Media Statement For immediate release Tuesday, 2 December, 2003

Dunne: Opposition just doesn't get it - kids come first!

Opposition parties continue to be fixated on family definitions that would serve only to exclude the tens of thousands of children who don't happen to live in 'mum, dad and two kids' families, United Future leader Peter Dunne said today as the Families Commission Bill went through the committee stage in Parliament.

"Of course, the two-parent family is and always will be the best way to bring up children, but the reality is that there are many other situations in which real lives are being lived and young children are being raised.

"The Opposition parties seem perfectly happy to set these children - these thousands and thousands of children - outside the gambit of the Families Commission because they don't like the homes they are raised in.

"United Future makes no apologies for putting the children first with this Bill. It will not allow children who have not chosen the families and situations into which they were born to be disadvantaged, even if National, ACT, NZ First and the Greens are utterly determined to do so," Mr Dunne said.

Ends.

© Scoop Media