Children's Commissioner Bill

, on behalf of the Minister for Social Development and Employment: I move, That the Children's Commissioner Bill be now read a third time. I do so, very briefly, with some considerable pleasure because I was the Minister of Social Welfare responsible for the original creation of the Commissioner for Children. It was created initially by an amendment to the Children, Young Persons, and Their Families Act, and because it had to be created as an amendment to the Act, it had to be, in effect, a subsidiary office of the Department of Social Welfare, as it then was. With this legislation we clearly will have a separate Children’s Commissioner, who is independent in all forms from any other influence. I think that is a very, very good thing indeed.

We have been well served by the successive commissioners for children who have been appointed. They have reported on issues of great difficulty, at times, without fear or favour, and in almost every case I can think of their suggestions have been useful ones and have been taken up by successive Governments in a variety of forms. I am very pleased to commend this bill to the House.

I am pleased to stand on behalf of the National Party to speak on the third reading of this bill. It is a bill that we support but, in saying that, it is a bill that we still have some reservations about. On balance, we think it is a bill that it is important to support because of the work that is done by the Commissioner for Children. It is extremely important work, as we have seen with a couple of major reports that have been released by the Commissioner for Children over the last couple of years.

I have to say, though, it is a shame that the Government has watered down the bill in terms of its original intention. When Labour first decided it was going to make changes to the Office of the Commissioner for Children, in 1999, it had a very clear policy to make the Commissioner for Children independent. I will read from Labour’s 1999 election policy, for the benefit of listeners at home. One of the objectives was to “make the Commissioner for Children an Officer of Parliament to ensure complete independence”. We have not seen that. The Government has backed away from Labour’s election policy of ensuring complete independence for the Commissioner for Children. It has backed away from allowing the commissioner to have full independence. I think that is one thing we should be very concerned about, because if the commissioner is to be a strong advocate for New Zealand children, he or she has to be very independent. The commissioner cannot be in a position where the Government can manipulate the message or manipulate the work of that office.

That is why this side of the House was extremely disconcerted by some last-minute changes that were made to this bill. Some last-minute changes saw the Government increase the amount of control that it has over the commissioner’s office. One thing that very much worried this side of the House was the idea that the Minister could, firstly, control the output of the Commissioner for Children, and, secondly, direct some of the work that is being done, as well. Imagine if that had happened with the work that has just been completed that looked into the report on the investigation into the deaths of Saliel Aplin and Olympia Jetson. Here we have seen how important it is to have an independent office go in, do the research, and come out with an independent evaluation of what went right but, more important in this instance, what went wrong.

It is of great concern that today we saw the Associate Minister for Social Development and Employment (CYF), Ruth Dyson, just totally dismiss some of the key recommendations made by the Commissioner for Children in her report. One of the key recommendations was that there be a review of the roopu team. The roopu team was the group that looked after Māori cases in the Masterton office. Unfortunately, we found out through this report that that team in particular had a caseload that was 36 percent higher than that of the general team in that office. That is not good enough. We saw in this report that, at a key time, that office lost staff. The staff felt they were under-resourced and understaffed, and unable to do their job. That is why on this side of the House we have argued that those social workers, although they are the ones being hung out to dry by this Government, were very much on a hiding to nothing, given the work pressures in front of them. If mistakes had not been made on those girls’ cases, frankly, I imagine another Masterton family would have had their children plastered all over a Commissioner for Children’s report.

The Commissioner for Children can often say things that are unpopular, and can often say things that the Government wants to dismiss as not being part of its policy. Today I think we have seen the beginning of what, unfortunately, might be a difficult time for the Commissioner for Children. I read out to the Minister today a comment made by Trish Grant, who works in the Office of the Commissioner for Children. She was talking about some of the concerns she had about some recommendations that had been dismissed outright by the Department of Child, Youth and Family Services—in particular, the recommendation that the roopu teams be reviewed, but also the recommendation that some of the key factors that contributed to some of the social workers making mistakes be evaluated and understood. She said: “I note that they haven’t been given the attention that they should have by the department or, in fact, the Minister, I would suggest.” Clearly, she is indicating some dismay at the way the Minister and the department have dismissed some of the key recommendations, or have not really taken the time to evaluate those recommendations before deciding they would not be implemented.

Ruth Dyson said today: “Well, that’s just her view. That’s just Trish Grant’s view.” But that is one of the things I think is important to understand. The Commissioner for Children should, and must, give an independent evaluation of how he or she sees a situation. But the Government should not dismiss outright some of the comments the commissioner makes, without fully evaluating some of the concerns. Some of the concerns that were raised were very real ones, and they are concerns that the commissioner has raised with the Government in other reports. Up until this point, most of the concerns have been taken into account.

