Record 830 delegates gather in Auckland for Family First’s Annual Forum

Family First NZ is holding its annual Forum on the Family in Auckland this weekend, with a record 830 delegates expected to attend the organisation’s 20th-anniversary conference.

The event begins tonight and continues throughout Saturday, bringing together family-focused organisations, academics, lobby groups, church leaders and community representatives from around New Zealand.

Family First NZ say this year’s attendance is the largest in the Forum’s 20-year history and reflects growing engagement with debates surrounding family life, marriage, religious freedom and the protection of life.

Among the international speakers is former US Housing and Urban Development Secretary and renowned neurosurgeon Dr Ben Carson, who will address delegates live by video from Washington DC. Carson spent almost three decades as director of paediatric neurosurgery at Johns Hopkins Children’s Center and previously addressed the Forum in person in 2014.

Australian women’s rights campaigner Sall Grover will also speak. Grover founded the women-only social media app Giggle and was at the centre of the high-profile *Tickle v Giggle* litigation in Australia’s Federal Court concerning access to the platform by transgender woman Roxanne Tickle.

The programme also includes Queensland child and adolescent psychiatrist Dr Jillian Spencer, who has been involved in controversy over gender-related treatment for young people, and psychiatrist Dr Andrew Amos, who has publicly criticised gender-affirming approaches within psychiatric practice.

Former Australian Christian Lobby managing director Martyn Iles will return to the Forum after previously speaking at the conference four years ago. Iles, who also co-founded the Human Rights Law Alliance and later served as executive CEO of Answers in Genesis, is developing a Christian education technology platform aimed at children and young people.

The organisation’s 20th anniversary will also be marked by an interview between veteran broadcaster Leighton Smith and the organisation’s founder and chief executive, Bob McCoskrie, examining Family First’s history and the cultural and political issues it expects to confront in the years ahead.

Politics, medicine and the media will feature prominently during the conference. A political panel will debate the approaching general election and the policies of competing parties, while a medical panel will discuss conscience rights, gender issues and the protection of life.

A separate media panel will examine falling public trust in traditional news organisations and the growth of alternative and new-media platforms.

The conference will also feature a live recording of Family First NZ’s new online programme CounterCulture, with younger panellists discussing faith, culture and issues affecting Millennials and Generation Z.

McCoskrie said participating organisations and supporters were increasingly concerned about family breakdown, declining fertility, the changing status of marriage, abortion and euthanasia, pornography, the sexualisation of children, gender ideology, sexuality education, violence and drug use.

“There are many family-focused organisations and community leaders who, along with our thousands of supporters, are concerned” about the direction of these issues, McCoskrie said.

He said the record attendance demonstrated continuing interest in debates surrounding family policy and social values.

“This will be one of our largest conferences to date,” McCoskrie said. “It sends a strong message that the welfare and protection of families is high on the agenda, and these important moral issues cannot be ignored.”