UnitedFuture has been advocating for children and families to be at the heart of policy making for all of its 14 years as a Government support partner.

Our achievements in that time include the establishment of the Families Commission, now Superu, whose purpose is to “increase the use of evidence by people across the social sector, so that they can make better decisions and so improve the lives of New Zealanders, New Zealand’s communities, families and whānau”.

UnitedFuture supporters can rightly be proud of the role the Families Commission has played in bringing to light much of the evidence on which the recently announced review of services to children and families is based. We expect to see real change that will achieve markedly better outcomes for our most vulnerable people.

As further evidence of our commitment to families, UnitedFuture was instrumental in extending paid parental leave to 14 weeks in our first term in government. We can also be proud of our role in extending that to 18 weeks, a change that came into force just a few weeks ago.

UnitedFuture led reforms to the child support system during our third term in government, which are designed to make the system fairer, more balanced, and focused on the child.

We support the Goverment’s moves to abolish CYF and introduce a well funded Children’s Department as a substantial step forward and we urge all parties to engage constructively on this issue.

And we continue to press for income sharing legislation that would reduce the tax bill for parents raising dependent children. With your continued support we can achieve even more.

From the Leader’s Pen – Putting children and families at the centre of policy making has been key UnitedFuture policy for years.

“The government’s new-found (and I think genuine) interest in the plight of vulnerable children and dysfunctional families is welcome. Putting children and families at the centre of policy making has been key UnitedFuture policy for years. It was one of the main reasons why we established the Families Commission (now known as Superu) in 2004 during our confidence and supply agreement with the previous Labour Government, and why we have pushed so strongly for its retention since then. More…

From the Deputy Leader’s Pen – Is it right that 89 percent of the money spent on roads, schools, health and community development at a local level is dictated from Wellington?

Subsidiarity is the principle of devolving decisions to the lowest practical level and the intention is to have better services, better democracy and better enablers for economic growth based on local knowledge and local motivation.

The belief is that if we centralise all activities of government, we end up with a range of perverse outcomes More…

From the Editor’s Pen – Focusing on the positive news amongst all the negative media reporting

Brussels Attacked, UNAOIL Corruption, Panama Papers, Brexit Referendum, Refugees Returned to Turkey, Da’esh selling Middle Eastern antiquities online, all these and more are negative news in a world slowly going mad. But what about the positive stuff? Here are some… More…

Recent Statements

Fluoridation is a health decision
Has the last Governor General been appointed?
Children must be at the heart of public policy

Recent Media Coverage

Government allies put pressure on National to lift the refugee quota
UN to hear drug addictions as health problem not criminal offence
Water fluoridation in hands of health boards
Government accused of politicising spy agencies
Peter Dunne: the cautious drug reformer
Government may soften approach to drugs – Dunne
Peter Dunne approves cannabis product for Tourette’s Syndrome patient
No plans to close medicinal cannabis loophole
Trust deposit not embarrassing – PM