I asked Steve Maharey last year how many of the recommendations from the James Whakaruru report had been implemented. Still to this day, all those recommendations have not been implemented. So I am wondering whether this Commissioner for Children’s report will be another one to gather dust. The Commissioner for Children can be a strong advocate only if people listen to his or her reports as they are published. That is why we should do all we can to preserve the strength of that particular role, and make sure that that role is as independent as possible.

That is why some of the changes that were made at the eleventh hour by this Government are quite unacceptable. They do more to dilute the role of the Commissioner for Children as opposed to strengthen it, and we gave some pretty strong speeches about that in previous debates. But, as I have said, on balance it is important to support this bill. At least the direction is right. At least the bill is trying to make the Commissioner for Children a stronger advocate than he or she can be right now. It is important that the Commissioner for Children has the opportunity to give evidence and collect certain amounts of information, which previously the office has not been doing.

It is fascinating, I think, to see how diluted the Labour Party policy on this issue has been. It is here in black and white—although the Minister says it was not Labour Party policy—that it was the objective of Labour to “make the Commissioner for Children an Officer of Parliament to ensure complete independence”. Well, we will not see that election promise come true. This was the one opportunity to keep that election promise. Labour has presented a diluted-down version of what was the original intention.

This is a very important bill in terms of maintaining the independence of the Commissioner for Children. I would like to think that some of the concerns we have will not come true, but it seems to me that the intention is to curb very much some of the comments made by the Commissioner for Children. As we are seeing, increasingly the commissioner is starting to criticise some of the Government’s policy. One needs look only as far as some of the commissioner’s comments about the Government’s slow implementation of the Agenda for Children, which was the result of a lot of conferencing and speaking. We have actually seen very little develop from that. That is why some of the children’s advocacy groups are getting increasingly agitated and frustrated at the lack of progress that is being made.

It is important to salute the work that was done by Roger McClay, and the work presently being done by Dr Cindy Kiro and her team, and in particular Trish Grant, the author of what I think is a very thorough report that really deserves to be read by the whole House and not just those members with an interest in social services.

I am sorry I was not here for the beginning of the debate to hear what was undoubtedly an outstanding oration by the Opposition spokesperson on this topic.

💬 Hon Lianne Dalziel: It was riveting!

I am told from behind me that it was riveting, and that members feel riveted as a result. This bill is important legislation, as the previous speaker said. It is about children. They are vulnerable. Most of us understand that unless we put in place processes, structures, and policies that advance the issues around children, their vulnerability will be a problem. There is a saying that children are our future. Certainly, on this side of the House we would also regard children as our present. We are trying to raise dependable adults by being dependable adults ourselves at this time and providing children with the kind of nurture, protection, and support that will ensure they can themselves raise the next generation.

The Commissioner for Children has the responsibility of advocating on behalf of children. This bill will allow the commissioner to exercise that responsibility by investigating decisions or recommendations that have been made around children, by having a look at things that should be done but are not, and by advocating for them. This is powerful legislation.

As the House will know, one of the driving forces of this Government has been to demonstrate a consistent interest in the issues surrounding children. That is why the Agenda for Children was developed. Its vision is to make Aotearoa New Zealand a great place for children—one where we look after one another. That great place for children is not something all of us would look around and see right now. We know that a lot of things that took place towards the end of the last century, in particular, meant that children were often placed in very difficult positions because of restructuring, unemployment, and change. But what we have as an aspiration this century, from this Government, is to ensure that one of the touchstones of success is whether we can once again say that this is a great place to be a child in and a great place to raise children. This bill will help us achieve that agenda. It is part of the Agenda for Children. We are asking ourselves how we improve the circumstances of children.

Children themselves have been very much involved in developing our policy that led towards the changes in this bill. Part of the expanded role of the Commissioner for Children is a responsibility to develop a means of consulting with those children. I remember, if I can make a quick aside here, that one of the most distressing editorials I ever read was when we were developing the Agenda for Children. The New Zealand Herald asked why on earth we were consulting children. It was an extraordinary comment. I hope the paper now feels embarrassed at saying that. One of the things we found when we consulted children is they have a lot to say. They may not say what adults want to hear, but they have a child’s point of view, and it is usually a very well-thought-through view. It is a view we often find surprising because they come from a different perspective, but it is none the less a valid view and one worth asking about. That consultation has led to important changes in this bill that were recommended to the Social Services Committee. We are very pleased that we will be enabling the commissioner to carry on consulting children and ensuring that what they have to say is heard.

