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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2004 Week 08 Hansard (Wednesday, 4 August 2004) . . Page.. 3433 ..

We need a commissioner for children and young people to be an advocate for children and to investigate potential problems within child support services. We do not need a commissioner for the family. If our goal is to protect and support children and young people, then it would be a commissioner for children and young people who would be best placed to do this. I think that a commissioner for the family fails to put the best interests of the children as the primary concern and would actually end up confusing and complicating our child protection system.

Of course, commissioners for children and young people can have a broader scope than just the care and protection system, and I hope that is something that the government will take into account as part of their consultations at the development level in the ACT, that we are looking at furthering the best interests, the rights and the wellbeing of all children and young people, not just those known to family services. I do not think that the commissioner for the family, as proposed in this bill, would actually make progress in the ACT in dealing with issues that have come up publicly over the last number of months but have been around for a number of years.

Yes, I agree that rates of family break-up are significant, but this is perhaps a reflection that in previous times families stayed together, not always for the right reasons. We are actually living in a changing society. People are more willing to speak up when they are victims of domestic violence or people are more willing to speak up when they are not in a happy and productive relationship, and sometimes it can be better for the family as a whole for that family to actually move away from its traditional unit and deal with the problems that they are having there.

Usually we set up commissions to focus on issues where there is a threat or ongoing discrimination that we are trying to address. We are establishing a human rights commissioner to ensure that our human rights are protected. We currently have a discrimination commissioner to work against discrimination in our community. We are talking about a disability commissioner to help those with a disability who live in our community. We have an environment commissioner to ensure that our ongoing, sustainable environment is always put on the floor, talked about and protected.

Whilst there is a lot of talk about the role of a family unit in our society, I think it is safe to say that families are not actively discriminated against. Families are important but are not necessarily marginalised in the same way other groups in our society are. As we saw with the federal government’s recent handout to low-income families, their votes are often important and sometimes their concerns are listened to.

I think the definitions in this bill are too narrow and reflect a mono-cultural view of the world. Families, by their very nature, can be diverse and come from many different people, particularly those from a non-English speaking background, where their families encompass more than just the parents and the children. A family is aunts and uncles, grandparents, cousins and friends of the family who become more than just friends; they become family. And for many, the family links are very important. It is those links that I do not think are actually clearly reflected in this bill.

We were looking through it before and it talks about a family being parent or parents and child or children, whether or not living together, and/or adults living together as family,

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