Moroney Sue: Debate on Crown Entities Public Organisations and State Enterprises — In Committee 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Moroney Sue: Debate on Crown Entities Public Organisations and State Enterprises — In Committee 
[Sitting date: 26 June 2012. Volume:681;Page:3351. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
SUE MORONEY (Labour) 
: 
 I do want to talk about the Families Commission because the Government has made some moves to collapse the Families Commission and the Children’s Commission together. One would think that the Opposition might have some concerns about that but in fact what we are more concerned about is the lack of independence being shown by the Families Commissioner under this Government. After that Families Commissioner was appointed by the Minister Paula Bennett suddenly we had a Families Commissioner Mr Carl Davidson who in one press interview rendered the Families Commission absolutely irrelevant by declaring that he was going to revoke the Families Commission’s position on extending paid parental leave. This was from the Families Commissioner—the man who is supposed to be putting families at the heart of what he advocates for. When it came to being asked a question about extending paid parental leave on the back of a bill that had been drawn out in my name to do exactly that because the Government was not prepared to back extending paid parental leave suddenly we had a Families Commissioner who baulked at it also. He said and I am going to quote him: “I mean wouldn’t it be great if none of us had to go to work and we could just stay at home and get paid for it.” 
That was from the so-called independent Families Commissioner under this Government who in one fell swoop I think offended pretty much every woman in the country who knows that staying at home and looking after children actually is work. He pretty much managed to make his whole commission irrelevant to families in one statement all because he is working for a Government that insists that the Families Commissioner takes a position that they would want to favour. That is not the role that we should have for the independent Families Commission. The role we should have is that it should be a challenging role of the Government. It should be a role where the commissioner is prepared to stand up and fight for what families want and what families need. If that commissioner or this Government were in touch at all with the stress on working families then they would know that extending paid parental leave is indeed something that would make a big difference to family life. At the moment families do not get any financial support after their baby is 14 weeks old. That means that many parents are going back to work for financial reasons before they really want to and before their family is settled into the new routine. 
In 2007 the Families Commission actually did a very comprehensive evidence and research-based report led by Dr Rajen Prasad at the time and it was called  
It’s about time 
. In that research and evidence-based report they determined that in fact paid parental leave should be extended to 12 months. Suddenly in the year 2012 under this Government we have the Families Commissioner feeling that he needs to say that that no longer is a priority for his commission. 
But it is not the first time. He is not alone in that actually because strangely enough I had the opportunity to talk to the Children’s Commissioner also appointed by the Minister Paula Bennett recently. He is prevaricating also on the issue of extending paid parental leave. I have to pose the question to this House. What is the common denominator here? Both the Children’s Commissioner and the Families Commissioner are supposed to be independent. Those two entities were designed and set up to be independent to actually push the boundaries within the Government on behalf of children and on behalf of families. Well that now has to be the sole domain of the Labour Party because the Families Commissioner and the Children’s Commissioner are not prepared to do it in the face of that Government. The Labour Opposition is prepared to stand up for children and for families. We are at least prepared to put families and children at the centre of what we are pushing for and we will continue to perform that role even if those commissioners will not under the current direction of the Government. That means that there will no longer be a Families Commissioner.