10. PETER BROWN (Deputy Leader-NZ First) to the Minister for Social Development and Employment: In regard to the Families Commission, when does he expect the appointments to be in place and will the United Future party have any powers of veto?

Hon STEVE MAHAREY (Minister for Social Development and Employment): The Families Commission will commence operations on 1 July 2004. Appointments will be made in May 2004. An independent panel will conduct the interviews. Appointment recommendations will be reviewed by Labour, Progressive, and United Future representatives. No member of that group will have power to veto. Cabinet will make final appointment decisions, as it does on all similar appointments.

Peter Brown: Will the Families Commission be able to address the problems of older families and their concerns over finance, health, end-of-life concerns such as espousing my Death with Dignity Bill, and will the commission be able to concern itself with those issues for those folk; if not, why not?

Hon STEVE MAHAREY: Yes, it will.

Moana Mackey: How many formal expressions of interest have been received for Families Commission appointments?

Hon STEVE MAHAREY: One-hundred-and-eighty-six formal expressions of interest were received and a number of other informal inquiries were made, reflecting the fact that many New Zealanders see the Families Commission as an excellent opportunity to promote and strengthen families as a core institution in our society.

Judith Collins: Will appointees to the Families Commission be required to read the recent Swedish study of almost 1 million children published in the highly regarded Lancet Medical Journal, which showed that children with a single parent are twice as likely to develop a psychiatric illness such as severe depression or schizophrenia, to kill themselves, or to develop an alcohol-related disease?

Hon STEVE MAHAREY: I doubt whether appointees will be required to read anything. However, I hope that they read widely and understand the notion of scientific causality.

Hon Peter Dunne: Will the Minister confirm that there is a ministerial advisory committee on the establishment of the Families Commission, on which United Future is represented, that is presently looking at the type of briefings that incoming commissioners will require as part of their induction process, and that the matters that have been raised already in question time will be matters that that panel could well consider?

Hon STEVE MAHAREY: There is such a panel. United Future representatives are making an outstanding contribution to that panel. Part of that contribution is to look at the wide range of issues that incoming members will undoubtedly canvass?

Dr Muriel Newman: Is the Minister prepared to give an assurance that every member of the Families Commission will be strongly supportive of the type of pro-family values that not only would be recognised by churches throughout the country but that on 11 June 2002 Peter Dunne stated that the United Future party would be standing up fearlessly for?

Hon STEVE MAHAREY: I can give a guarantee that members of the Families Commission will endorse, support, and strengthen families in all of their diversity.

Peter Brown: Noting that answer in particular, will the Families Commission be able to concern itself with homosexual families and address the issue of two men living together in a homosexual relationship with a desire to adopt children?

Hon STEVE MAHAREY: If that is what the member wants, I am sure that it will take it up.

Peter Brown: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I take it from that answer that the Minister will consult with New Zealand First on what we want. That was a flippant answer to a genuine question that concerns a number of people. If you are going to let him get away with that you might as well let him get away with anything.

Mr SPEAKER: I thought that the reply was a little flippant. I would like the Minister to give a slightly different answer.

Hon STEVE MAHAREY: Yes, as we have said consistently all the way through the debate, the Families Commission will be able to look at families in their full diversity in New Zealand.

Hon Peter Dunne: Can the Minister confirm that groups like Plunket, parents centres, and various other agencies that work with families have, since the passage of the legislation last week, made a huge number of public comments supporting this as a positive and worthwhile initiative that is long overdue?

Mr SPEAKER: This is the last day of questions for this year, and I am just that tiny wee bit more reasonable than on other days, but there were too many interjections during the asking of that question, and the members-I think, very senior members-know it.

Hon STEVE MAHAREY: I happen to have a couple of quotes here from organisations. The Plunket Society said that the Families Commission was one of the greatest gifts New Zealand families have received in a long time. Parents CentresNZ said the Families Commission was a step in the right direction for parents.

Peter Brown: Will the Minister give the House the assurance that if the Families Commission involves itself in controversial issues such as I have endeavoured to outline, United Future will have no power to undermine the commission or veto any of its recommendations?

Hon STEVE MAHAREY: The commission is established, of course, under its own legislation, so people will not have the ability to veto its investigation of such things as gay families if the member might seek to do that.