Public policy should be evidence based. The evidence backs marriage. As an institution it produces significantly better outcomes than other relationship forms. This is so across the board including lower rates of child abuse and neglect, less domestic violence, and increased family stability and financial progress. In spite of this our policymakers and political leaders continue to ignore it.

This week Family First released another report with further evidence of how the decline in marriage rates has been a major contributor to child poverty in New Zealand (Child Poverty and Family Structure). Not a single political leader has bothered to address it. Instead the Prime Minister today was supporting making the grounds of Parliament smoke-free along with the rest of Wellington. This is where leadership and direction for the nation comes from he said.

The media to their credit have noted the report, even if with ridiculously caricatured headlines such as – “Poor – its your fault for being unmarried”. It is little wonder their stories have engendered equally shallow responses in their opinion pages. There are the inevitable pieces from individuals in non-married households denying there is any problem. They report happy and prosperous family life. This is great news for them. However it is akin to someone living in a 1990s monolithic plaster home reporting that their house is fine so therefore the leaky homes problem doesn’t exist.

The point is that public policy needs to be evidence based. And it is not what happens in the lives of any particular individuals that counts as evidence – it is what happens across the whole population that matters. It is the outcomes achieved in the aggregate that should draw the attention of our policymakers.

Family First have once again put the evidence out there for those who have ears to hear and eyes to see. It is not new. The evidence has been around a long time. I recall publishing an article nearly twenty years ago in the NZ Herald on exactly the same topic – Poverty – it’s not a lack of jobs, it’s a lack of fathers.

One day as a nation we will come to our senses and honestly face the evidence. For the sake of our children I hope and pray it is soon. Twenty years is another generation gone.

Ewen McQueen
May 2016