The legislation provides that the regulations that govern the commissioner will now be in a new, separate statute. This strengthens the commissioner’s primary role as an advocate for children. I again want to mention the work of the Social Services Committee. It thoroughly canvassed the advocacy issue in the context of an earlier bill, and provided helpful advice on how the independence and powers of the commissioner can be strengthened in order to carry out the advocacy, monitoring, and advice functions.

I want to mention once again Roger McClay, who has featured a great deal in the National Party speeches on this topic. I was the Minister who worked with Roger McClay through most of his term. He was appointed by a National Government, he had been a National MP, but we worked with him very well. He maintained his independence during that period very well, and I have no doubt that Cindy Kiro—as I keep saying to the House, her name is not “Cairo” but “Kiro”—will be an outstanding commissioner as well, and will be an independent one providing advice on advocacy, monitoring, and those general issues that she will address. I believe that the configuration provided by this bill is the best arrangement, and has been informed by the committee’s in-depth consideration of the issue and the interim report of May 2000. I thank the committee for that.

An additional avenue that this bill makes available is the ability of the commissioner to report to the Prime Minister on matters that affect children’s rights. We should remember that is a major change. I point out to Opposition members who complain about this bill—and I know they are doing so recklessly, because I know that no one disagrees with it; those members are just doing what Oppositions do, and that is to waste our time arguing about things that we should not be bothered arguing about—that it also adds in the ability for the commissioner to go straight to the Prime Minister about issues that affect children. That is an important development.

Let me reflect quickly on the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. The commissioner now has explicit new functions that include raising awareness and understanding of children’s interests, rights, and welfare, as well as raising understanding of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. That convention is one of the United Nations’ core human rights instruments. It has 54 articles that set out a wide range of agreed rights to provision, protection, and participation. New Zealand ratified the convention in 1993. It is required to report on its progress every 5 years. The convention is included as a schedule to the bill, for information and reference purposes, in order to increase the general knowledge and understanding of it within this country, and to show that the Government is committed to it.

When we hosted all the other children’s commissioners around the world here in New Zealand a couple of years ago, we found that not only the fact that we had one of the first, if not the first, commissioners for children made us a leading country; we are also leading the world because we have built into our legislation responsibility to comply with the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. We received an enormous amount of praise for doing that. We can say to any criticism from the other side of the House—

💬 Hon Brian Donnelly: Section 59!

I can tell that Brian Donnelly is just aching to get up, if Barbara Stewart will allow him, to say how much he supports this particular bill. I can see him sitting very happily across the other side of the House, looking a little like a political Peter Jackson this evening as he smiles across the vista of the House.

💬 Hon Lianne Dalziel: Michael Jackson?

No, Peter Jackson. He has that same sort of New Zealand shape. We all know that we have a Government committed to the improvement of children’s rights, and we have built that into the legislation. I think people right around the world will think that is very, very important.

I conclude by thanking everyone for being involved in this particular bill. It has been a bill that has been around for a wee while. That does not mean it has not been important to the Government. We had an early election during the passage of this bill. That meant reordering the Government’s Order Paper when we came back into the House, and thereby slowing down the progress of this bill. I am absolutely delighted with the work that has gone on here. There is consensus about the importance of the commissioner, about her role, about her independence, and about what she must be enabled to do for children. Therefore, across this House we do have multi-partisan agreement that we should support this person to do all she can to lead her office to improve the rights and lives of children throughout this country.

I close by saying that children are not just our future; they are our present. They are with us now, from today, and from this evening. It is our obligation to create a world for them that allows them to be the kinds of adults that we would aspire them to be. I thank everyone who has helped with this bill, and I commend it to the House.

I am pleased to rise on behalf of New Zealand First to support the Children’s Commissioner Bill. We are very pleased to see it finally being passed. The bill truly seeks to support and enhance the interests of our children. New Zealand First has always said that the quality of our future is determined by the quality of the children we leave to our future, and that quality is determined primarily by the way that we treat our children, and also by the legislative framework around which we deal with them.

It is the role of the commissioner to be an advocate for our youngest citizens, and to ensure that we are all aware of the issues that affect this group so that appropriate changes can be made. That independent advocacy role is absolutely essential. The recent tragic examples of atrocities committed against children show that for some children New Zealand can be a very dangerous place. It is for these children, in particular, that the commissioner can speak, and has done so on far too many tragic occasions.

