Families Commission Amendment Bill

It is my privilege to take a call in the Committee stage of the Families Commission Amendment Bill. Up front I want to point out that the Labour Party did support this bill, at least it being debated at the Social Services Committee. We have always been very clear about no longer seeing a place for the Families Commission in the current political environment. There are a number of reasons for that, not least is the fact that over time it is our view that the Families Commission has become increasingly politicised.

💬 Sue Moroney: Has it ever.

As my colleague chimes in, it reminds me that she is right to say “Has it ever.”, based on the fact that the recent appointments to the Families Commission board have made it literally the family’s commission—that is, the family’s commission of the National Party’s family. I think that some of the last two appointments have included Amy Adams’ sister. She is a Families Commission board member. She was a temporary fill-in, and then took on a permanent role at the Families Commission. Hekia Parata’s husband is also on the Families Commission board. There is no doubting that if someone has good credentials and there is a relevant role, there might be a place for them.

💬 Tim Macindoe: Does the member behind you know anything about it?

I do not believe that Rajen Prasad was related to any of the Ministers who appointed him at the time. I do not believe that Rajen Prasad was related to any of the Ministers at the time he—

💬 Hon Member: He was.

Married to Steve Maharey at any point—no, Rajen Prasad was not. The point that we are making I think is a very fair one. If there is a background that makes it relevant for an individual to be appointed, perhaps someone could make a case. But I think that having not one but two members of National’s Cabinet with direct family members on the Families Commission means it is only fair that we raise eyebrows about that, particularly when the sister of one of those National members was previously a political ministerial appointment.

So it is only fair, I think, that we therefore raise also the point that this bill dilutes the advocacy role that the Families Commission has had. One might question whether or not that advocacy role has really existed properly for some time. There is no doubt that in the past the Families Commission has held the Government of the day to account. It has raised issues of the day. It is my recollection that during Rajen Prasad’s time, I believe there was an important piece of work done around paid parental leave, if I recall. It was a very comprehensive report about the importance of paid parental leave.

Fast forward to now and we have a case where the Families Commission has no view, apparently, on the importance of paid parental leave. The Families Commission has no view on whether or not it is important for families to have more time together at the most important developmental stages of a child’s life. That is absolutely extraordinary. Not only does this bill remove the advocacy function for the Families Commission but we would argue that it has been long gone. It has been long gone. That is why that although Part 1 of the bill focuses on reducing the number of commissioners—so having one commissioner and not having multiple commissioners, and it is fair to point out that that may have caused some confusion—it actually, in our minds, does not go far enough. In our minds, this bill should remove the Families Commission entirely. That is the conclusion that we have come to.

That is not to say that there is not a role for advocacy on behalf of families and children. Indeed, we think there is. But, sadly, the Families Commission is so far gone that we do not think it is the one to perform that function anymore. In fact, it is our view that both the functions performed currently by the Families Commission and the proposed functions within this bill should simply be transferred to the Children’s Commissioner. We think the Office of the Children’s Commissioner has done some very, very good work, has a very strong advocacy role, and has conducted itself with the level of independence required, particularly in the research that it has done and the ability of the commission to bring together expert advisory panels specific to the areas that it determines need to be focused on—in this case, child poverty—and to even bring together funding to enable it to do the work.

In Part 1, clause 11, of this bill, there is a specific establishment of a social science experts panel with a specific allocation of funding. We believe that that is inappropriate. We believe that the kinds of pieces of research that we were told at the Social Services Committee would be conducted by the Families Commission actually should be carried out by the Ministry of Social Development in its day-to-day work anyway, and that to claim that having something independent would add something—well, actually, this social science experts panel would not be independent anyway, so why not have it as part of the Ministry of Social Development?

There is one specific piece of work, as well, that this piece of legislation sets out that the Families Commission will conduct—even though it has been basically gutted except for a couple of little things, a few little jobs, to do. One is a state of the nation sort of report for families, the families status report. Well, one could argue that that is essentially the social report that the Ministry of Social Development previously did annually—

💬 Sue Moroney: Under a Labour Government.

JACINDA ARDERN:—under a Labour Government, but when this Government came in, no, it was not interested in hearing about the social status of New Zealanders on an annual basis. No, it was much more convenient to deal with that 3-yearly—I believe outside of the election year—rather than have that yearly. So the fact that it has now created this families status report just rings hollow to us, given that something that was comparable and already existed has been gutted since National has been in office.

