Dunne Peter: Families Commission Amendment Bill — First Reading 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Dunne Peter: Families Commission Amendment Bill — First Reading 
[Sitting date: 24 July 2012. Volume:682;Page:3851. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
Hon PETER DUNNE (Minister of Revenue) 
: 
Tena koe Mr Speaker. I am delighted to take a call on the Families Commission Amendment Bill. I am only sorry I was not able to speak earlier in the debate but a range of other commitments prevented that. 
I support this bill because what it does is take the Families Commission forward into its second decade effectively. When we set it up back in 2004 this was groundbreaking territory. I want to acknowledge the work that the former Chief Families Commissioner Dr Prasad did in those early years. I note the constructive comments he made earlier in this debate. It is a great pity they are at variance with the comments made by the remainder of his colleagues who unlike Dr Prasad do not see a future role for the commission; they want to abolish it. But then I should not be surprised because as early as the launch of the White Ribbon campaign in 2004 just a few months after the commission had been established Mr Maharey the then Minister responsible was talking to me about whether it should be abolished. So here was the Labour Party which entered into a confidence and supply agreement with United Future in 2002 to establish the Families Commission within 2 years starting the process that culminated in its policy position at the last election of trying to white-ant it. So its criticisms today really do not bear a great deal of credibility. 
There are a couple of very important provisions in this bill. The restructuring of the governance arrangements to provide for a single Families Commissioner supported by a board deals with one of the issues that has been problematic for the commission since its inception: the relationship between the commissioners plural and the staff of the secretariat. This change in this bill makes a very important statement and clarifies the relationship vis-à-vis the governance of the commission and the work it does as an advocate as a policy adviser and as a deliverer of a variety of different programmes. 
The second important thing this bill establishes and I have heard some comment already this evening that I think is misplaced is the institution of an annual state of the family report. This idea draws on work that the coalition Government in the United Kingdom has put in place in the last couple of years to provide for an annual reporting mechanism over a range of indicators about how well family performance is being monitored and policies are being implemented to give effect to those issues in the United Kingdom. I think for a long time it has been an issue that has been a missing link in New Zealand. If you go right back to the early 1990s we passed the Fiscal Responsibility Bill which put a lot of stringent requirements on Government in terms of reporting on its achievement of its fiscal objectives—greater clarity and greater transparency around those. At that time we toyed briefly—it was during the period of the National - United Future coalition Government in the mid-1990s—with a social responsibility bill to get the Government to be required on an annual basis to report on how it was meeting its social obligations in parallel with the Fiscal Responsibility Bill. 
The relevance to this legislation is that the state of the families report is in effect the modern incarnation of that concept of reporting on the achievement of broad social responsibility objectives. So it is a welcome step. The commission is well-placed to deliver it. It still retains its statutory independence. It still retains that degree of distance from Government but it is also part of the policy-making and advisory mix. What this bill does is position the Families Commission for its next decade. What this bill does is take the learnings of the first nearly 10 years repackage those in a way that is fit for purpose in today’s context and set the commission forward with a new more clear and more straightforward mission as it approaches its next decade. 
Finally can I make the observation that consistently since 2004 around the world the Families Commission in New Zealand has been looked to as an example of a premier body recognising and taking account of the interests of families in terms of the relationship to government. This legislation enhances that role. 
I am very delighted to support it. I was proud to be able to negotiate with the Government post-election on the changes that have occurred and I think they will be overall hugely beneficial for New Zealand families and that is the ultimate test of this commission.