Martin TraceyHon TRACEY MARTIN (Minister for Children): Kia ora Mr Assistant Speaker. Thank you very much. I rise on behalf of New Zealand First to speak on the repeal of the Families Commission Act of 2003. The Families Commission Act Repeal Bill is a very small bill. As the Minister for Social Development has referred to it it is a matter of process. It will in effect be repealing the Families Commission Act of 2003 which will disestablish the Families Commission that has operated as the social policy evaluation and research unit (SuPERU) which was an autonomous Crown agency. As the previous Government established the Social Investment Board and the Social Investment Agency they made the Families Commission and SuPERU obsolete hence the need for this small piece of legislation to make its way through the House. I have found it very interesting how soon we forget the colleagues that sat with us so can I just acknowledge the Hon Peter Dunne. This was a piece of work that the Hon Peter Dunne brought to this House. He hasn't been gone that long and he was a colleague of those on the other side but nobody has mentioned his name so far this evening. I think that is a shame. Each one of us comes here to do the best we can do with the time that we have so I acknowledge the Hon Peter Dunne and the service he did in this House.The other comment I would make is we have heard from the Opposition members today regarding this bill that they hope that there will be a continuation of the social investment policy that the previous Government put into place and they sounded very optimistic for that. I think they didn't listen to Minister Sepuloni's speech very closely when she rose to do the first speech in this particular reading where she talked about social well-being. There is quite a difference—a distinct difference—between the social investment policy that the previous Government put into place that has required this bill to pass through to disestablish the Families Commission and what is actually the policy of this current Government which is around social well-being. The social investment policy was very very much based on deficit thinking as opposed to the social well-being model which is a much more positive and aspirational concept. Both are based upon data there is no doubt. What the Hon Alfred Ngaro spoke about with regard to making sure that Government agencies Government Ministers and Government themselves are held to account around the use of taxpayers' money—to make sure that when we use taxpayers' dollars it has a positive effect and a positive impact on the taxpayers' lives themselves—is certainly well understood by this side of the House. However if we look at just an example of how that data was being used—just around decile funding for example or operational funding inside our schools—the social investment policy that led to the disestablishment of this particular organisation used several markers to decide a funding model for five- and six-year-olds that had absolutely nothing to do with the needs of the individual child.So the investment model was certainly based around a risk analysis on what the cost of that human being would be to the country as a whole as opposed to the social well-being model that this Government works on: what is the support that our citizens need or that our children need to be the best they can be inside our society?Matt King: CPTPP—same thing. Same thing.Hon TRACEY MARTIN: What is it that is the equity funding that they require? And Mr King I understand that you don't like spending money on some of our poorest citizens but that is not the driver behind this particular side of the House. So while some people may sit up in one of the poorest areas of our nation—quite comfortably obviously—and don't feel that it is the well-being of all our citizens and that it is equity funding for all our citizens that we should be focusing on that is not what this side of the House focuses on.So I commend the bill to the House. I commend the bill because the Act no longer has a purpose. I do want to honour the Hon Peter Dunne. This side of the House has picked up what I believe was his true intent in setting up the research body: to provide answers to what was needed and to make sure that we understood what was needed to create the most optimum well-being for our citizens from our young people through to our seniors. Kia ora.