Equally, the household income survey, a fantastic piece of work that was very comprehensive and, unfortunately, undermined by Treasury’s—I believe Bryan Perry’s report may have been influenced by Treasury’s inability to count how many children are in poverty. But we do have other reports that do provide us with a useful snapshot. I think that the Salvation Army state of the nation report, produced truly independently of the Government, has become a useful resource. The Children’s Commissioner’s Child Poverty Monitor, if provided with accurate figures from Treasury, will be a useful resource. So to claim that the Families Commission needs to do this report and to say it is independent but actually then have the people, as Part 1 sets out, on the board producing the report not be independent—it just strikes us that what the Government is doing here is acknowledging that there is not much of a place for the Families Commission anymore, but there is still a little sort of tether of a coalition over in the corner between Peter Dunne and the National Government, which it is going to pay a little bit of lip service to, and it is doing that by allowing the Families Commission to exist in virtually name only.

So it is our contention and our proposal that in spite of this little bit of reduction in size of the Families Commission, let us start over. Let us subsume all of those functions into the Children’s Commissioner and give the Children’s Commissioner more independence—not just, actually, the advocacy role that it plays now, which is gutted from this bill, but the kind of independence that the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment has. The Children’s Commissioner has exercised to a certain degree that level of independence, but there have been times when it has obviously been difficult. So we would like to see that role enhanced.

Coming back to Part 1, which is the significant part of this piece of legislation—there is not much in Part 2—the first thing that it does is repeal the definition of commissioner and consolidate the function of the commissioner. It really loses the sense of the defined purpose of the commission, which is unusual. Most commissions have very strongly set out mandates. After this bill is passed, the Families Commission will not really seem to have that, beyond publishing its annual families status report. There is an advocacy function—and I am quoting from Part 1, clause 6(4), which inserts section 8(2)—but it “does not include acting as an advocate for the interests of a particular family or particular families in connection with a particular case or issue.” Well, actually, really, the advocacy functions go almost entirely as far as we can tell from our questioning at the select committee and based on the evidence of what we have seen. So the functions are basically that it is not allowed to do anything individual, it is not really allowed to push too far beyond doing its families status report, conduct a bit of monitoring, evaluating—

I want to come in and support my colleague Jacinda Ardern and her analysis of the reasons why Labour is opposing the Families Commission Amendment Bill. It is a sad day when the current Government has brought the Families Commission into such disrepute that the Labour Party, which actually, when in Government, established the Families Commission to start off with, is now of a mind that it serves no useful purpose for families in this country. I think that is a really sad indictment on what the Government has done to a unit, a commission, that actually did have a genuine reason and a genuine purpose.

But, as we have just heard from my colleague, that has been somewhat diminished—in fact, to the point where already in the last term of Parliament the Labour Party had come to the conclusion that children’s interests would be better served by disestablishing the Families Commission and using that funding instead to support the development of a Ministry for Children and a Minister for Children. What the Labour Party said at that stage, and this remains its policy today, is that we would prefer to have a senior Minister around the Cabinet table whose job it was to advocate the interests of children, rather than have the Families Commission, which, as Jacinda Ardern pointed out, had got to the ridiculous stage in its development where it would not support extending paid parental leave.

I want to just revisit that for a couple of minutes. I am the sponsor of a Labour Party bill currently before this House to extend paid parental leave to 6 months, the Parental Leave and Employment Protection (Six Months’ Paid Leave) Amendment Bill. Imagine my surprise when I read in one of the Sunday papers—I think it might have been the Sunday Star-Times, actually—where the Families Commissioner launched an attack on a piece of research that had been done by a previous Families Commissioner. That previous research had argued very thoroughly on behalf of families to ensure that we valued—what was it called, Dr Prasad? Was it “Time to Deliver”, maybe? Because that is certainly what it is. It is time to deliver. It is time to deliver on paid parental leave, by the way. But there was actually a very thorough piece of research done that put forward the argument on behalf of families that paid parental leave should be extended to 12 months, in fact.

Certainly, that is Labour policy as well. We think that that is not quite achievable in the current climate, but we do believe that 6 months’ paid parental leave is entirely affordable. So imagine my surprise to read the very person who I thought would stand up for families and the very person who should have stood up for families saying that they thought that the previous report from the Families Commission was gold-plated and not necessary.

I think that that story probably tells New Zealanders all they need to know about the worth of the Families Commission these days. If the Families Commission was really advocating on behalf of families, then the commissioner would understand the stress that families are under presently, and that mean they would be looking to the Families Commissioner to stand up for their needs in terms of their ability to spend more time at home with their young babies in those precious early months. But, no, it was not the Families Commissioner who was prepared to stand up; it was the Labour Party that has been the organisation prepared to stand up for those families and those parents and their day-to-day stress and their need to make sure that their children get the best start in life. Of course, I imagine that the Families Commissioner was probably feeling somewhat nervous about commenting on the issue of paid parental leave, because National had voted against the paid parental leave bill at its first reading. National voted against it, like it has done, actually, for years now. Ever since paid parental leave has been on the agenda in this Parliament—since 2002; it was probably voted on in 2001, actually—National has consistently voted against it.

