McNair Craig: Families Commission Bill — Instruction to CommitteeCWH In Committee Procedure 
McNair Craig: Families Commission Bill — Instruction to CommitteeCWH In Committee Procedure 
[Volume:614;Page:10308] 
CRAIG McNAIR (NZ First) 
: 
 In speaking to this part I start by saying that any party that cares about the welfare of children must celebrate and support committed enduring family relationships. We in New Zealand First are not opposing this bill because of opposition to the family. We are not opposed to the family unit at all—whatsoever. But New Zealand First will continue to fight to protect our social fabric and traditional family values and that is the point we are trying to make here in our speeches. New Zealand First does not support the Government’s legislation for a Families Commission as it still fails we believe to properly define a family or to set out structures that will provide children with a safe environment and that is a major issue as my colleague Barbara Stewart mentioned in her speech. 
I believe that the bill introduced by the Government and supported by United Future still broadly defines the family group. Mr Baldock said in his speech that we should not exclude. But what is wrong with promoting a traditional proven family unit that has worked for 10 20 30 40 or 50 years? That is what we are getting at. This Government would have us believe that the two-parent family is history. It seems that the Government’s preference is to promote and support diverse family compositions almost to the exclusion of the two-parent mum and dad family. That is what I am trying to get at here. 
Moana Mackey 
: What? 
CRAIG McNAIR 
: I would like Moana Mackey to take a call on this but all she wants to do is move that the question be now put. If she disagrees with me why does she not take a call and tell me why she disagrees with me? 
I believe that more emphasis needs to be placed on promoting and supporting family structures that are independent that work and that have worked for the last 10 20 30 40 or 50 years and so on—right back to Adam and Eve. New Zealand First has always been an advocate of the importance of the family to the future of New Zealand. It is time for United Future and the Government I believe to stop being so PC and to ensure that traditional family values are not lost and I do not think that is too much to ask. 
New Zealand First has repeatedly expressed its opposition to the politically correct Families Commission as proposed by this Government. The social fabric of our society continues to be seriously eroded by the promotion of so-called liberal policies such as prostitution law reform—and I will not focus on that because I am not speaking about it. But the family is fundamental to the optimal development of children and many current social problems are a result of a lack of support for this traditional institution. The question we have to ask is whether this commission will better support the family unit and I say that in its current form it will not. How do we justify $28 million being spent on it? I have no problem with $28 million being spent on a Families Commission but not the commission in its current form. 
A couple of speeches ago my colleague Peter Brown said that in all fairness to United Future members they probably honestly do not believe in the current definition of the family and I saw that Murray Smith—I was probably the only one who noticed because I was at the back on the other side—disagreed with that comment by Mr Brown. Murray Smith honestly believed—it seems from what he was saying—that the current definition in Supplementary Order Paper 173 is a good definition and that his view on that issue has not changed. Well I do not think the people who voted for United Future support this definition in any way. United Future’s support of the Government over this bill has I believe cost United Future a lot of its credibility and has won its supporters nothing but the sop of a family commission where the definition of a family is likely to offend I would say most if not all of its supporters.