The recent reports by the commissioner into the deaths of some of our youngest citizens ensure that we see an independent assessment of the situation—something that is always needed. The reports we read are always very thorough and a credit to the commissioner. It is absolutely essential to ensure that the commissioner and her office are independent, because it is only then that that office can work as an advocate for children—apart from any political pressures, and outside of any Government. That has always been one of the strengths of this particular office.

Inclusion of the text of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child is a precedent-setting approach. New Zealand is one of the very first nations internationally to include the text of the convention with a major piece of legislation. If the Government is committed to this convention being a powerful tool by which children’s rights are protected and promoted in this country, then realistic and meaningful ways of increasing New Zealanders’ knowledge and understanding of the convention must also be explored. If we look at the convention, we can see that there is one part of our legislation that the United Nations has criticised on more than one occasion. Each of our previous commissioners has said that we must get rid of that part of the law if we are to accord our children reasonable rights—that is, the right of parents to beat children. We will be watching with great interest the action that the Government takes on this issue.

Like the Minister, New Zealand First believes that the new clause placing an obligation on the commissioner to consult with children in certain circumstances promotes an approach that empowers children and young people to participate in any decisions that affect them. We must give meaningful consideration to what children feel about their lives. That is absolutely essential. The bill truly seeks to support and enhance the interests of all of our children. It provides a real voice to one of the very few independent advocates speaking for our children, and that is absolutely vital.

This bill contributes to improving the lives of children in New Zealand by improving the ability of the commissioner to protect their rights, their welfare, and their interests. However, a Government truly committed to improving the lives of New Zealand children must also address the wider issues of affordable and accessible health care, quality education, sustainable employment opportunities for their caregivers, and the alleviation of poverty. This bill enables the commissioner to more easily enhance the protection and provision of rights for our New Zealand children. The sentiment is really clear—we value our children. New Zealand First supports this bill.

Like other parties in the House tonight, I stand to welcome the third reading of this bill. The Green Party is pleased that this rather delayed piece of legislation has finally made it through to its final stage. I am glad that our new commissioner will now have a better legislative framework around her office. It is, of course, very timely that we are working on this bill just now, both in terms of strengthening and clarifying the role of the commissioner, and in terms of incorporating the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child into New Zealand law.

All of us in this House are highly conscious at the moment of some of the events of the last few months, including the death of yet another child, Coral Burrows, the outcomes of the baseline review of the Department of Child, Youth and Family Services, and the most recent reports into the deaths of Olympia Jetson and Saliel Aplin. We have already had a debate in the House last week about the two Aplin-Howse reports, and I do not want to relitigate the content of all those discussions here tonight. However, I want to say that the one of the critical things that was revealed in those reports was the way in which the adult world appeared to be simply unwilling and unable to hear the voices of those desperate children. Ultimately, the only person to blame for those children’s deaths is their murderer—as a number of commentators have been at pains to point out over the last few days. But that does not mean that all of us should not make a better effort, as the Minister has been saying, to take the time and be really willing to listen to what children are trying to tell us.

Whether it is our own children at home and those in our immediate personal lives, or whether it is children with whom we work in a professional capacity, we all need to do more to understand and act on the clauses of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. It demands, among other things, that we should make the best interests of the child a primary consideration in all public and private actions; that we should assure the child who is capable of forming his or her own views the right to express those views freely on all matters affecting that child; and that we should take all appropriate legislative, administrative, social, and educational measures to protect children from all forms of physical and mental violence and abuse.

Recent events have once again exposed the gaps in our adult systems to brutal scrutiny and shown them to have failed. Once again, it is children who have paid the ultimate price for that failure. Indeed, it is timely that we are now passing the commitments of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child into law. I just hope that we, as legislators, take this responsibility very seriously in the years to come, no matter what political party we come from.

Like every other country in the world, New Zealand badly needs a place within the bureaucracy where children come first, and where the rights of children in all sorts of respects can be advocated for without fear or favour. Our new Commissioner for Children, Cindy Kiro, and her staff are to be congratulated on the work they have done so far, including the Aplin report. I am sure that that augurs well for the future of the office in this new era. It is important that having passed this law, we do not try to haul the Commissioner for Children and her colleagues back because we disagree with them over any particular issue, politically or tactically.

It is important that all of us in this House respect the newly strengthened mana of the office, and the even greater mana of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child that lies behind it. There will be times when we will disagree with what the commissioner says, whether we are in or out of Government. However, I hope that MPs, public servants, and others will make it their responsibility to pay more attention to what comes from that office than perhaps some of us have in the past. Of course, that does not mean that we should not critique or debate what comes out of the Office of the Commissioner for Children. In fact, quite the opposite; rather, we should take the responsibility of engaging in these debates seriously and pay attention to what is happening, whether or not we agree with any particular statement or analysis.

