Newman Muriel: Families Commission Bill — Instruction to CommitteeCWH In Committee Procedure 
Newman Muriel: Families Commission Bill — Instruction to CommitteeCWH In Committee Procedure 
[Volume:614;Page:10299] 
Dr MURIEL NEWMAN (ACT) 
: 
 I rise to speak on Part 1 of the Families Commission Bill. It is very worrying that the creep of political correctness that this bill represents is now overwhelming New Zealand society. This bill promotes a view that all family types are equal. Instead of supporting the traditional nuclear family structure which has been the cornerstone of society for ever as demonstrated by all the evidence this bill is now promoting divergence and difference and stating that those are the types of family structures that we in New Zealand should be celebrating. My having said all of that is not to say that other family groups are not successful and do not do a wonderful job in raising children because they do. There are many families that struggle against enormous odds and manage to raise wonderful children in the face of very difficult challenges. But surely the role of Government and of legislation is to promote success—to actually promote the type of organisation or structure that will achieve success for the majority of citizens. 
That used to be the goal of Government and the role of legislation. But then my experiences are of what used to happen before a socialist Labour Government came along. Many of us in Opposition are learning about socialism under the term of the Labour Government because the socialist-feminist agenda promoted by the Government is to undermine the traditional family to undermine the role of fathers in the family to promote diversity and to promote instability and—guess what—by doing those things the Labour Government simply promotes a growing group of people who rely on a strong Government to provide support for them. That is Labour’s agenda. It does not want to see families consisting of people who are strong and able to get on with their lives independently of the State because those people in general do not vote for a socialist Government. 
I feel really disappointed on behalf of all those good New Zealanders who voted for United Future because they thought that party would come into Parliament and promote and support the family unit. When those people look at this bill they see that the United Future party has essentially sold out. It has sold out to a socialist Government that wants to undermine the nuclear family. A whole bunch of people who put those eight MPs into Parliament must be sitting there right now wondering what on earth they did at the last election. What we now have is a party that has sold out to the Labour Government. United Future is now supporting Labour’s anti-family agenda. United Future members might say that is not correct but I urge them to read about the historical roots of socialism and to understand what it is that socialist parties are engaged in and then to have a look at the record of this Labour Government. They will find that it is doing everything to undermine the family in spite of its fine words. 
What we now have is United Future undermining the family to the tune of $28 million of taxpayers’ money. The Families Commission Bill will create a huge bureaucracy. I understand that the Commissioner for Children’s funding is in the region of $1 million. The funding for the Families Commission is 28 times larger. Although the bill makes the functions of the commission sound really good in Parliament today we are passing legislation that will give $28 million to supporting an agenda that denigrates the nuclear family marginalises fathers encourages dependency and makes the situation of families in New Zealand a lot worse. That is why the ACT party is opposing this bill. It is costing us $28 million.