Logie JanJAN LOGIE (Green): Thank you Mr Assistant Speaker. I rise in support of this and to offer the Green support of this legislation as well. I just do need to for the record make a couple of corrections for the previous speaker Michael Woodhouse. I think there was the suggestion that all of the legislation that's been introduced has been the work of the previous National Government. This is a very fundamental shift to their approach to employment relations—that they would have introduced legislation that would be strengthening collective bargaining to this House as was suggested and I suspect is not quite accurate as well as the Families Package which I think was the Labour Party's policy going into the election. So it's quite strange to hear that National is now claiming that policy.Also to correct a point the previous speaker seemed to be under the misapprehension that when we're talking about the survey Growing Up in New Zealand we're talking about the Otago longitudinal study; they are different studies. And I will back up the Hon Tracey Martin in her claim that the previous Government had put that they were reducing the scope of that study and that they were funding a reduced number of participants which would have reduced or constricted the way that that survey would be able to be analysed. So it is interesting to hear them speaking so positively about it now.The Greens are supporting this. I do want to endorse the previous view that really the disestablishment had gone too far to be able to reverse that and maybe it is the time to be absorbing the learnings that we were given from the social policy evaluation and research unit (SuPERU) into the core working of Government and to consider an alternative agency having oversight of that. I also notice that the transfer of the core functions has been already made to other agencies. The Family Violence Clearinghouse contract has gone to justice and the family and whānau status report has gone to the Ministry of Social Development as has the oversight of the Growing Up in New Zealand longitudinal study and the Social Investment Agency will pick up the social sector research work—the work of the Hub. Care is being taken to ensure that the research and the tools that were produced by SuPERU will still be available for community-based organisations and interested people because the research has been useful—and I would not want my speech to suggest that it hasn't been.The Greens I think from memory opposed the Families Commission legislation in the first instance and that was in the context of a very politicised environment and what seemed to us at the time a very constrained view of what a family was. It has been pleasing over time that actually the Families Commission and then SuPERU has taken a far more accurate look at and an understanding of the diversity of our families—and in fact has promoted the diversity of our families—and has been a very strong proponent for an understanding of the differences between family" in different cultural contexts including the culturally specific constructions of whānau.I would like to mention Len Cook for his recent work as the Families Commissioner. In the times he appeared in front of the select committee for reviews I found his analysis and view and the independence of it very helpful. I do not take from his comments that he was a fan of the social investment approach as it was articulated by the previous Government and I am also of the school that does not believe that "social investment" is the right language for us as a country.I think that if we went to most people in the street and said "Investment: what does that mean to you?" most people would say it meant something about money. In their heads they would go towards thinking about what would give them the best return on their money and I think that if we gave them "investment" versus "support" we'd be thinking about very very different things. I believe part of our challenge as a Government is to actually refocus ourselves on what is our duty to our people and how can we best support people to live their best lives and that's a very different conversation than a conversation about investment and money. So I share the Hon Tracey Martin's view that maybe a focus on well-being and support would be better for all of us.I do also want to mention and acknowledge the letter that was sent by Len Cook the Families Commissioner to the Minister for Social Development accompanying the briefing to the incoming Minister where he pointed out several of their learnings over recent years and asked the new Government to consider how those learnings could be maintained or integrated after the disestablishment of SuPERU. I do think he made some very poignant points which we will be keeping in mind as we move forward.One of the points he made was that there is significant unrealised potential of existing data and research resources held within Government and the wider social services sector. In recent times we've had a lot of focus on creating new information without thinking about what information we do actually have and how can we analyse that to inform good decision-making rather than collecting more and more data and putting it into a database and hoping it's magically going to give us the right answer to our social policy challenges.He also pointed out that we need to be using a variety of evidence sources both qualitative and quantitative—that they're essential for social policy and service delivery. I think that goes to some of the research that they did at a community level that looked at how we can strengthen our interventions and what they found was that with a shared vision it needs to be owned by community. There needs to be community readiness intentionality and a focus on outcomes long-term and adaptable funding arrangements a focus on community capacity-building and a focus on relationships.Now when we hear from the Opposition that what we've been saying on this side is just more of the same they couldn't be more wrong. The approach we heard from the previous Government around social investment was all about information divorced from relationship—divorced from community—and what we've been told by SuPERU and the research at the ground level is that actually we need to restore relationship. We need to get back to considering and hearing from people about how the system is working for them and to shape our responses based on their experiences. That was not part of the previous approach and that needs to be informed by a cultural understanding.He specifically pointed out that "The actuarial analysis of administrative data … has not been evaluated against the likely larger and more immediate payback from attending to the wider range of opportunities to develop an evidence base." I'm quoting from his letter which is clearly saying we need a change of direction.While we are supporting the disestablishment of SuPERU we are very much cognisant of his recommendations and committed to a different framework for evaluation and policy making in terms of our social services. We want to return people to the decision-making process. Thank you."