Whānau ora? Don't ask me

The Families Commission, in its statement of intent, notes:

The Commission has also identified in this Statement of Intent a strong commitment to whānau ora. This will include the development of a whänau strategy that can work in two ways: identifying areas of specific work to promote whānau ora; and identifying how whānau ora can be incorporated into existing outcome programmes.

So what is whānau ora? According to Chief Families Commissioner Jan Pryor, it is "whanau well-being as defined by whanau". You'd think she would know, the komihana a whanau (or as Pryor would say, the Families Commission) has a paper on the issue.

According to the whanau ora taskforce, it is more about a whānau-centred approach to whānau development, focussing on placing whānau at the centre of service delivery, bringing together funding from several Ministries - health, education, housing, social welfare, and justice.

But Pryor doesn't even know what this commitment to whanau ora actually entails. Her excuse for her ignorance with this aspect of the commission's statement of intent was that she is a middle class white woman who, apparently, is not well versed in terms like whanau ora - and has forgotten the wording of the commission's own statement of intent.

If she doesn't know what whanau ora is, how is she going to understand the framework which is entitled "a whanau -centred approach to whanau well-being". That's a little different to "whanau well-being as defined by whanau".

Pryor says she is working closely with the Minister, Tariana Turia on the policy. Not close enough, as she has not the slightest idea what the Minister’s policy actually means.

More irrelevant research from the Families Commission

Family First has alerted the media - unfortunately embargoed til Friday - about the latest research from the Families Commission. It has labelled a report on gay and lesbian parenting as unnecessary, advocacy research, a complete waste of taxpayer money, and reveals nothing new that isn't faced by other blended families.

They 're right on one thing. It is advocacy research. So who are the two researchers who compiled this report?

One lesbian researches queer theory from Canterbury University, the other has published many journal articles on challenging heteronormativity and is doing a thesis on experiences of lesbians and gay men who create family through assisted reproductive technologies - no doubt this tax-payer funded research has helped with her research towards her PhD, despite the Blues Skies Fund that funded the research noting that grants do "not fund degrees".

So this is not unbiased research - it is insider advocacy research, conducted by those who say they live lives "outside the norms of heterosexuality" [whats wrong with the word "lesbian"] with a pre-determined agenda - to normalise gay relationships and to advocate for a change in adoption laws, and laws surrounding how many parents can be on birth certificates. Nothing wrong with that, but some people would not be happy with their taxpayers dollars being spent on this.

I'm more concerned that they interviewed just 19 families. And of those interviewed, just three were gay men, one of whom was a multiparent with a lesbian couple in another family, although treated as one family for the purposes of the research.The other couple were not even actively parenting children. Obviously gay men who parent are not as worthy of being researched as are lesbian parents. Why? Perhaps if they had gay men researching this they may have struck a more gender-neutral balance.

The research was done via snowball sampling which, crudely put, is getting an interviewee to recommend their mates. Surely lesbian parents have gay male friends who parent?

And your taxpayer dollars paid for it. Thanks, Peter Dunne.

Families Commissioner lied on television this morning

Chief Families Commissioner Jan Pryor was on on Q&A this morning. She was asked about the smacking referendum. She said

JAN When it came to the recent referendum we took no stance whatsoever, we made it very clear that we were not encourage (sic) people to vote either way on that referendum.

Yet in the latest Families Commission publication Family voice Jan Pryor, in talking about progress in encouraging people to support the smacking legislation said this:

However some of this progress could be undermined by the citizens initiated postal referendum ... on the question " should a smack as part of good parental correction be a criminal offence in New Zealand. Should anyone be hit as a way to change their behaviour - let alone a small child...why should it be okay to hit children?

The article was also in The NZ Herald.

While stopping short of advocating a "yes" vote, that sounds like taking a stance, to me. A very public and purposeful one.Is Jan Pryor a government-funded liar?

Oh and also she was asked about the Maori seats. The Familes Commission, in its submission to the select committee, supported the Maori seats on the Auckland City Council. Pryor said the position was a " contestable view that we tend to base on evidence". But the rationale? Because how Auckland is governed affects families.

No kidding. No evidence either.

Then she said that the Commission led and mostly funded the “It's Not Okay campaign”. I’m sure the Families Commission didn’t “ mostly fund” this – and it was primarily led by the Ministry of Social Development. But perhaps Russell Brown will be able to confirm this given that he was one of the faces of the campaign.

Families Commission is silent

Anybody know why the Families Commission has put out no media releases since 16 December 2008?

Update apparently the commission has put out some releases. Try and find them on the media release page. The website doesn't migrate them, and the ones from January to April are not here either.

It's not just the mix of commissioners that need an overhaul - the website does too.

Sue Bradford is shocked

Find out why[thanks Twitter]. And find out what Annette King finds unbelievable, and why Family First thinks it's just great.

Update Bradford has finally smacked out a media release, concentrating on Rankin's views on Section 59 of the Crime's Act.

I accept Ms Rankin's right to hold her misguided beliefs in opposing reform and her support for a misleading petition, but I don't think it's right that someone who has played such a high-profile part in supporting the right of parents to hit children should be entrusted with this vital role.

