Baldock Larry: Future Directions (Working for Families) Bill — Second Reading 
Baldock Larry: Future Directions (Working for Families) Bill — Second Reading 
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LARRY BALDOCK (United Future) 
: 
 I rise with pleasure on behalf of United Future to speak to the second reading of the Future Directions (Working for Families) Bill. I begin by commending the Minister Steve Maharey and many of the staff behind him who have worked very hard on this legislation and on this package which will make a difference to families in New Zealand. 
So far this debate has lacked some of the seriousness it deserves. Some members have surely made comments that they could only be joking about. As the well-known saying says: “It would be funny if it wasn’t so serious.” Families have been forgotten year after year in New Zealand. It has become harder and harder to face the costs of raising children. Our free education system has somehow become more and more expensive with uniforms camp costs school donations etc. which are things only parents know and understand about. Those costs are borne every year by parents. 
This bill is called the Future Directions (Working for Families) Bill which begs the question of who has been working for families over the past 20 years since 1984. Who has been sticking up for families in this Chamber over the last 20 years? We in United Future are very happy to know that the launching of the Families Commission which will begin to advocate for families in New Zealand is only weeks away. We can only reflect on what a difference there would have been in the last 20 years if there had been a Families Commission during the 1980s and the 1990s. We would not have had a situation developing like we do today where couples under more and more stress are waiting longer and longer to begin to have families. 
Earlier tonight the Hon Richard Prebble made the most derogatory statement I have heard for some time. He said the poor would breed more as though that were a crime. I remind him and other members of the House that the United Nations declaration in 1948 stated that every man and woman would have the right to marry and raise a family and to have an income that would be able to sustain that family. It was not a right given just to the rich. It was a right given to every man and woman in this country and in the world to raise a family and to be able to support that family. 
I am glad personally that the poor do have children. My parents were poor and I am very glad that they decided to go ahead and have children. Maybe the honourable member Richard Prebble’s parents were poor also. I do not know. But I am sure many other members in this House had very humble beginnings and we are glad that their parents had the courage to still go ahead and do one of the greatest things any couple can do in the world—that is to raise children. So many great men and women whom the world admires have been born into poor families often number 10 of 13 or number eight of 10. No one should ever talk about the poor breeding like rabbits. It is a disgusting term. I have heard the rumour that the Gilbert-McLachlan family from Waihi are ACT supporters. I cannot understand why they would be. As they look at those four great kids they are trying to raise I can only imagine how they might feel tonight knowing that the leader of ACT has said that they are breeding like rabbits. 
Hon Richard Prebble 
: No I didn’t! 
LARRY BALDOCK 
: He said that poor people would breed more because of this bill. We had better hope that this bill and the Budget today do encourage more couples to take the steps of faith they need to have children and to embark on the greatest adventure and ambition—to be parents. 
Our future as a nation is dependent upon families. During the century we now live in we will see according to demographers the world population decline. That is something many people have not yet begun to get their heads around. We in United Future are not speaking up for families because of some warm fuzzies we have about families but because it is essential to our survival as a nation and for Western democracy and our civilisation. Either we support families and spend on them so they can be strengthened or we spend more and more each year on the costs of family breakdown. We already spend $6 billion in this country on family breakdown. How can we mock spending the kind of money that is being released in this Budget to help build stronger families in this country when we know it will make a difference? 
We need families to succeed: we need wealthy families to succeed and we need poor families to succeed. When Richard Prebble is old and infirm—no one should say that that has come already—and in some private hospital somewhere and he looks out from under his blankets to see who is taking care of him it will probably be the child of some poor family whose parents had the courage to still go ahead and have children because that is the most important thing we do. In Richard Prebble’s ideology and theory that child’s parents should not have ever had kids. They should not have bred as he said so derogatively. 
United Future welcome this bill and the assistance it will provide for families. Perhaps as important as the financial assistance that this bill will give is the encouragement it may send to low and middle income families that finally someone in this place is working for families. 
They have been forgotten by the previous two Governments. It is commendable that New Zealand First the Greens United Future Labour and the Progressives are putting aside petty politics to support this; although Peter Brown disgraced himself earlier and began to engage again in petty politics by taking cheap shots at a definition of “family” that he knows makes no sense whatsoever. The only thing he should put into his mouth according to my dear mother would be some soap right now to wash it out. 
I believe that all of us—New Zealand First the Greens the Progressives and ourselves—would have recommendations to make to Labour as to how this package might be delivered differently but the point is that it is time for us to stand together for families and deliver something for them. I would have liked to see the assistance begin now not in April and October next year but at least we are beginning and that is the important thing. This is not a time to let ideology get in the way of addressing the concerns of good working families in this country. 
So United Future will be very pleased to support this legislation and we commend it to the House. As we go through the Committee stage may we give this bill the respect it deserves.