But that is the point: we should not have a Families Commissioner who feels nervous because of a vote that the Government MPs have taken in this House. The role of the Families Commissioner is to be neutral, to be independent, and to advocate for families. That clearly is not the case any longer. As Jacinda Ardern said, has the National Party not taken the name of the Families Commissioner far too literally? It is not the commission that you appoint your own families to, National; it is actually the commission that should be representing families.

I rise to take a call on Part 1 of the Families Commission Amendment Bill. I do so with a lot of sadness, because of my historical links to the Families Commission, as its inaugural chief commissioner. I want to talk about some of the clauses in quite some detail, but first I do want to thank my colleagues for the quality of some of the work the commission did when I was there—in fact, two pieces of work in particular: the paid parental leave work, and the work on elder abuse. Both were seminal pieces of work.

As far as the paid parental leave work was concerned, I believe it was the best work that the commission did—reviewing the literature, looking at the international work on it, developing a 13-month plan and a 7-year transition programme, economic modelling, and, for each of the financial years, calculating the amount it would take. That was all in that particular report. There was some sadness when the last chief commissioner then resiled from the view of the commission—actually resiled from it. To argue now about the commission in the way that we are from this side of the Chamber is a matter of some sadness to me.

The changes in Part 1 of this bill really are very cynical, and I want to expose that in the calls I want to take on this particular bill. I want to talk first about clause 5, “Section 7 replaced”. This clause transfers the monitoring and the evaluation functions for social sector programmes to the Families Commission. Here are the monitoring and evaluation functions, which are really mainline State organisation functions, taken up by organisations via contracts. But here, they are being transferred to a second-tier independent commission. To do it in that particular way is really quite cynical.

Much of the approach taken here is well known. The strategy is well known. It is an old strategy—tie down an organisation by prescribing it so much work that is not really germane to its goal that it is unable to fulfil the very purpose for which our Crown entities of this type were established. Can you imagine if we did that to the Office of the Children’s Commissioner? It would disable it from actually carrying out its functions. But the changes here in paragraph (b) of the replaced section 7 will actually tie down the commission into simply being a monitoring and evaluation commission, because it is being given the role that ought to belong to those agencies that let the contracts and understand why they let them out, and so on. That is what they are there for.

The decisions are dripping with cynicism. The National Party really never supported the Families Commission when it was first established. It never did. It did not support it in the early stages when we were setting it up. If National had its own way, it would close the commission down tomorrow, but it has a coalition partner who is an advocate for this commission. I do not think the Hon Peter Dunne has fully realised how these changes actually denude this commission from doing the very work that he advocated for in conjunction with Helen Clark, who, when she was Prime Minister, developed this particular commission and gave it the resources and responsibility over time to develop that particular role. This is completely at odds with the role of a commission of this type. Here this Minister and this Government are, through the back door, denuding this commission.

I am going to look now at clause 6. The Minister for Social Development knows, and the sectors outside know, that the major strength of the Families Commission is its ability to advocate for the interests of all New Zealand families and to do that based on its consultation with New Zealand families of every type, based on its examination of the research that is available, and based on its examination of current programmes and their effectiveness and what advice it might give and what position it might take. That advocacy function was its particular strength.

In clause 6, there is an advocacy function, but it is confounded and denuded of its real power by loading on to the commission, in subclause (3) a requirement to produce an annual family status report. This idea is something that comes out of mid air, because one of the seminal pieces of work and one of the repeated pieces of work that the Ministry for Social Development does is produce the Social Report. The Social Report has been produced over a period of time, based on a lot of data, and with a lot of sub-categories to it. It is a wonderful piece of work—a world leader. Anybody reading it can understand how powerful this work is. That either has stopped being published or is published very, very rarely now. In its place is this particular social report—and here is the first one from the Families Commission.

So here is the Families Commission redoing the work. I have read this. Much of what this first report does is basically this. It tells us how to define family, it tells us about the importance of families, and things like that, and it gives us the demographic data. That information was put together in an expensive and major founding document for the Families Commission—all that data currently exists. So here we are; we are doing it again. It is cynical because this is not going to add anything to the life of any New Zealand family or children at all. But here we are—clause 6 does that.

