Donnelly Brian: Families Commission Bill — First Reading 
Donnelly Brian: Families Commission Bill — First Reading 
[Volume:608;Page:5618] 
Hon BRIAN DONNELLY (NZ First) 
: 
 I think all of us in this House looked forward with eager anticipation to this legislation because we recognise that the strength of the family is undoubtedly the foundation of the nation. The quality of the future that we will leave to our children will be determined by the quality of the children whom we leave to the future and the quality of those children will be determined by the quality of family relationships. 
At the last election United Future received critical electorate support because of its emphasis on families—and I say “critical” because in the last couple of weeks before the election that emphasis took it from about 0.5 percent in the polls up to whatever it was that enabled United Future to hold the balance of power and to hold the Greens out. Nevertheless when United Future members were talking to the public at large out on the hustings and at campaign meetings it was quite clear what they were talking about. They were talking about a particular type of family. I will give members an example of that. When one candidate was asked what was meant when that candidate talked about the family the response was that it meant a man a woman and kids—tied together in matrimony. That was what the family was for that candidate. 
Hon Richard Prebble 
: Which candidate was that? 
Hon BRIAN DONNELLY 
: I will not name any particular candidate but it was a United Future candidate. 
In its election manifesto United Future talked about establishing a commission for the family to promote the status of families and the role of parents to ensure all policy development reflected the fundamental needs of families and their children to provide a family mediation service that would support promote and develop the provision of marriage and relationship counselling services to facilitate family support and parental education classes and to improve the coordination of Government departments. Then we come to this particular legislation. 
The first challenge the Families Commission will have is to get a working definition of what a family is because under this bill everything is included—and I mean everything. It includes all the different types of relationships. We know there is a range of different relationships but this definition even includes relationships such as those in the Mongrel Mob. That is all in the definition. The definition refers to members who have biological or legal relationships with one another who have significant psychological attachments to one another or who are members of a whanau or other culturally recognised family group. Well I would argue that Bert Potter and his family at Centrepoint would have fallen within that definition. A former member of National—not one who is in the House at the moment—could tell us all about the workings of Centrepoint. However Centrepoint would still have fallen within the definition. If the Families Commission is to try to work within that definition we will have a muddle of monumental proportions. 
New Zealand First’s Dail Jones has put up a commission for the family bill. In fact he got it under way long before the combination of United Future Labour and the Progressive party put their bill together. In Dail Jones’ bill the definition of a family group including an extended family is one in which there is first at least one adult member and in which second the members have a biological or legal relationship. The definition in the bill before us today does not provide that there has to be an adult within the grouping— 
Hon Richard Prebble 
:  
Lord of the Flies 
. 
Hon BRIAN DONNELLY 
: Yes—kill the pig kill the pig! That really is the problem with this bill. United Future probably with the best of intentions but very naively and certainly not having fully thought through some of the promises and pledges it made to the electorate at the last election has been finessed by Labour. It has been finessed by Labour’s world view and Labour’s world view is a very different one I believe from that of the people who were listening to United Future prior to the election and saying its policy was good and we should get in behind the family. 
One of the things that New Zealand First made very clear in the debate over the property relationships legislation was that it believed certain groupings were preferred in our society. We understand there is a whole range of different arrangements but if it is the children that we are really concerned about—and not only the children but the whole thing—then there has to be a preference for certain types of arrangements within our society. This bill gives no preference whatsoever. It is “anything goes”. 
The leader of the National Party has made a good point. If the research shows—and it would not be a very hard case to mount—that in the best interests of children and the nurturing caring and upbringing of those children the old traditional nuclear family or at least a family around which there is support from both father and mother the biological parents or even if they are not the legal parents of children is in the best interests of those children what does this bill do to promote that particular idea? The answer is that it does nothing. This commission will end up as a very expensive talkfest. That is all it will be; it will be an expensive talkfest. The commission is not even autonomous. It cannot come out and say things that it judges are correct. It can only do that within the framework of Government policies and that framework is already set by political agendas and so on. 
I remind the House that something is going on contemporaneously with the setting up of this Families Commission: this Government is abolishing the Early Childhood Development unit. We have a unit that costs $20 million a year and it is being abolished. That unit is supposed to get out there to help and support parents. It actually runs Family Start programmes and so on. That unit is going but we are to put in this Families Commission which is a talkfest and cannot do anything about it. 
We really have to ask ourselves whether this measure is not just a $28 million sop to United Future in order to get the Greens off Labour’s back. When the election came up that is exactly what happened. Labour had to find a way of getting the Greens off its back with the lifting of the moratorium. Labour went along to United Future and told it not to ask for too much. Labour said if United Future wanted a family commission it would put something in place to keep it happy even though the commission would not necessarily have any teeth. Labour said it would make sure that the commission did not have any teeth. 
In the definition of families the Government has said that it cannot show any preference whatsoever and that anything goes. However when it comes to the needs values and beliefs of particular groups clause 11 states: “In the exercise and performance of its powers and functions the Commission must have regard to the needs values and beliefs—(a) of Maori as tangata whenua: (b) of the Pacific Islands peoples of New Zealand: (c) of other ethnic and cultural groups in New Zealand.” In other words this Government is prepared to state a preference in that particular clause. All that the Government had to do was to say the commission must have regard to the needs values and beliefs of all ethnic and cultural groups in New Zealand. That would have covered the whole thing except that the commission has to give preference along ethnicity lines but not preference along relationship or family lines and so on. 
New Zealand First held out a great deal of hope for what would come from the policy work. We absolutely support some of the ideas that were mentioned by Judy Turner and by the Minister about the strengthening of the family and about how important the family is in the nurturing of children and in the future of our nation. We support all those things but we have a vehicle here that will not work. All that the commission will do is to cost the taxpayers $28 million of expenditure and at the end of 4 years nothing will have happened apart from one great big debate. We know what happens following the great big debates here in the House. It is exactly the same thing and that is what will occur by establishing the commission. New Zealand First will not support this bill although we support everything that families stand for.