Families Commission Amendment Bill

I am talking to clause 12, which is the transitional provisions. This is the clause where the current Chief Families Commissioner is anointed the new Families Commissioner, and the deputy’s role is looked after as well.

Clearly, here is a commission that is trying to reset itself up and reform its governance arrangements. We on this side of the Chamber wonder why it is that the present roles are simply being rolled over when we know that there is some idea that here is a new governance model and that the new governance model will make the commission that much more effective. We do not think that it will. We think that there is now no need to have a Families Commissioner. With the way in which this bill changes the governance arrangements of this commission, there is no need to have these transitional arrangements. There is no need now to have a Families Commissioner because there is no role for the Families Commissioner. There is no role that has been defined.

We were advised in the Social Services Committee that, indeed, the Crown Entities Act enabled these kinds of things to happen. Well, I do not think that it does. Like commissions are the Office of the Privacy Commissioner, the Human Rights Commission, the Office of the Children’s Commissioner, and the Families Commission. These are like commissions, and in each one of them the public acceptance is that there is a person or persons who carry the pre-eminent roles: the Chief Human Rights Commissioner, the Race Relations Commissioner, etc., and indeed the Privacy Commissioner and the Children’s Commissioner. It is embodied in a person. That person is accountable to the public, goes to places, and does things, and people know what that role and that person is trying to do.

But the reforms here actually do away with any role for the Families Commissioner. Clause 12 gives that role back to the present commissioner, whereas it would be more honest and more appropriate to start again. If there was a real commitment to this, start again. Re-advertise the position, and say very clearly what kinds of people are required. All that the Minister is trying to do here is set up a traditional governance operational split.

This Government has been trying to do that elsewhere, with the Human Rights Commission as well, getting rid of very, very useful and iconic roles, like the Race Relations Commissioner and the equal employment opportunities position. Look at what it did with that. So this bill does away with a particular role embodied at the moment in the Chief Families Commissioner and other families commissioners. It brings in board members, whose roles are simply governance. They do not need to know anything about families, provisions, research, and advocacy, etc. They simply are going to sit there and accept the advice of, I suppose, the Minister, but there is also an advisory group that is set up here. That advisory panel also is an expert advisory panel within the commission.

So, fundamentally the commission’s governance structure has changed. The roles no longer make sense now, and yet these transitional provisions actually protect them. Why? I see no reason why they should be protected. I see no reason why we need these transitional provisions. The Government should have the conviction now to draw a line, start again, and say: “We are really morphing the Families Commission into something quite different.” But in fact it is not doing that. It is simply taking something that works very well and cynically is trying to change that.

Now that parliamentary counsel is here I want to acknowledge your work in helping the select committee at least take out the clunky bits of this legislation, particularly where we needed to ensure that at least there was some genuflection to the notion of independence. I thank parliamentary counsel for doing that and for at least bringing us a bill that may work somewhere. But certainly at the moment these transitional provisions are not necessary because the very nature of the commission is being destroyed and the very nature of its governance arrangements are destroyed. Why? Because the present incumbent is protecting her role. There is no need to do that. Thank you.

I rise to take a call on Part 2 of the Families Commission Amendment Bill, named “Transitional provisions”. I guess it will be no surprise to anyone who was following this debate before the dinner break that the only transitional provision that the Labour Party thinks should be in this bill is the one that actually sees the Families Commission out of business. We do want to not have the Families Commission. We do not think it is doing the job that it was set up to do. We think it has become very politicised. We think that it has not done the job that families would expect it to do—advocating for their interests and doing that independent of Government. So, actually, it is part of Labour’s policy to replace the Families Commission with a Ministry for Children and a Minister for Children.

I think that is the correct thing to do, because one of the things that the transitional provisions do here is take the Families Commission from being the way it was set up under Labour, which was as an advocacy body to represent the interests of families, and transitions it to this new beast created by the National Government, which is diminishing its advocacy role. National is now doing it formally. We think it has happened informally under this Government anyway, but now, quite formally, it is diminishing the commission’s advocacy role and giving it some research responsibilities that we believe properly belong in a very, very well resourced department, like the Ministry of Social Development. That is the organisation that has the capability and the capacity, and should have the responsibility, to be providing the sort of research that is now surreptitiously being created as a research unit by this Families Commission Amendment Bill. The only fit and proper transitional provisions that we would be able to support as a party would be the one that sees the Families Commission fold in favour of a children’s ministry, because that is where some decent work would, in fact, be done that would be advocating for the interests of families.

As I said in my speech on Part 1 of this bill, the reality is that even before we were debating this amendment bill, this commission had been hamstrung. It had been politically hamstrung from advocating for families properly, and so, therefore, what is the point? What is the point of having a Families Commissioner—who will, under Part 12, cease to be called the Chief Families Commissioner and will be renamed the Families Commissioner, to hold the office of chairperson—in that office if they cannot even back up a report done by their own commission supporting the extension of paid parental leave? What is the actual point of fiddling around and changing the title of this person, when, really, their whole purpose has become defunct under the current Government’s regime in the way that it has treated this commission and has disabled it from doing its core function?

I also want to point out, in debating Part 2, that the National Party has taken the title of Families Commission far too literally. If it is going to have some transitional provisions, then maybe what it should be considering is ensuring that it is not the families of National Party MPs—and National Party Cabinet Ministers in particular—who are appointed to this commission and who get to carry the title of, currently, Chief Families Commissioner, but to be renamed the Families Commissioner. The Deputy Chief Families Commissioner is to cease to be called that, and instead is going to be called a commissioner. The commissioners cease to be called commissioners, but get to be called members of the commission. This is revolutionary stuff, quite clearly. I cannot understand what the revolution is that is taking place here, but it has seen fit to take up parliamentary time, with the National Party changing these titles as it transitions the Families Commission from even pretending to have an advocacy role for families, and asks that commission to take on, with very small resources, the sort of research capability and capacity that really should sit with the Ministry of Social Development.

Just as we did with Part 1, we will be opposing these transitional provisions, because they do not transition this commission to anything useful on behalf of New Zealand families. To continue to use the title of Families Commissioner, we believe, is a complete misnomer when that is not in fact what they are able to do.