A Message from Bob McCoskrie – Founder and CE
In 2006 – 16 years ago now – we formed Family First New Zealand.
We wanted to be a voice in the public domain to champion strong and stable families, to promote the institution of marriage, and to protect life from conception thru to natural death.
We believe strong marriages and connected families lead to a strong nation. But the reverse is true also. Family breakdown leads to much social cost – both to individuals and to society.
Family First quickly became a household name, advocating for families, and speaking common sense and values on a broad range of family issues in New Zealand. In fact, one of the major left-wing blog sites in New Zealand who would disagree with most of our views recently wrote this about us:
“They participate in politics in a way other advocacy groups can only dream of. The group also boasts a genuinely nationwide presence, and could fill a room in pretty much any town… a machine that’s been so influential in shaping and driving conservative politics in New Zealand.”
The last 2 years have been massive – including referendums on euthanasia & recreational cannabis, the introduction of one of the world’s most extreme abortion laws, publishing our very popular Value Your Vote guide for the General Election, and more recently the birth certificates legislation which ignores biology in favour of gender ideology, and the conversion therapy bill which criminalises aspects of family life, freewill and expressions of faith.
2022 is going to be just as significant and busy, with the following (and more):
- Gender ideology, extreme sexuality education and the divisive critical race theory in schools
- Continued attempts to liberalise our drug laws
- Hate speech laws and the need to protect religious freedom – they’ve been put on ice for the minute, but we need to remain vigilant
- Our call for an Inquiry into the public health harms of pornography
- Ongoing advocacy work and research in the areas of marriage & families
- Continued monitoring of the new abortion and euthanasia laws.
And in case you weren’t aware, the Government has been trying to deregister us as a charity, because they believe that our “purpose of promoting the traditional family unit cannot be shown to be in the public benefit”.
Yes – I know – incredible. It has gone all the way to the Supreme Court (four very expensive court cases defending our right to speak) and we now await the decision of the five judges. This case is simply about one thing – the Government disagrees with our view on marriage and family.
Family First has always fought this decision because of the threat it places on us and other charities including churches, and our collective freedom to speak up on values that we believe in. Our ability to research, advocate for and keep families informed as to the issues affecting them, and ultimately be a “family watchdog”, is only possible because of your investment.
Ultimately, we want to be a voice for you – for the issues that you care about. We trust that you’ll appreciate our common-sense, researched and credible approach to the many family and political issues in the media and public domain this year.
So as we celebrate our 16th birthday, would you consider supporting our work. We receive not one cent from the Government – and we wouldn’t take a cent from the Government. We are funded purely by kiwi families such as yours.
Join the grassroots movement to promote marriages, family and the value of life. Go to https://familyfirst.org.nz/ You can also sign up for our free email newsletters so we can stay in touch. https://familyfirst.org.nz/subscribe/ Stand with us as we stand for families.
And being 16 years old now, we promise to be a good teenager 🙂
