader Bill English said that Labour believed fathers need no longer be men. "In my culture, fathers are men and no amount of wishful thinking by bureaucrats or Labour politicians will change that."