Prasad Rajen: Families Commission Amendment Bill — In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumePrasad Rajen: Families Commission Amendment Bill — In Committee[Sitting date: 11 March 2014. Volume:697;Page:16514. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Dr RAJEN PRASAD (Labour):I am talking to clause 12 which is the transitional provisions. This is the clause where the current Chief Families Commissioner is anointed the new Families Commissioner and the deputy’s role is looked after as well.Clearly here is a commission that is trying to reset itself up and reform its governance arrangements. We on this side of the Chamber wonder why it is that the present roles are simply being rolled over when we know that there is some idea that here is a new governance model and that the new governance model will make the commission that much more effective. We do not think that it will. We think that there is now no need to have a Families Commissioner. With the way in which this bill changes the governance arrangements of this commission there is no need to have these transitional arrangements. There is no need now to have a Families Commissioner because there is no role for the Families Commissioner. There is no role that has been defined.We were advised in the Social Services Committee that indeed the Crown Entities Act enabled these kinds of things to happen. Well I do not think that it does. Like commissions are the Office of the Privacy Commissioner the Human Rights Commission the Office of the Children’s Commissioner and the Families Commission. These are like commissions and in each one of them the public acceptance is that there is a person or persons who carry the pre-eminent roles: the Chief Human Rights Commissioner the Race Relations Commissioner etc. and indeed the Privacy Commissioner and the Children’s Commissioner. It is embodied in a person. That person is accountable to the public goes to places and does things and people know what that role and that person is trying to do.But the reforms here actually do away with any role for the Families Commissioner. Clause 12 gives that role back to the present commissioner whereas it would be more honest and more appropriate to start again. If there was a real commitment to this start again. Re-advertise the position and say very clearly what kinds of people are required. All that the Minister is trying to do here is set up a traditional governance operational split.This Government has been trying to do that elsewhere with the Human Rights Commission as well getting rid of very very useful and iconic roles like the Race Relations Commissioner and the equal employment opportunities position. Look at what it did with that. So this bill does away with a particular role embodied at the moment in the Chief Families Commissioner and other families commissioners. It brings in board members whose roles are simply governance. They do not need to know anything about families provisions research and advocacy etc. They simply are going to sit there and accept the advice of I suppose the Minister but there is also an advisory group that is set up here. That advisory panel also is an expert advisory panel within the commission.So fundamentally the commission’s governance structure has changed. The roles no longer make sense now and yet these transitional provisions actually protect them. Why? I see no reason why they should be protected. I see no reason why we need these transitional provisions. The Government should have the conviction now to draw a line start again and say: “We are really morphing the Families Commission into something quite different.” But in fact it is not doing that. It is simply taking something that works very well and cynically is trying to change that.Now that parliamentary counsel is here I want to acknowledge your work in helping the select committee at least take out the clunky bits of this legislation particularly where we needed to ensure that at least there was some genuflection to the notion of independence. I thank parliamentary counsel for doing that and for at least bringing us a bill that may work somewhere. But certainly at the moment these transitional provisions are not necessary because the very nature of the commission is being destroyed and the very nature of its governance arrangements are destroyed. Why? Because the present incumbent is protecting her role. There is no need to do that. Thank you.