Sio William: Families Commission Amendment Bill — Third ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeSio William: Families Commission Amendment Bill — Third Reading[Sitting date: 19 March 2014. Volume:697;Page:16811. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Su’a WILLIAM SIO (Labour—Māngere):Talofa lava Mr Assistant Speaker. As the previous speaker Melissa Lee sits down I just want to say to you Mr Assistant Speaker and to the members of this House that there was no shred of truth in her attacks on my colleagues and I would challenge her to show any evidence—any example—that my colleague Dr Rajen Prasad as a former Families Commissioner was campaigning during the period that he was a commissioner. That is not what we saw in the behaviour of a current member of the Families Commission Dr Parmjeet Parmar. We actually saw a picture of that member of the Families Commission standing next to the Prime Minister with a National Party blue rosette on. She should step down from the role that she currently holds and become political—get involved in politics if that is what she wants—but do not beguile the community by wearing a rosette and at the same time holding the position of Families Commissioner.The Child Poverty Action Group in its submission on the Families Commission Amendment Bill said that in the history of New Zealand there has rarely been a greater need for an autonomous Crown entity whose role it is to advocate for the interests of families. I agree with that submission. That need is greatest today right now.Child Poverty Action Group goes on in its submission to list a range of things that are happening within families in our communities the length and breadth of New Zealand. It lists the number of people who are self-harming the number of people who have committed suicide family violence and family violence - related crimes the number of police apprehensions and the number supported by Women’s Refuge. In its submission it highlights that these things have been rising over time. In fact it is one of the reasons why the Families Commission was formed in the first place—to try to attempt to address these issues because if they are happening to one family they impact on the rest of our communities.Today the need is greater than ever before for an organisation to be championing and advocating for the needs of families. And I say that the need is even greater today because New Zealand families are under constant attack not necessarily from violence and the related suicide and all of that bad stuff. They are under constant attack now from poverty—poverty that has been rising in the last 5 almost 6 years. Inequality is rising rapidly. At least one child in five lives in severe and significant poverty. If 185000 children are living in severe and significant poverty all of those families are doing it tough right now today.Unemployment continues to remain high at 6.8 percent—with all the hardship that that means for our families. In the Pacific and Māori communities it is even worse. They are in particular the hardest hit today despite the economic recovery that we hear about from this Government. Pacific unemployment is at 13.7 percent today almost double what it was in 2008. The rate of Pacific youth aged from 15 to 24 years who are not in education employment or training stands at 21 percent today. The Pacific median income—the weekly incomes for Pacific people—fell from $455 in 2008 to $381 in 2013 while the median income for the rest of New Zealand rose by $51 a week in the same period. The Salvation Army reported that in 2012 it gave away almost 5000 more food parcels to Pasifika clients as compared with the number of food parcels it gave out in 2008.All of this signals the plight and the struggles that families are undergoing throughout New Zealand and it has been getting worse under this Government. There is a need for an advocate a Crown entity that is able to champion and advocate on behalf of all of these New Zealand families. But alas in this particular bill all we are getting is tinkering on the edges and the removal of the independence of this particular Families Commission. This is really critical.The removal of the independence of the Families Commission means that it becomes almost as if it was a puppet of this Government. It is an example of where once upon a time the Families Commission was the champion and strong advocate for paid parental leave but the minute that this Government decided that that was not on that it did not support that what did we find later on? The same Families Commission organisation that supported paid parental leave then began to toe the party line advocated by this particular Government.This bill removes the independence and the freedom of the Families Commission to be able to advocate strongly and to think for itself about how to address the hardships and the difficulties that families are facing today. In addition to the removal of the independence of the Families Commission the Government’s legislation means that the commission loses its autonomy and it loses its ability to think freely and to advocate for those things that would support families up and down New Zealand.Under this bill there is the establishment of a social science experts panel. I do not know what the aim of this expert panel is but I recall under Labour it was the Ministry of Social Development that released on an annual basis a state of the nation report on the situation of families in New Zealand. On releasing that report all other Government agencies would act upon it to try to rectify and provide the badly needed support that families required like employment like income like support for early childhood education. The removal of the ability of the Ministry of Social Development to be able to release that annual report and giving of it to this special expert panel just simply means again a removal of the requirement for this Government to act for and support our families who are in need.National has gutted the independence of the Families Commission and as far as Labour is concerned it is best now to disestablish it altogether. Labour will in its stead subsume the Families Commission’s original and independent role and its functions into what we will call the Children’s Commissioner. I said earlier that there are 185000 children who are classed by many many reports as being in significant and severe poverty. They are not poor by themselves; they belong to families. All of those families are struggling to put food on the table and they have been struggling even more since the coming into power of this particular Government.By doing what this Government is doing to the Families Commission it is actually washing its hands of its responsibility to support families in New Zealand. When Labour comes into power on 20 September we will establish a children’s Minister. We will make sure that the Children’s Commissioner has its independent voice and is able to act autonomously to support the needs of those children because when we are able to do that—when we are able to support families and their children—we are also supporting in the long run the welfare of this country.That is where our interests are and I doubt very very much based on this piece of legislation that that Government has any consideration for the rest of New Zealand other than for the kinds of people whom we have seen in the previous several weeks—the kinds of people whom it supports. It is supporting only its people its families which are a few. And I say that any New Zealanders who are listening so far to the debate that has occurred are not stupid. They will have recognised once and for all that this is an arrogant Government—an arrogant Government—that is looking after only itself and its mates and it does not care one iota about the rest of New Zealand’s families who are struggling and doing it tough.