Prasad Rajen: Families Commission Amendment Bill — Second ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumePrasad Rajen: Families Commission Amendment Bill — Second Reading[Sitting date: 09 April 2013. Volume:689;Page:9193. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Dr RAJEN PRASAD (Labour): The Families Commission Amendment Bill is a cynical piece of legislation proposed by a party that never liked or supported the Families Commission when it was first established by a Labour Government in which United Future was a coalition partner. The mandate for the commission was broadly to advocate for families through consultations with families provide public information undertake research and promote family policy. The National Government is reliant on the support of United Future so it cannot do what it would rather do and that is to get rid of the Families Commission. Instead what the Minister for Social Development has done is set out from day one to systematically destroy the Families Commission as an independent entity that promotes the interests of families and provides the information that they require.Hon Paula Bennett: Labour’s going to close it down.Dr RAJEN PRASAD: I shall give the Minister evidence as to why that Minister’s policies have set about destroying this commission. If the Minister listens she might understand the argument.This Minister initially appointed commissioners who had a track record for their somewhat narrow focus on families and their trenchant criticism of the Families Commission before they were appointed. One has only to think about Bruce Pilbrow whom this Minister appointed as deputy commissioner who was interested only in the types of parenting education provided by this organisation. He resigned and soon afterwards he secured a Government grant of $1 million for his organisation to provide parenting education. The other commissioner the Minister appointed was Christine Rankin. Her views are well known. Her claim to fame is related to employment issues with a former Minister. She was critical of the Families Commission right from its inception and she was never going to make any long-lasting contribution to outcomes for our most vulnerable families through this commission.The Minister also appointed a chief commissioner who did not stay very long but who obliged the Minister by shifting the commission from its independent advocacy role for families to become an instrument of Government. During his term he was very compliant and even shifted the commission from its advocacy for paid parental leave based on the state of the economy. The commission’s flagship position was to support paid parental leave. That chief commissioner shifted it to placate this particular Minister. Of course this fitted in very well with the Minister’s own analysis.Interestingly the Minister did not oversee the commission closely enough to avoid the spending of $411000 on one staff member who became the commission’s highest-paid official for the time she was there—a scandal indeed. And now she washes her hands of the whole matter.Now this bill reduces the number of commissioners to one who will not be the chief commissioner and whose role will be determined by the board comprised of members. This Minister has no views on what the role of the chief commissioner is so it will be just another person in the commission whose role will be chief commissioner. In every other commission it is the chief commissioner who leads the commission so again it is a cynical approach by this Minister to effectively destroy this commission.To demonstrate her total contempt for the Families Commission and position it on its path to ultimate decline the Minister has now appointed one of her own ministerial staff and close National Party confidant to head the commission—a person with no substantive experience in the various major responsibility areas of the commission. But then this Government is getting used to doing that. There has been another commissioner appointed elsewhere with a similar kind of background. This is further evidence of the Minister’s cynicism regarding the commission.The new chief commissioner is already readying the commission to get rid of its own flagship programme on family violence the White Ribbon campaign. The commission has had a clean-out of almost all its senior staff since the present restructure—the second restructure under this Minister’s reign. But there is more evidence that the Minister is hell-bent on destroying the commission. This bill loads up the commission with what can only be described as tasks that should rightly be the responsibility of service delivery entities like the Ministry of Social Development and Child Youth and Family. There are clauses in the bill that explicitly state that the functions are to be undertaken on behalf of the Government. So there is plenty in this particular series of actions by this Minister that makes this commission very vulnerable and they are cynical.The Prime Minister’s Chief Science Advisor is now a Families Commissioner. At the financial review recently it was clear to my side of the House that he intends to be his own man and to be a good scientist. He should continue to speak his mind and to expose the Government when it is not operating in an evidence-based way which is often. The last bill we have just passed the Social Security (Benefit Categories and Work Focus) Amendment Bill was not evidence-based. Much of the Government’s welfare reform is not evidence-based and in fact is contrary to good research.What this Minister has done is position much of the work of this commission to eventually be privatised and to simply be a monitoring arm of the Government. This is not the role of an independent commission of this type and so this side of the House will not be supporting this bill. In the Committee stage we will show clause by clause where the faults lie. Thank you.