Dyson RuthHon RUTH DYSON (Labour—Port Hills): Can I begin by commending the member Mark Mitchell who's just resumed his seat not only for his contribution on this bill but for his temperate contribution to the Oaths and Declarations (Members of Parliament) Amendment Bill last night. The tone of the debate could've done with a lot more of his style of contribution rather than his colleagues'.I'm pleased to be speaking to the Families Commission Act Repeal Bill. It is a cross-party agreement which is pretty unusual but I've always said that it's a good way to leave on a Thursday afternoon—that we can go out of this House having had a debate on which we've all agreed. The bill's pretty small. It only has two parts. The first bit is to repeal the Families Commission Act and the second part is to provide for the residual management—the transition process I guess. Quite a lot of that work has already begun. A lot of the work that the Families Commission now called the social policy evaluation and research unit has been doing over the last little while is now being transferred to the Ministry of Social Development.I want to commend the contribution of Jan Logie who always manages to speak appropriately in second reading debates. What the process is meant to be is that the whole House hears what happens at select committee and really learns a little more about what the select committee did and why it came to any conclusion. In this case the select committee decided unanimously that no changes were needed to the bill. That's pretty unusual. They only had a few submissions—eight I think—to the bill. I wasn't sitting on the select committee but I've read the report. So that's quite a small number of submissions. It would indicate to me that the majority of the public have come to the conclusion that the time is right for the Families Commission to be abolished and I certainly agree with that.But some of the concerns that submitters have raised I think are worth recording in the history of the House during this debate because I would like us to continue to reflect on those and ensure that as time progresses their concerns which were well heard and considered but not agreed with by the committee—we just make sure that the committees views line-up with what the public was thinking during that submission process.The first one—and I guess for me it's the most important one—is that submitters were concerned that with the abolition of the Families Commission the role of advocacy of raising the concerns of children and their families would be lost. The committee came to the conclusion that there were enough organisations around to meet that advocacy need that we have enough groups in our communities speaking on behalf of children and their families. I want us as a Parliament to ensure that that continues to be the case. That would be threatened—I'll give one example that Alfred Ngaro will be well familiar with—if organisations felt that through their advocacy raising concerns they might lose their funding as an example. We wouldn't ever want that threat to come to fruition. We wouldn't want organisations being silenced because of a threat from a former Minister let alone a current Minister. So let's ensure that that advocacy role is maintained.The second issue that submitters raised was the importance of robust evaluation and research. Every Government policy decision should be based on evidence. It should be independent it should be robust and it should persuade actually all the members across the House. That's not always the case but frequently it is. If we all agree on the outcomes and the research is there let's use that research as the basis for our decision-making. A number of submitters commented about the need for collaboration between Government departments and agencies. I know that the State Services Commission is leading a big bit of work in that space. They have not been successful yet and I certainly hope they make better progress.The final point the submitters raised was the access to the ongoing availability of information. That is really important. We know that information is power and all members of our society deserve to have access to the best information possible.In the 45 seconds that I've got can I acknowledge and thank everybody who has been involved with the Families Commission through its various iterations and its various Ministers. I had the privilege to be one of those Ministers in the past.One final point though: across the road this evening at the Backbencher is a fine debating team of politicians who I predict will beat the fine debating team of journalists. Mark Mitchell and I were originally approached to be on that debating team. Despite the fact that neither of us are available it's going ahead and I want to encourage people to go over there. The fund-raising's for a very good cause and I hope that everyone has an enjoyable night. Thank you.