Rich Katherine: Commission for the Family Bill — First Reading 
Rich Katherine: Commission for the Family Bill — First Reading 
[Volume:617;Page:13109] 
KATHERINE RICH (National) 
: 
 I do not doubt for one second that Mr McNair had good intentions in bringing this bill to the House and that he meant well by putting this bill in the ballot but I think that as members of Parliament we should always think very carefully about bringing bills of any kind to the House because of the expense that is involved. Just keeping this Parliament going for 1 hour costs many many thousands of dollars. I do not think that bringing a bill like this to the House was the correct thing to do because we already have a similar initiative which is well under way. 
Our party does not support this bill. That will not come as a surprise to the many people who would have heard the debates about the initial Families Commission Bill which was brought to this House by the Government. National did not support the establishment of the Families Commission because although we saw that it had some worthy goals we felt that its cumbersome structure and overly bureaucratic nature meant it would not deliver the things that many New Zealanders thought it would deliver. Yes there has been support for the commission now that it is to be established in July. Although there was a very robust debate and both sides put forward their views very strongly we are now in a position where the Families Commission will be established and I think any attempt to undermine that development or sabotage it before it happens is not particularly useful. We are at a stage now where money has been put aside the process of putting together the commissioners is under way and a lot of the people who are involved have taken on board the good intentions. So I think we need to work with that commission now to make sure that the money is well spent and that it can at least try to achieve some of its goals which I think everybody in this House would support. 
We did have quite a bit of debate about the definition of a family but I do not think the definition in this bill adds any greater clarity. There still will be a huge debate about what a family is what constitutes a family. We will never get to a position where there is a heck of a lot of agreement. 
But I think there are some good things in this bill that are worthwhile talking about. This bill intends to create greater public awareness of the importance of families which I think is a good thing. It looks also to providing some practical services for families so that there is somewhere for families to go to seek help with mediation somewhere that promotes families provides counselling and does that sort of thing. Perhaps there is some merit in considering that. But these things could have been considered and put forward at the time of the initial bill. So that is why I think it is not a good use of time to spend members’ day discussing something that I think the country is well on the way to providing. 
Just further to the definition of the family during the debate on the other bill many people were surprised that the initial definition potentially could have included the likes of the Mongrel Mob and Black Power. When I first raised this issue press releases were fired off saying that I had made “a silly claim” and I had missed the point entirely. It was very interesting that in the final parts of the debate that definition was tightened up. It was not just a concern of the National Party; it was a concern of many New Zealanders that there was not the clarity in that definition that they wanted. 
I understand that the Families Commission will be looking at a wide range of research. One of the concerns we raised at the time was that it should not go into areas where the Ministry of Social Development is already doing a lot of research. Our initial argument against the Families Commission Bill was that there is a huge amount of family-oriented research going on. We felt that the Ministry of Social Development was already doing that. Groups like the Parenting Council the Department of Child Youth and Family Services Parentline Plunket Parenting with Confidence Triple P and Parent to Parent are already doing a huge amount of work within the community to assist families and to promote the all-important role of the family as a unit within our community.