Families Commission Seeking Increased Paid Leave for Dads

The Families Commission wants to extend paid parental leave to include four weeks for dads. Families Commissioner Gregory Fortuin defended the call for extended leave,

“Fathers think they could do an even better job if they could spend more time with their children. The main barrier to fathers sending time with their kids is work, which illustrates the need for flexible workplaces.”

Fortuin gets it right when he talks about the need for flexible workplaces and I couldn't agree more. But how the heck can you have flexible workplaces when you've got a myriad of levels of bureaucracy dictating to the employer and employee exactly what can and can't be done, and how to go about it, in intricate detail.

Maxim takes a shot at the their arch-nemesis,

While Dads spending time with their children is crucial, the policy is unaffordable and promotes the idea that we value something by putting a dollar figure on it is not a healthy attitude to parenting. Worse, they imply that parents should do what they'll get paid for.

Tripping employers up with more red tape will serve only to affect their productivity and ability to employ more staff. If hard-working business-dads are working over-time to keep their company going as a result of having fewer hours put in from their employees due to this paid-parental leave, then their children are going to suffer. Lets get rid of the Families Commission - all they are capable of doing is coming out with tired old socialist solutions to societal and family problems which run far too deep to be remedied with another few briefcases of tax-payers' money.

Bad Govt. Department Just Got Better

The Families Commission is another one of those superfluous government departments which sticks a dirty great suction hose into the Government's slush fund of tax-payer dollars, and delivers relatively very little. Not only this, but the commission is necessarily obsolete, seeing as our country currently has the laws in place that necessary to ensure the well-being of families. However dark, foreboding clouds sometimes have a silver-lining...

Family First NZ is welcoming the appointment of child advocate Christine Rankin and Parents Inc’s Bruce Pilbrow as Families Commissioners. - Press Release, 12 May 2009

Sue Bradford is not happy however, as Christine Rankin and Bruce Pilbrow are pro-family, and opposed to unnecessary government intrusion into family. She complained on her Twitter, page,

Shocked by news Christine Rankin has been appointed a Families Commissioner - major threat to their good work, about to do media release.

Hahaha. I don't like the Families Commission, but I like Christine Rankin on the Families Commission!

It looks like Stuff's political editor Colin Espiner is upset too, as he has the spade out, attempting to dig dirt on Christine in his article by making an amateur lists of bullet-points which he seems to believe are reasons why she should not have been appointed.

Hat tip: Big News

Electoral Commission Targetting ACT

The Electoral Commission has ruled that Rodney Hide's yellow jacket jacket was potentially in breach of the Electoral Finance Act and has passed the matter on to the police. If the police decide to prosecute Mr. Hide, he will face a fine of up to $10,000, while the ACT Party will also face a fine of up to $40,000. What I find intriguing, is that the Electoral Commission has ignored all the other complaints that I have submitted regarding possible breaches of the Electoral Finance Act by other political parties. Below is a short summary of each of these complaints.

1. Greens campaign website carries no authorisation statement - 26 August 08
The Green Party's (now defunct) campaign website address was www.votegreen.org.nz. For a screen-shot of the website, click here (as at 11:30pm, 25 August). It is very clear from this screenshot that there was no authorisation statement on the website - which, is encouraging people to vote "for or against" a political party. The response from the Electoral Commission can be summed up in this extract from an email I received, "...the url [www.votegreen.org.nz] did not appear on the page itself, and indeed would only have appeared in the address bar (which you control, not the Green Party) when you typed it in." Such a response is very subjective; the matter deserved further investigation rather than simply a *clever* answer from the Commission.

2. National campaign video - 10 October 08
The Electoral Finance Act states that authorisation statements must be visible and readable. The authorisation statement at the end of National's latest campaign video on YouTube did carry an authorisation statement at the end, but it was very fuzzy, and impossible to read, and thus breached the act. The response from the Commission read,

"We have considered the YouTube page and note that while the promoter statement on the video was blurry, did think that it was just readable, at least on the monitors we are using. In addition, at the top of the page on which the video appears is a National Party banner with an eminently readable promoter statement (a copy of which I attach). This would conclude the matter from our perspective."

This response ignores the fact that on the page for viewing the video, there is no authorisation statement. As for the statement being "just readable", that is pathetic.

3. Labour Online advert - 10 October 08
The Labour Party purchased a package of Google adverts - one of the most common adverts you will see online. The breach is detailed here at the Don't Vote Labour blog. In this instance, Labour has placed a Google Ad which promotes the Labour party, and yet carries no authorisation statement. The Commission's response to this complaint was,

"As you will be aware, the Electoral Commission's primary focus in its role of overseeing political party advertising in election year is assisting participants to comply with their obligations under the law. As you point out, Labour Party google ads now contain promoter statements. In light of this we will not be taking further action on this matter."

It would be better if the Commission would tell us what is really going on. They are in fact, assisting participants to comply with the law - so long as they are not the ACT Party. I have made more than just the three complaints listed above. However the Commission has demonstrated incredible leniancy with these other parties, offering trite reasons as to why they had decided not to pursue what were quite obviously potential breaches of the new Electoral Finance Act.