Parents Get Pipeline to Parliament

Parents Centre is delighted at the announcement of the Commission for the Family.

"We are thrilled that this has comes so soon after the election," says Chief Executive, Sue Fitzmaurice. "It certainly reinforces the notion that United Future's brainchild is being enthusiastically embraced by Labour.

"The proposed commission will give parents a pipeline to parliament, something they haven't had for a long time. As well as doing some long overdue examination of the parenting environment, the commission will be both generating policy to help parents succeed, and filtering policy to ensure it doesn't adversely affect families. The value of this should not be under-estimated.

"What most people haven't noticed is that the parenting environment has become more and more barren until it is pretty much a desert. Successive legislation has made it harder and harder for people to dedicate the time and resources to parent well.

"Our business environment is success focused, with many government agencies helping business with research and skills and creating opportunities to succeed. Parents currently operate in a failure focused environment. They get no support, no skills, and no recognition that the role they have taken on is of any value to society. All they have is Child, Youth and Family, an agency whose job is to pick up the pieces when parents fail.

"The commission can change all that. It can turn the political thinking around. Parents are our key social investment. If they do a good job we can expect the next generation to be better than this one, more motivated, more capable, more able to create wealth for the country. When they fail we get children who lack what they need to succeed and they cost society in health, welfare and crime.

"Raising children is a demanding, twenty four hour a day job, full of stress and uncertainty. Every parent can benefit for having access to ongoing training as they cope with the changing needs of growing children and there are points in every parent's life when they need support. Currently if parents want extra skills and understanding they must pay for that. This is a financial burden few can meet, as the mere cost of having children stretches most family income to the extreme.

"We're really looking forward to the opening of the Commission for the Family.

© Scoop Media