Garrett David: Debate on Crown Entities Public Organisations and State Enterprises — In Committee 
Garrett David: Debate on Crown Entities Public Organisations and State Enterprises — In Committee 
[Volume:654;Page:3805] 
DAVID GARRETT (ACT) 
: 
 I rise to speak in the debate on the financial review of Crown entities. One of the many things we learn when we come to Parliament is the sheer number of boards agencies and commissions that use taxpayers’ money. We have a list of them and I think we are looking at 60 of them today. We are standing and talking about the Families Commission. When I take a quick look at the long list I wonder how we managed without all of these organisations and how we managed to grow to adulthood without them. 
Let us talk about the Families Commission. Christine Rankin is not the issue; the issue is whether the Families Commission should exist at all. It was established in 2004 with the lofty goals of identifying issues by talking with families and organisations of encouraging debate and of raising awareness. It may just be that I have not been in Wellington long enough but to me that sounds like a bunch of waffle. I note it with interest because it is my hope and the hope of the ACT Party that the Families Commission will be part of the fat that is cut from the National-led Government’s expenditure in this Thursday’s Budget. 
The Families Commission costs $8 million a year to run. Some would say that is not a lot of money. To paraphrase a saying of our grandmothers I say we should look after the millions and the billions will look after themselves. What does $8 million buy? I am told it buys 500 hip replacements 267 coronary bypasses 2280 cataract operations or 6957 grommet operations for children who suffer from glue ear. But what did the $8 million that was spent in the last year on the Families Commission get us other than keeping my Labour colleague Rajen Prasad in a job? What did it give the average family—those outside what the Labour Party now cutely calls the “beltway” as if that makes us somehow special? What did the people for whom the Families Commission is supposedly set up get for $8 million? It got them a nice glossy 66-page brochure. I have a common or garden black and white version here entitled  
Reaching Out: Who New Zealanders turn to for relationship support 
. I wonder how many people have a copy of it on their coffee table at home. 
I have had a bit of a leaf through the brochure and it tells us some quite incredible things. It reads like a sociological thesis written in somewhat down-home language. The section on page 33 is entitled “Informal and Semi-formal Support”. Amazingly it tells us that passive support in relationships is the receipt of advice and information outside personal interaction. Examples include watching  
The 
Oprah Winfrey Show 
 and  
Dr. Phil 
 and that was done mainly by Pakeha and Maori participants. Asian and Pacific people talked to their families—gosh that is amazing! They tended to talk to their aunties rather than to their workmates. Is that not fascinating? I wonder how much that all cost? This ridiculous document tells us things that anyone with a modicum of common sense would have known. Apparently many Pakeha males talk about relationship problems with their mates at work. Well gosh I never knew that! 
What else did we get for our $8 million? In a splurge of activity not long before the last election—and I am sure it had nothing to do with list candidate Rajen Prasad—the commission published a number of recommendations including one to increase paid parental leave from 14 weeks as it is now to 56 weeks. There is a word for that: reckless. Why? 
Hon Steve Chadwick 
: Families actually. 
DAVID GARRETT 
: I ask the members who are making a noise who pays for it. 
Dr Rajen Prasad 
: We do. 
DAVID GARRETT 
: The taxpayer? How high would taxes have to be Mr Prasad?