So here we have two clauses that really say to me that the changes proposed are cynical. These provisions are trying to do something to the Families Commission that is unnecessary, and they have now risked the Families Commission even existing in such a way. I will come back and speak to the other clauses, because they also add to this cynical approach of trying to destroy a commission that was never supported. The Minister is not able, really, to tell us why these changes are important. We have gone through the select committee process—the bill was referred to the Social Services Committee—and we have tried to find the kinds of reasons behind these changes. In fact, there was not much there.

The argument for these changes is not compelling. There are huge resources bound up in the Ministry of Social Development, and to take the social sector evaluation responsibility, and base $3.5 million or so on it, and say the Families Commission will now do that and the State sector will evaluate only the programmes it lets out—what is that about? This is not setting up an independent commission of a Crown entity type. We have developed a system of three types of Crown entities. This is the middle type, not like the Children’s Commissioner. It is at arm’s length from Government, but it is independent. It is able to do its own thinking.

By circumscribing the commission’s role in this particular way—and other clauses will show this as well—the Government actually says to me that it has no appreciation for this commission, has never really supported it, and does not show any real understanding of the work of the commission. Now it is really politicising it beyond belief. We will talk about that as well, because the politicisation of this commission is also painful to watch. There is no need for that. It should have been a commission that would serve Governments forever in New Zealand and serve New Zealand families forever in New Zealand, but for short-term gain this Minister has reduced the effectiveness of this commission by loading these kinds of responsibilities, and others in this particular bill, on to it and destroying its ability to do that.

I cannot see how the Hon Peter Dunne can actually support this bill, because it is the death knell of this commission. We are now compelled to ask whether this is the best way of doing this. Ought we not to have a ministry for children and really make it function like that? Ought we not to strengthen the Children’s Commissioner—would that not be a better way? That is where the energies of this side of the House will go, so we can produce good evidence to inform good policy as we move forward. Now I want to move to talking about clause 7. Here also there is more—

I want to acknowledge the contributions of the previous speakers who spoke passionately against this piece of legislation, the Families Commission Amendment Bill—and that is not surprising. The contributions from Sue Moroney, Jacinda Ardern, and Dr Prasad have indicated the long history they have had working in this area, particularly Dr Prasad as the inaugural Chief Families Commissioner. It is not surprising that he is concerned about any change. Although he says the bill is dripping with cynicism, in actual fact it is really the different view of a different Government at a different time in our evolution as a State dealing with the problems of young people. I have heard him on a number of occasions—through the select committee process, for instance—speak to the Families Commissioners as they have appeared before the Social Services Committee, and his passion is obvious.

But I think what the Government is doing is recognising that there are times for changes, as there are in the work of any Government entity. I cannot help but note that although we know that Labour believes that the proposed changes continue an agenda to fundamentally alter the commission so it becomes something closer to a Government ministry—which is pretty much what Dr Prasad has said—that seems a little inconsistent with Labour’s own policy, which is to replace the commission in order to create a “Ministry for Children”. The concern is about doing away with the commission and doing something more in line with a Government department, but is that not exactly what Labour would intend to do by dissolving the commission and turning it into a “Ministry for Children”? It is important to note that nothing in the bill changes the commission’s status. In fact, it extends its powers and functions in order to make it more relevant.

New Zealand First has indicated that it has concerns and believes that the commission’s work will duplicate research carried out by the Ministry of Social Development, and yet there is a very clear delineation between what the ministry and the commission will be working on. They will work together to ensure that their research activities complement each other’s. The ministry’s functions focus on welfare reform and those requiring access to confidential in-house data. The commission’s role is to focus on being able to independently evaluate policies and programmes that it does not fund or deliver.

New Zealand First has also indicated that there is a lack of consideration that the commission reports to a single Minister, but the bill recognises that by explicitly extending the new research and evaluation functions across the broader social sector. It has also been a hallmark of this Government that ministries work together in clusters related to their portfolios. So, although the commission would report to one Minister, in actual fact the work would be scrutinised by a team of Ministers.

In relation to comments made in respect of the new additional functions in clauses 5 and 7, Dr Prasad has been concerned that new section 8A(1)(a) tasks the commission with identifying “evidence and research that will assist in determining or achieving the Government’s policies and priorities in the social sector:”. The new function, though, is designed to ensure that the commission’s work is relevant and of use. I quote the Hon Peseta Sam Lotu-Iiga, who noted during the second reading that “There is no point in having research sitting on a shelf” in Wellington. The commission is to actively identify and move forward on areas where research will assist. An example is the social services policy round table discussion, which the commission has facilitated on 17 February to strengthen links between the academic social sciences and the Public Service. It follows from Sir Peter Gluckman’s report on the role of evidence in policy formation. The commission remains an autonomous Crown entity and must have regard only to Government policy.

