Chair, I am pleased to deliver this statement on behalf of Australia, New Zealand, and my own country, Canada.

We want to recognize the value of families in all our societies. We thank the G77 for continuing to bring forward a resolution on this important topic.

However, we deeply regret that the process this year was not transparent. We would have hoped for the facilitator to engage in better faith to ensure balanced and consensus updates to the text. We wish to underscore that the only new paragraphs taken on board originated from a few delegations and did not enjoy widespread support in the room. Further discussions on these paragraphs were consistently deferred. As a result, the text is deeply unbalanced.

Silence was broken on OP17, OP18 and OP19 by a group of delegations. Our expectation had been for the facilitator to seek a compromise in order to have a more balanced text. However, further edits to the text made it even more unbalanced.

The legitimate concerns of member states on OP17 were not addressed. This language has not been the subject of sufficient discussion, does not acknowledge the human rights of individual family members, and we do not believe it to be evidence-based.  It is inconsistent with the Cairo Programme of Action, which warns against situations “when policies and programmes that affect the family ignore the existing diversity of family forms, or are insufficiently sensitive to the needs and rights of women and children.”

On OP16 and OP16ter, the text placed under silence did not reflect longstanding consensus language on sexual and reproductive healthcare services. The term "reproductive healthcare” simply does not align with agreed language in SDG Target 3.7 which is found across innumerable resolutions.

Chair, let us be clear - none of our delegations requested or supported the deletion of the reference to sexual and reproductive healthcare services. We simply sought to align the text with consensus language from the 2030 Agenda. Instead, the entire concept was removed at the facilitator’s discretion.

True consensus requires different views to be accommodated, which in turn necessitates robust discussion, engagement, and transparency by all parties. The co-facilitator’s disregard to the concerns raised by many Member States throughout negotiations goes against this spirit.

We therefore do not consider that OP17, OP18 and OP19 reflect consensus language and we urge the G77 to carry out future negotiations in good faith with all Member States. We hope that future discussions on such an important topic as families will begin from a place of consensus.