Turner: Family problems defined, but short on solutions

The Business Roundtable’s foray into families with the book Family Matters is strong on diagnosis but short on treatment, United Future family affairs spokeswoman Judy Turner said today.

“The book provides a very thorough pathology of New Zealand family breakdown. However, it doesn’t really take the next step,” Mrs Turner said.

She welcomed the laying down of the challenge to create policy that supports intact families, saying that United Future had moved the whole parliamentary process in that direction in this term of Parliament, most notably in the creation of the Families Commission.

“In fact, the focus of the book parallels the early priorities set by the Families Commission,” she said.

In stating that the ‘family is the necessary engine to stimulate human capital in the next generation’, the author, Patricia Morgan, touches on thinking that is at the very heart of United Future’s belief that the family context has been overlooked by successive governments.

“And again, having the Families Commission means we now have a body specifically charged with bringing family interests into centre-stage of government thinking.

United Future’s income-splitting tax policy was also hugely consistent with putting families first, Mrs Turner said.

Ends.

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