Labour has also indicated that it has concerns that the new research and evaluation function reduces the commission’s advocacy role and resources, but it is important to point out that the research and evaluation role and the advocacy role are not mutually exclusive. Often the best way to advocate for families is to identify what works to address the issues facing families. Funding for the commission’s core advocacy function is still sufficient—more than $3.5 million per annum to carry out this role—especially as the commission has adopted a leaner structure and is being more effective in how it uses its funding. The commission is also gaining significant additional funding, against which it can leverage $1 million over 3 years for youth mental health.

The Green Party has expressed concern that the White Ribbon Day campaign will be undermined to the point where it will be hard to see any action whatsoever, but it is important to note that the White Ribbon Day campaign is something that has grown legs of its own through the community. The website hits have increased significantly in November 2013 to 45,777, compared with the 2011 record of 31,000. The pledge page received 4,081 visits, with 1,040 of those visitors going on to complete the pledge form—an uptake rate of 25.5 percent—and Facebook “likes” rose from 8,200 to 14,700 in November. This shows that, indeed, the White Ribbon Day movement has grown a life of its own, which is exactly what the promoters of it would like it to do.

There has been concern expressed about a lack of independence and the fit with the social report, but the commission is confident that the usefulness of the next report will be self-evident. It considers it an improvement on the 2013 report, which will identify useful areas for further work. Minister Dunne is to be briefed on this, and hopefully he will speak to it at some stage during the course of this Committee stage.

There have been concerns from Opposition parties that changes being described in clauses 10 and 11 are confusing and poorly understood. Labour has claimed they will result in power effectively residing in the chief executive, but it is important to point out—and there is a need to emphasise—that apart from changing their title, for all but one member of the commission nothing else in the legislation changes. The number of members remains the same—between three and seven—and duties and responsibilities are also unchanged from those set out in the Crown Entities Act. The main effect of the change in the title is that it reiterates that members of the commission are to concentrate on their board member role. This has been happening for a number of years, with most current members averaging less than 30 days a year on commission business, compared with up to 100 per year when the commission was established in 2004.

There has also been concern expressed that the process for specifying the additional duties to be carried out by the new sole commissioner is to be determined by the commission, but a proposal that the board collectively determine what additional powers and functions are to be delegated to the sole commissioner is the norm for Crown entities. Under the Crown Entities Act all power rests with the board, and it is up to it to decide how these are to be delegated between meetings.

There has been concern expressed about the panel of four not having skills across a broad range, but we need to note that the bill was changed at the select committee stage to provide for a minimum of four members. I also emphasise that the panel will not work in isolation and that its function will be complemented by the skills and experience of the members of the commission, the various reference groups put in place by the commission, and steering groups put in place to support specific projects.

I would like to respond, I think, to some of the comments that the Minister in the Chair, Associate Minister for Social Development Borrows, has just raised, particularly around the fact that the new legislation for the Families Commission, is being enacted in order to make the commission more relevant. What I have seen through the select committee process was that this was something that was not that broken to start off with. In fact, the Families Commission was acting quite well, it was commissioning research that was incredibly useful, and it was able to provide its functions and carry on and do the work that it was set up to do.

During the select committee process we heard from submitters who were actually really concerned about the role of research and that this research would be taken over and directed towards the purpose of the Government’s policies. The Greens maintain that we have not seen any changes to the bill as it has come back to the House now and for its third reading that address those issues. The development of the social science experts panel—essentially, it is the Government and Government Ministers who determine who will be the members of that panel—means that there is the risk of research being developed that does not really offer free and frank advice to Ministers. We are seeing that more and more. Dr Prasad started to talk about the politicisation of the Public Service, and that is the risk that we see as inherent in this bill—that is, that the advice given is the advice that the Government wants and is not the full advice that the Government should receive to make good decisions. Basically, it just stacks up the cards to reinforce the Government’s position. From our point of view that would be a major undermining of the functions of the Families Commission as it has acted to date.

There are clues throughout the bill around the removal of the Families Commission’s ability to provide free and frank advice. One that I can point to, I think, is in Part 1, new section 7, where the word “independent” has been removed. It says that the commission’s main function is to “act as an advocate for the interests of families generally …” and to “monitor and evaluate programmes …”. In the words “to provide independent monitoring and evaluation”, “independent” has been removed from the bill. This is the main reason, I think, why the Greens still have quite a lot of hesitation about supporting the bill. In fact, we are quite clear that we are opposing it. We have seen the commission provide very good, solid research that backs up good policy. An example of that is the research that was done around paid parental leave. With a new commissioner we suddenly saw quite a comment from that commissioner saying, basically, that paid parental leave should not be a priority and that it would cost too much, which was a direct contradiction to the previous research that was undertaken independently and with a wide range of views incorporated into the final research that was put up on the Families Commission website.

