Justice Minister Andrew Little has labelled a Family Court procedure that encourages exes to negotiate the future care of the children by themselves, with only a mediator present, as "unrealistic".
The comments come as the coalition government has appointed a panel to look for ways to improve the family justice system, with a particular focus on changes to the way the Family Court operates made by the previous National government.
Mr Little said the changes made by National to have exes negotiating, without the assistance of a lawyer or judge overlooking, was far too optimistic.
"Going through a separation is an incredibly difficult and often traumatic experience, people do want advice and assistance pretty much every step of the way," Mr Little told TVNZ 1's Breakfast.
"The idea that they should go into a forum with their ex and try and politely negotiate what's going to happen, and what might be happening with the kids, that's just too much to expect of people, and I just think it was unrealistic."
The Justice Minister said the existing system has actually had the opposite effect as intended, with a dramatic increase in the uptake of a short-cut style application to the Family Court for ex-partners to go straight to child care negotiation before a judge.
"What that's led to is a whole heap of people now avoiding that very process and doing their best to get in front of a judge anyway," Mr Little said.
"There's a process they call a 'without notice application' which you can make on various grounds.
"Seventy per cent of the cases that now go to the Family Court are without notice applications, it's had completely the opposite effect.
"We need to kind of get to the bottom of that and look at what the rules are, and change that."
This uptake of 'without notice applications' in the family court, to 70 per cent today, is a dramatic increase on 2014, before the Family Court changes were implemented - when only 30 per cent of cases went to 'without notice applications'.
Mr Little also said the decision to have Human Rights Commissioner Ros Noonan head the panel to review New Zealand's family justice system was to reduce the number of people complaining they don't get heard in cases.
"Probably the one issue I get the most correspondence about is the Family Court. It's women who feel as if they don't get heard, men who feel as if they are not getting a fair share of the parenting, and children who say either they haven't been heard or it's taking way too long," he said.
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