Ardern Jacinda: Families Commission Amendment Bill — First Reading 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Ardern Jacinda: Families Commission Amendment Bill — First Reading 
[Sitting date: 24 July 2012. Volume:682;Page:3839. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
JACINDA ARDERN (Labour) 
: 
 Thank you for the opportunity to contribute to the debate on the Families Commission Amendment Bill. Obviously we are discussing the commission that was established under a Labour Government. At that time I think it is fair for us to point out Peter Dunne was a significant driver of the establishment of the Families Commission. I do have to raise— 
Andrew Little 
: He insisted on it. 
JACINDA ARDERN 
: He did indeed insist on it says my colleague Andrew Little. I do have to question and I will be asking this question of the Minister in the chair during the Committee stage: would she still have the Families Commission in place if it were not for Peter Dunne’s ongoing role in propping up the National Government? What may be called “streamlined” by that side of the House is actually neutering if we are honest. What this bill does is rip the guts out of the Families Commission and leave it. It loses its advocacy role. 
Hon Simon Bridges 
: Well if it’s neutering it’s not the guts Jacinda. 
JACINDA ARDERN 
: So let us get into a little more detail. I will have Simon Bridges speak no more of neutering. I know how he feels about animal welfare. So we will leave it at that. 
Labour does support this bill going to the Social Services Committee but our view is that this does not go far enough. In fact it is Labour’s view that the Families Commission should be disestablished altogether. I will spend a little more time talking about that. 
But why does it not go far enough? Well originally the Families Commission was established to advocate for families in whatever form they existed. I think we have seen clear evidence in recent times that the Families Commission has lost that role. I would not wish to guess as to the reason why it has done that. I could hazard a guess that political pressure has played a role because if you look at one example where we have seen the Families Commission push aside its advocacy role there would be no better than paid parental leave. We had the Chief Families Commissioner stand up and tell the New Zealand public that on one of the most soundly based in terms of evidence policies around the importance of child development and the role of the first 6 months in forming an attachment with their family in developing a strong stable footing for a child in those first 6 months he was not sure New Zealand could afford it. I would say that New Zealand cannot afford not to bring in a policy like that supported by Sue Moroney and her member’s bill. To have the Families Commissioner stand up against the extension of paid parental leave—how is that acting as an advocate for families? That was absolutely nonsensical to me. What happened to evidence? What happened to advocating based on research and sound practice and evidence? That for me was the point at which we really saw the Families Commission tip over the edge. 
If we want to talk about streamlining which the Government member who just took her seat Melissa Lee talked about the ultimate form of streamlining would be to get rid of it entirely and beef up the Children’s Commissioner and the Office of the Children’s Commissioner. In fact add some additional support around that from the central government perspective as well. Bring in a Minister for children create a children’s ministry where the Office of the Children’s Commissioner is acting as a direct advocate and put pressure on the children’s Minister to act in the best interests of children. That would be the ultimate form of streamlining. Surely we can all accept that advocating on behalf of children a strong Children’s Commissioner and a strong role within central government would be in the best interest of families as well so there by default picking up the job that the Families Commission has long since abandoned. 
This bill instead keeps the Families Commission. But it does as I have said weaken the role that it plays and Rajen Prasad would know that well. Given that he was once in the Families Commission he can see intimately the changes that have been made here and what a difference it will make to the way it operates. Moving to one commissioner as I have said would be pointless if they are not an advocate anyway. What is the point of one commissioner who does not advocate for families when you have seven who currently do not anyway? 
Then it is creating a centre for family and whanau. Again if you cannot guarantee the independence of this group are we not then creating a new unit within a Government department? If the Minister cannot demonstrate to us that that is not going to happen then again I do not see the point of that. Surely then we should just ask the Ministry for Social Development to pick up that role—it is indeed funded to play that kind of role. 
We have heard much discussion and celebration from the other side of the House around the introduction of something called the annual families status report. In its own right that report might sound interesting or useful but I would ask Government members to at least canvass this space in which they are now thrusting out this annual families status report. What already exists? Well we have got the  
Social Report 
 which used to happen every year. It was a really comprehensive important report and it became the foundation of a lot of work that the Ministry for Social Development was doing for our families. But unfortunately the  
Social Report 
 is no longer happening every year; it is happening every 3 years. We could probably have saved ourselves a lot of money by simply returning that report to an annual basis and perhaps diluted the need for an annual families status report. We also have  
The New Zealand Children’s Social Health Monitor 
. We have Bryan Perry’s excellent work on the report 
 Household incomes in New Zealand: trends in indicators of inequality and hardship 1982 to 2010 
 which generates again a lot of the policy development we see coming out of not just the Ministry for Social Development but other agencies working in this field. And we have the OECD income inequality report. 
We have the critical but underutilised Growing Up in New Zealand research which is probably going to be the most useful piece of research for future development around children’s policy and the policy for our families over the next 10 20 30 years. It is an extension of the kind of work that we had done in Dunedin—the longitudinal study. I see that the Growing Up in New Zealand work is going to be transferred to this unit and I can guarantee to the Government that this side of the House will be keeping a very watchful eye on the preservation of that critical piece of work. It is so important that we understand across a cross-section of our New Zealand families what it is to bring a new child into New Zealand and grow up in New Zealand. That is why that report is so so key—we have had two reports thus far. I would like to see the Ministry for Social Development utilising it a lot more. And I hope to see it in the alternative white paper; if it is not we will be asking some big questions. 
But that is not the only report. Add to that the Salvation Army status report the health report the report coming out from the Health Committee on the first 1000 days the green paper the white paper and the Maori Affairs Committee work that Louisa Wall has been instrumental in instigating. All of these pieces of work exist and my big question would be: how will the annual families status report add to that comprehensive list of work that already exists? And secondly if it is going to add to it—I will be interested to see how it will bring something new to the table—will we actually do anything with it? As Rajen Prasad has pointed out we have certainly had plenty of pieces of work including on paid parental leave coming out of the Families Commission that have since been ignored—not just ignored but contradicted—by the Chief Families Commissioner. It is one thing to produce a report; it is another thing to do something with it. 
My final point is whether this newly structured Families Commission has the independence it needs when it comes to the research and evaluation function it will have through the new $3.8 million research and evaluation unit. New section 8A “Commission’s monitoring evaluation and research function” states: “In order to perform its monitoring evaluation and research function the Commission has the following additional functions: (a) to identify opportunities where evidence and research will assist in determining or achieving the Government’s priorities in the social sector:”. That is the wrong way around. The old legislation used to state: “to encourage and facilitate the development and provision by Ministers of the Crown departments of State and other instruments of the Executive Government of policies designed to promote or serve the interests of families:”. It used to be that the research did not come with any bias. It was used to inform what the Government did. Now we are using the research and evaluation to prop up and support existing Government policies and ideas. It is the wrong way around. 
In fact much of this bill is the wrong way around and it is our contention that the way forward is to scrap this commission altogether. That is what we will be proposing when this bill goes to the select committee. I look forward to the Government members trying to justify this neutered commission’s existence.