We are concerned that this legislation takes away the functions from the ministry towards the oversight of an advisory panel that is hand-picked by the Government. We are concerned about this tendency towards using advisory groups. We have seen it before with the Welfare Working Group, we are seeing it with the welfare reform board, and we are seeing it now with the social science experts panel. We are alarmed at what sort of impact that is going to have on the quality of research that is commissioned. These were the concerns that were coming through time and time again from organisations that have contributed in the past towards research that looks after the well-being of women and children and families.

It is actually a great honour for me to be able to speak on the Families Commission Amendment Bill. I share my colleague Dr Prasad’s sadness in our getting to the point where we are looking at the demise of the Families Commission and of lots of the exciting and wonderful work it has done over time, and I commend you, Dr Prasad, for your work in your time at the Families Commission. In a former life, if there is any such thing prior to coming to Parliament, I worked for many years in the family violence sector. I have to say that the Families Commission as it was, particularly under Dr Prasad’s watch, was a strong advocate for the work that we were doing in the family violence sector.

One of the things that I particularly lament is what is likely to happen to the White Ribbon Day celebrations. Many of the gentlemen on both sides of this Chamber actually wear a white ribbon to signify their support in encouraging men to take responsibility for their actions with regard to violence towards women and children. I have to say very clearly that wearing the white ribbon is not a gimmick; it is actually a very strong statement about your intent in terms of not staying silent about violence towards women and children and actually wanting to speak up. The Families Commission had done an awful lot of work to ensure that the White Ribbon Day celebrations, the White Ribbon Day ambassadors, and all of those programmes not only—to quote your words, Minister—had “legs” and developed within the community but actually stayed strong.

The community cannot do this work on its own. With the many hundreds of thousands of call-outs for the police every year for family and domestic violence, it is a requirement that the Government steps in. Something that I have seen over my time working in the family violence sector is that to encourage the community to be a participant in this was one of the key tenets of the Families Commission. I am very sad to see that that particular event will probably suffer some demise because it will not have the support of the Government.

What it is that we really require to support our families is what the Families Commission was originally set up to do. Families are wonderfully diverse and are made up of all types of components. The Families Commission really honoured and respected the difference and diversity that families bring and the types of support that are required for that diversity as well, whether it be supporting young people through teenage pregnancy, or supporting parents through difficult times, or looking at how children could be better supported.

Of course, what I was particularly pleased to see when I was working in the sector was that the Families Commission was an independent voice for all of those different sectors that wanted to participate in supporting families. Here I refer to supporting district health boards and other health boards, and supporting social service providers and private individuals to actually make a difference in families’ lives. Families need a lot of resources in order to function well. They also need to have a lot of work in terms of supporting all those conditions that the Government can provide to help families in need. This is where the Families Commission had a particularly strong approach.

A few years ago I first heard of the demise of the Families Commission and that it was likely to become more of an evaluation and research institution. Although, on the one hand, information and research on families is really important and useful, for me it signalled that we were moving away from our commitment to families, and towards actually seeing them in terms of research and evaluation, and I do not think that that is particularly appropriate for us. I was quite sad to see the number of commissioners reduced to one and that their major function would now be in evaluation and research. So when we think about the work—

I move, That the question be now put.

I want to join my colleagues in explaining why Labour opposes the Families Commission Amendment Bill. Can I also start by acknowledging the contribution that Dr Rajen Prasad played as a Families Commissioner at a time when the Families Commission was actually playing an important and useful role. We did support this bill through to the Social Services Committee because we wanted to look at it closely—we did not want to make any rash decisions on it—but having done that, we do oppose this bill for a number of reasons. Essentially, we are concerned that, as proposed in this bill, the advocacy function of the Families Commission will be significantly limited. We believe there is a need for strong independent advice. The Minister in the chair, Associate Minister for Social Development Borrows, mentioned that he thought our position was somewhat inconsistent because we were saying we would get rid of the Families Commission and set up a Ministry for Children, with a senior Minister. But, in fact, we are also saying that we would seek and continue with the idea of an independent Children’s Commissioner. So we do see that the independent advocacy role is very fundamental.

Indeed, what could be more important than our families and our children, and having people willing to speak up on some of those issues? My colleague Poto Williams has spoken about the area of domestic violence as being one of those critical issues. There are a number, and I want to come back later in my contribution to talk about paid parental leave as being one of them.