Update Ha,it gets better. Even Peter Dunne is annoyed. He has called for her to reject the position, saying National has made a mistake. Anybody would think all the Families Commission does is comment on corrective discipline. And the Chief Commissioner has also weighed in. Guess what she discusses.

How handy –BIMs in one place

Anyone interested in the briefings to incoming ministers can find and read them all online here. Here's some comment on three: Families Commission, CYFS, and Office of Childrens COmmissioner.

The BIM from the Families Commission notes that 20 years ago, almost nine out of 10 families with children had both parents living in the same household. Today, that number is seven out of 10, with the other three being sole parent households. What it didn’t say that of the seven, many have children that are not living with their father and mother – but one of their parents and their parent’s partner. Given that half all murders are domestic –violence related, with many of these families having a non-European step-parent, I would have thought that would have been relevant. If the Commission hasn’t research this, it is not doing its job, if it has researched it, it should be in the BIM.

It mentioned the (now scrapped) Family Commission Summit. Apparently the summit and its costs made the Minister’s face turn blue, which is an appropriate colour. I note that several commissioners and CTU president Helen Kelly were confirmed to speak, as was Phil O’Rielly from Business New Zealand. Yet those such as Family First’s Bob McCoskrie, and For the Sake of our Children’s Christine Rankin were not even asked and no Pacific Islanders were confirmed to speak. So participants were hardly “drawn from a cross-section of people in terms of age, ethnicity and areas/sectors of knowledge and influence”. Just one Maori was asked to speak and that’s because the Children’s Commissioner is Maori.

Which brings me to the next briefing paper - the briefing from the Office of the Children’s Commissioner. No mention at all was made of the smacking advocacy or Section 59 of the Crime’s Act – whatsoever - despite mentioning it in the first paragraph of this year’s Annual Report. It considered Section 59 a “major issue”.

The BIM said that children who do not experience warm loving carers during infancy are less likely to develop empathy and so struggle with future relationships – and NCEA, apparently. We don’t need “ warm loving carers” for children, we need children who are cared for by their father and their mother, not all day carers that provide care out of a home environment while their parents work, get home tired and see their children in weekends only. We need children who are helped by their parents with homework so these kids can get NCEA. And it is Maori children who need this support more as they are over represented in under achievement.

Early intervention is about tilting the balance in favour of children. When we build skyscrapers, we ensure that the foundations are well designed and securely in place. The foundation should be strong families – the OCC answer is a strong state intervention led by task forces and frameworks, along with a “strategic and integrated” approach. Pathetic.

Although the OCC did mention that there was an increase in notifications to CYFS due to family violence, it was the CYFS briefing paper that had the details. No mention was made of the OCC in the CYFS briefing at all. Child abuse notifications had gone up by 30,000 in the past year, because police are required to refer all family violence – including smacking – notifications and investigations to CYFS. But the amount that required further action had actually reduced with no change in the rate of substantiated child abuse. Was this the reason why smacking and Section 59 was not mentioned by the OCC BIM? It is clear that the thousands of notifications are starting to hamstring the effectiveness of CYFS and the BIM says if irrelevant notifications were to increase it will lead to an “inability to cope”.

Organisations like Family First will claim that irrelevant advocacy work of the OCC is leading to notifications that are starting to hamstring the ability of CYFS to do its job.

Dunne does not want the Families Commission to be history

post has been updated
Yesterday I noted that John Key said the Families Commission may not be safe under National . Peter Dunne later found out and and said he is surprised and disappointed.

I'm not.

I was at the Family First forum yesterday. Key didn't "veer away from his speech" as the ODT, who wasn't there, reported. He was asked a question, in written form, from one of the delegates as to National's view on the Families Commission after he had finished his speech. Two commissioners were present. John Key said a ton of money was spent on the Commission with no real benefit, and money from some of these commissions - even the Children's Commission - should go into frontline services, including NGOs.

And another round of wankery from the Government who gets all its facts from the media. It didn't even turn up to the Family First forum and didn't notice that it was Judith Collins who led the applause to Key's speech, not the delegates. Dyson's media release said

Straying from a prepared speech, John Key has told one audience the he would abolish the Families Commission and when caught out today, changed his tune said Ruth Dyson,

Key did not stray from his speech, nor did he say that he'll abolish the commission but appeared to say it wont get as much funding as it does now. I spoke to Dyson's media officer today and he told me that he got all his information from the media.

I asked him what was the point of telling the media something if you get your information from that media, without even verifying its accuracy?

He went quiet.

More Labour toadies get jobs

Former Race Relations Commissioner Gregory Fortuin has been favoured with numerous appointments by the Clark Government, the most recent being the board of ACC. But the the Clark government wanted him gone from the board so he could be replaced by one of the many lickspittles who had forwarded their CV for such appointments. But Fortuin didn't want to leave, particularly as he is the only ACC director with any insurance experience,and besides he was well known, he's a celebrity speaker, you see, and was disappointed that there was no other appointment on offer.

So officials had a quick look at his CV - well, perhaps they didn't - and decided he could be be a Commissioner in the Families Commission for three years.