KEY POINTS:
A Government body with an uncertain future is inviting New Zealand's leaders to a "families summit" to draw up an agenda to make the country better for families.
The Families Commission plans to invite 150 leaders from business, churches, education and other sectors, including whoever is Prime Minister after the coming election and the leaders of the other main political parties.
They will be asked to come up with a "summit agenda or statement" for families after the two-day meeting at Waipuna Lodge in Auckland on February 23 and 24.
With the National Party heavily favoured to win the election, the commission's existence is under threat. The party voted against creating it in 2003 and proposed at the last election that it should be merged with the office of the Children's Commissioner.
The founding chief commissioner, former race relations conciliator Rajen Prasad, retired yesterday and has been tipped to be named on the Labour Party's election list next Saturday.
Commission chief executive Paul Curry said the summit was inspired by Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd's "Australia 2020 Summit" held at Parliament House in Canberra on April 19-20 with just over 1000 community leaders.
The Rudd event covered a much wider agenda, looking at 10 "streams" such as productivity, sustainability and governance, including a families and communities stream which recommended making it easier for parents to take leave to care for children and using schools for after-school care.
Mr Curry said the Auckland event would focus on "making New Zealand a great place for families - moving from rhetoric to action".
Topic areas had not been finalised, but they would focus on "what are the important things - money, time, relationships".
"This is driven from a dialogue approach to things - that while we all have important roles in our own sectors, we are also part of communities and part of families."
He said invitations would go to leaders from the political parties and 18 sectors - academic, arts, business, national and local government, education, environment, ethnic, religion, the judiciary, Maori, media, Pacific, philanthropic, rural, social services, sports and youth.
"We could have 1000 people, but we think that to get to the point we need 150.
"We'd expect the Family Court judges, the leaders of the large community funders under 'philanthropic', the Youth Workers Network under 'youth', the chief executives of Barnados and Plunket and Health Camps under 'social services'.
"In business we want major companies and smaller companies, especially with examples of how they operate with families." Mr Curry said the commission had earmarked between $100,000 and $200,000 for the event.
Participants would have to pay for their own travel and accommodation but would not be charged fees.
"They are coming to work."
He said the plan had been approved by Social Development Minister Ruth Dyson as part of the commission's "output agreement", but the commission had not yet discussed it with the National Party.
National MP Judith Collins said the party had yet to announce its policy for the commission.