We are concerned that this bill limits the advocacy function of the commission. We are also concerned that with the establishment of the social policy evaluation and research unit within the Families Commission, which is proposed in this bill, that unit will be very closely linked to what the Government is doing and will further eliminate the independence of the commission to undertake research in areas that it might consider necessary for children—like poverty, like financial literacy, like family violence, and like paid parental leave.

Also, this bill significantly alters the governance arrangements of the commission, and we think that it actually ends up creating a confused governance structure, where the power will effectively lie with the chief executive and make the Families Commissioner role fairly redundant. So we are worried about who will actually determine and set the work programme of the commission, and that is important. I think, for many of us, the concern has been highlighted by the way that the commission has abandoned its role as an independent commission recently and agreed, for example—as my colleague Sue Moroney talked about—with the Government on paid parental leave, solely based on what the Government said it could afford or not, rather than on any evidence-based policy assessment of the importance of that policy. I do not think it is possible to talk about paid parental leave without looking at the many dimensions of how that will support our families and why it is such a significant initiative. I am pretty astounded that members opposite will be voting down Sue Moroney’s bill—

The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch): Order!

—to extend paid parental leave. Paid parental leave, Mr Chair, is something that you would expect a Families Commission to be promoting. My concern is it has already evidenced, by its actions in lining up behind the Government on this issue, a lack of independence, and this bill, in our opinion, will further reduce the independence of the Families Commission to be able to do things like advocate for paid parental leave. Why is paid parental leave important to families? Obviously, it is important from the point of view of ensuring that households retain some income at a time when families are under financial pressure—

The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch): Order! This bill is not about paid parental leave. You can talk about that and mention it. This is about restructuring the commission. Although you can mention paid parental leave—that is fine—you cannot get into the substantive matter of the values or otherwise of paid parental leave. You can mention it, as you have done, but you cannot get into the detail of it.

What I am trying to illustrate, though, is the importance of having a Families Commission that has an independent advocacy role in relation to an issue like paid parental leave. And if you are going to have an independent advocacy role, which we believe is compromised by the structures that are being put in place here, with a change in the advocacy function actually limited by this bill—

I wanted to come back and address three further aspects that are on my mind in terms of the Families Commission Amendment Bill. I want to respond to the Hon Chester Borrows, who believes that members on this side of the Chamber are inconsistent in the position we have taken when we talk about a children’s ministry and strengthening the Office of the Children’s Commissioner. In fact, I say to the Hon Chester Borrows that I think he has missed the point.

The very thing we are arguing is that the changes in this bill are a travesty of the autonomous Crown entity model. What these changes do is anathema to that particular model, and that is the bit that we are really objecting to. We would rather strengthen the Families Commission and let it go, but because this bill is a travesty of that, we have difficulty.

I also wanted to express my concern that the White Ribbon programme would be transferred out of the commission. I thought that Mr Alfred Ngaro might take a call and defend that particular programme rather than taking a closure call—we did hire him to do some work for us when I was in the commission.

Coming back to new section 8A, in clause 7—this is about the commission’s monitoring, evaluation, and research function—really, those functions are being delimited in this particular clause, and I will explain why they are being delimited. New section 8A adds managing contracts to the list of functions. Here is an autonomous Crown entity being asked to manage contracts on behalf of the Government. Why are those contracts not being managed by Government departments and Government ministries? This is an autonomous Crown entity. To use it in this particular way, as new section 8A does, is a travesty of that particular model, and it actually delimits the commission from doing the advocacy work for which it was designed, and that work still needs to be done because many of our families are not doing that well.

Roles that the Ministry of Social Development had—appropriately, as the Ministry of Social Development—are now being transferred into the Families Commission, and there is no real explanation for that; for putting it in this big area of evaluation etc. When you give the commission these kinds of functions, then it actually delimits the role. What is the gain? What is the gain from asking an autonomous Crown entity, designed to advocate for families, to manage contracts of this type? Where is the gain when there is so much to be done in this particular area? So, again, this bill is really a downgrading of the particular functions of the Families Commission.

I want to go now to clause 11. This is about the membership of the commission. I thought the Hon Chester Borrows skipped through this very, very lightly, because this really is quite germane, and I believe officials have also skipped through this very, very lightly. Although I appreciate the work of officials and their advice to the Social Services Committee, in this area I do not agree with them. There is no strong argument to replace commissioners with members. One member of the board, which is appointed by the Minister, will then be selected as the Families Commissioner. What is the role of that member? Oh, that is whatever the commission decides it is.

