Families Commission Bill

I move, That the Families Commission Bill be now read a third time. This bill owes its origins to the United Future party, which argued strenuously for the need for a Families Commission. The Government, of course, has agreed to advance the bill, and we are pleased to do so.

The debate has been a spirited one, and this evening I want to close my comments on the bill as it goes through its third reading by reflecting on what I think has been the key element of that debate—the question of: “What is the family?”. The debate has been sharply divided between people who have argued for the traditional nuclear family, as it is called, versus the way that the bill agrees to look at the whole diversity of families in New Zealand. There is no doubt that families in this country are changing quickly, and that has led to a large number of people being concerned about the future of the family. Unfortunately, that concern has, in many cases—and in this debate, as well—led to people starting to argue that one style of family is inherently superior to all other kinds of families. As I have said, that style of family is characterised as being the traditional nuclear family.

💬 Dail Jones: Of course it is.

Unfortunately, for the people who have just called out: “Of course it is.”, that is something I would call a “lazy stereotype”. It has come into the argument, usually based on a mixture of people not thinking about the issue hard enough and on being out of touch with what really is happening with New Zealand families.

In the debate that took place in the Committee stage, the traditional nuclear family was characterised by the mother being at home looking after the children, the father being the breadwinner, and the children going back and forwards, in and out of the house. Not too many people in this House live in families like that, including all the female members from other parties who rose to speak in the debate. Traditional nuclear families are not what they live in, and therefore the notion that they would argue that this unit is somehow superior has always seemed to me to be rather odd. They want to go home from their work here in the Chamber rather than contribute—and I hope they will continue to contribute, because the point of view contributed by people like Katherine Rich and Muriel Newman is valuable here in the House.

In other words, it seems to me that if people are agreeing—as I hear them doing now—that they do not actually mean that is the description of what the traditional nuclear family is at all, that they mean something else, then maybe we have already moved on in this debate to be able to talk about the reality of New Zealand families today. For example, we have to remember that if we argue about that style of family being the traditional New Zealand nuclear family, we are immediately saying to ourselves that we do not need the Māori-style family that has always been based on an extended family pattern, which often meant that people were brought up by their grandparents, aunty, or whoever, and not in the European-style nuclear family that people in the House argued for. [Interruption]

I say to Mr Dail Jones that if we are to have an intelligent debate about the family—as we will need to have with the setting up of the Families Commission—then let us not get into arguing about some fictitious, traditional nuclear-style family and forget what the real history of family is, or what the family means in the context of today. The point I have made all the way through the debate is that of course it is better if children grow up in a situation where they are with their father and mother. That is best for them, as long as they live in relative harmony. I will repeat that, because the people who have started to yell out might not have heard what I said—“as long as they live in relative harmony”. Children get hurt if they live in families where there is excessive violence or if its members do not get on. In this country, the situation is that many families—families where mum and dad lived together with their children—have broken up. Now their members are in sole parent families, reconstituted families, blended families—all kinds of families.

The point I have been making—and that this bill and Judy Turner have been making—is that when we ask the Families Commission to do its work, we want the best outcomes from all kinds of families—we want all families to be doing this. In other words, we do not want the Families Commission to be established to begin an argument about a certain kind of family; we want it to ask what the functions are that we expect from every family. We expect families to nurture and support young people. We expect them to provide consistent love for children and consistent boundaries for their behaviour. Any family that delivers those kinds of functions is likely to be good for children, and every family that does not provide those kinds of things is, in the end, likely to produce someone like Murray McCully. I would think that people like him would be the most likely outcome from a family that does not provide those kinds of things. When we look at Murray McCully, we see why it is so important to have those consistent functions in every kind of family.

That is the point we have been making on this side of the House, and we hope the Families Commission will focus on that. We hope it will set an agenda that ensures we start talking openly and honestly about what it takes to raise children in a way that gives them emotional and financial support, that gives them good surroundings so they are stimulated to learn, and that keeps them safe. We want to know how to do that in society, and, as I have said before, we should not be shy about fronting up and posing those questions. Those kinds of issues have been off the agenda for too long, because we are often shy about raising what are seen to be private issues. That is why, for over a century, we turned a blind eye to things like domestic violence, and said: “Well, if women get hurt in these situations that’s because it is a private matter. We’ve got to leave it alone.” We do not do that any more, and thank goodness we have begun to open up the doors around child abuse and child neglect. We now get much more reporting of that, which is good. We are beginning to start to talk about the kinds of things that we as a society should expect to see in families. Certainly, when it comes to children, we as a society should be setting a very high standard—an agenda that is about quality environments for all our children—and not being shy about pushing for it. We should demand that the Families Commission does exactly that.

For women, we need to have a Families Commission that thinks seriously about what it means to be a modern mother and a modern woman in this society, so they are able both to go out and earn a living and to look after their children. Providing the support for what mothers want to do is extremely important. But, for many women, trying to balance those kinds of roles is extraordinarily difficult. Let us hope that the Families Commission, in focusing on the family, raises issues about where women are at in the 21st century, and about how to support their role as mothers.

In the case of fathers, let us say that one of the major issues I have seen appear in this House over the last little while is the agreement that fathers should be responsible for their children throughout their lives. We should arrive at a point now where we say that there is no argument that can be put forward by a father who is saying: “I will walk away from my children. I will forget them. I will go and do something else. I am no longer liable for them. I am no longer responsible for them.” That is not the position we should adopt in this House. I hope the Families Commission puts fathers on the agenda. I hope it talks about what it means to be a modern father. Whatever a father’s situation is, his children remain his responsibility.

On this side of the House, we have a strong agenda on things to do with children. We want to make sure that children grow up in situations where good childcare and good early childhood education is provided, where they live in houses that have an adequate income, where they have decent housing over their heads, and where they have aspirations because they live in a positive environment and in a society that values them. This side of the House is focused on ensuring that whatever shape the families of men, women, and children take, we expect the best from them.

This has been a very, very important debate over the last little while. I expect to hear a lot more about the family next year, and I hope I do. I suspect there will be a lot of divergent opinions from parties around this House. All of a sudden, they will discover they have an interest in the family because the Government and United Future have put the family on the agenda officially through the Families Commission. I welcome that debate. It is time to have it. The family is the fundamental institution in this country. If it is not operating, the rest of our society will not operate, either. I welcome that kind of debate. I welcome this bill and I welcome its passage. I look forward to the establishment of the Families Commission on 1 July 2004.

It is great to hear from the Hon Steve Maharey that he is now listening to us and is starting to agree with us. I say to that member over there, Jill Pettis, and her colleague Judith Tizard—who all the way through the last debate on this bill screamed across the House at my colleague Mrs Katherine Rich: “Go home to your kids!”— “Thank you so much, the voice of feminism.”

Debate interrupted.

The House adjourned at 10 p.m.