Can you imagine the role of the Children’s Commissioner being put through that kind of process? It is just not going to happen. So here we are—there is a major change here, and there is no reason. If the Government wanted to drive through a different corporate model, then it ought to have done that much more clearly, but the bill actually does not really reflect the real nature of Crown entities of this type. When will the Minister or somebody explain why we have a Families Commissioner in the bill—why? There is no justification now for having a person on a governance board—because that is what this becomes—having the role of the Families Commissioner. It becomes window dressing. I would like the Minister to explain to us why we should have one at all, when at the moment there actually is a wider provision for a—

The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch): Sorry to interrupt the honourable member, but the time has come for me to leave the Chair for the dinner break.

Sitting suspended from 6 p.m. to 7.30 p.m.

The CHAIRPERSON (Eric Roy): The House in Committee has resumed. The House in Committee is considering the Families Commission Amendment Bill and is debating Part 1. Dr Rajen Prasad had the call. He has a small amount of time left.

Thank you, Mr Chairman. I hope I will get to finish my last call after this. I wanted to also talk about another provision in this bill, which is new section 18B, in clause 11. What new section 18B does is establish a social science experts panel—

I move, That the question be now put.

It is my pleasure to take a second call on the Families Commission Amendment Bill. I want to point out, of course, that the most substantive part of this bill is contained in Part 1 and I imagine, therefore, that that will be where the most robust part of this debate sits. I want to come to new section 7 in clause 5, which talks about the commission’s main functions. In my opening address I did refer to what I thought was diluted advocacy. That is not necessarily strictly as is set out in the bill. The bill purports that the Families Commission will maintain an advocacy function, but our concern has been based on the reality of what we have seen. In the bill itself it states in section 7 that the commission’s main functions will be: “(a) to act as an advocate for the interests of families generally … and (b) to monitor and evaluate programmes and interventions in the social sector, and provide social science research into key issues, programmes, and interventions across that sector …”.

I have two quick concerns. When the last time the Families Commission came before the Social Services Committee, the question was asked of the Families Commission: “What do you perceive to be the most significant issues facing New Zealand families today?”. Interestingly, there was a very long pause from the commissioner who was present there that day, a bit of fumbling around occurred, and then the main objectives for that year for the Families Commission were plucked out. From memory they were things like adolescence issues, alcohol issues—clearly a list of things that the Government has taken an interest in, rather than necessarily what the Families Commission itself had determined to be issues that needed to be advocated for and on behalf of families based on families’ needs. If they had been issues based on New Zealand families’ needs, I would have expected the response from the commissioner, or at least the head at that time, to be much more intuitive and to be based on the conversations they had had, the research they had done, and the knowledge they had in those roles. Not so. They went directly to a set of objectives that were clearly established by an outside entity.

Secondly, with regard to paragraph (b) of the commission’s main function, the monitoring and evaluation role, there is no doubt that there is a need for that kind of function within the Ministry of Social Development. You constantly hear from NGOs of the requirement that is put upon them—and rightly so—to provide robust evaluations of the programmes that they offer. The issue is that some of the contracts that the ministry holds with organisations are not significant contracts. In fact, you could soak up an entire contract with the cost of doing proper research and evaluation. So these organisations are left between a rock and a hard place. They do not have the funding to do a proper evaluation, and yet their funding is contingent on it, which has always led me to think that it would make sense to have within the Ministry of Social Development a pooled resource that would enable it to then allow NGOs that could not meet that threshold to access that research and monitoring arm to ensure that their programmes and interventions were working and delivering what the ministry wanted them to deliver.

To me, the fact that the commission has this as one of its secondary functions is problematic for two reasons. Firstly, I do not think that a commission is the right place for it because, actually, we need this beyond just Families Commission issues and programmes. We need it much more broadly for the social development sector. Secondly, the funding that the Families Commission has will not be sufficient for it to do this job as adequately as required. It still has a quite small budget when you think about the kinds of things that could come under paragraph (b). So those are the issues that I have with section 7(a) and (b) in that regard. As I say, that is not to discount, in particular, the importance of paragraph (b), but why would we want to compartmentalise it in that way? Why is it not within the Ministry of Social Development? I would be interested in the view of the Minister in the chair, Associate Minister for Social Development Borrows, on that.

I want to come to clause 6, relating to the commission’s additional functions. I touched briefly on the don’ts of the commission. Of course, the clause sets out that it is not meant to act as an advocacy model for individual families. That is the kind of work that MPs, presumably, do themselves. But it then sets out in that section the additional functions that I have already talked about. Under new section 8(ba) it is to prepare the annual families status report, but it is also—

I move, That the question be now put.