It will be really interesting to see what steps are taken to carry out the new legislation in practice. In particular, I am keen to see how the new clause requiring the commissioner to develop appropriate means of consulting with children so that their views can be taken into account is implemented. The Green Party was very keen to support the addition of that clause during the select committee process. We saw it as critical if we were to meld the intentions of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child itself with the purposes of the bill in whose schedule it lies.

Like other colleagues who sat on the Social Services Committee when we considered this bill in the last Parliament, I thank all the individuals and groups who took the time and effort to make submissions on the bill, the officials who helped us, and our chair at the time, Taito Phillip Field. I hope our work all that time ago has sown good seeds that will now be nurtured and grown, so that in all sorts of small ways the future of the children of this country will be brighter. I wish the new commissioner and her staff all the best in their mahi, and I look forward to the flowering into reality of all those fine intentions.

I rise on behalf of United Future to speak in support of the Children’s Commissioner Bill. I shall focus briefly on four particular aspects of the bill for which we are supportive. The first is the improved appointments process for commissioners. We applaud the more transparent process the bill sets in place. This commission does not necessarily need to be led by senior public servants nearing retirement, so the ability for the position to be widely advertised so that the most suitable person can be found is vital. Submitters to the bill were very clear that they wanted assurance that people with the relevant skills and experience would not be sidelined by more politically motivated candidates.

The second area we are pleased about is the strengthened functions of the commissioner. The specific statutory powers that enhance the commissioner’s role in supporting the implementation of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child are great. The recent release from the commission on the report into the Aplin murders demonstrates the effectiveness of the commissioner to examine critically the systems that should serve the needs of New Zealand children. The value of commissioners is that they can always stand in the gap for those they are mandated to advocate for, when others fail to. Children should enjoy the support of parents and family, educational facilities, social services, law enforcement agencies, neighbours, and the like. When that does not happen, for whatever reason, someone needs to take up the call.

The value of this commission is not just its advocacy for individual children, but the connections it makes between specific cases and trends affecting children in New Zealand. At a time when there is call for greater inter-agency cooperation, the Commissioner for Children provides a much-needed umbrella for child-focused organisations to refer to. The inclusion of children’s rights, as well as their interests and welfare in the primary function of the commission, is a welcome inclusion. Widening the investigative role of the commissioner to issues beyond those that arise through the Department of Child, Youth and Family Services is a sensible extension of the important work that the Office of the Commissioner for Children must do.

Thirdly, we are thrilled about the consultation with children provisions. Consulting with children about issues that affect them is also a positive and strengthened role of the Commissioner for Children. Helping children to articulate their concerns, without putting words into their mouths, is often a specialised field of inquiry. However, children do have opinions on most aspects of life, and when decisions are being made that have direct ramifications for them, they should be consulted.

Lastly, we are pleased about the stronger inter-agency links between the commission and other statutory offices. One of the strengths of any commission is the network it establishes with other agencies. The obligation to refer, when there is another more appropriate commission or agency to help a member of the public, means that the public is well served and any unnecessary duplication of work is avoided. That provision is particularly important for commissions because of the potential broad base of the work they undertake. United Future is therefore happy to support the passage of this bill, and offers its congratulations and best wishes to the new commissioner and her team.

I rise on behalf of the ACT party to speak in the debate on the third reading of the Children’s Commissioner Bill. It has a long history in terms of trying to get passed into law. It started out as a member’s bill sponsored by John Wright of the Alliance. It was interesting that the Labour Government promised to rush it through when it took the bill over during the select committee process. It has been a long rush—4 long years—but never mind, it is here today.

The ACT party has opposed this bill. We oppose it for a couple of reasons. Essentially, we oppose the idea of commissions. Commissions are basically customer service organisations that take the heat off Ministers. It seems to us that if people have a problem with children and with the system, they should be contacting the Minister responsible, who can do something about it. The Minister has the discretionary powers. Although the Commissioner for Children does a very good job in his or her advocacy role, he or she cannot help individual cases. The commissioner is even excluded, under the provisions of the bill, from being involved in any issue or case that is in front of a court or a tribunal.

Many of us, as members of Parliament, are written to all the time by parents who are fighting with the Family Court, the Department of Child, Youth and Family Services, and so on. The Commissioner for Children would get many more such letters but, unfortunately, he or she cannot do anything, by law. The commissioner’s office raises expectations that families out there that are struggling with the system will be able to be helped but, essentially, they cannot be helped.

There is a second reason ACT does not support this bill. I have been noting tonight in this debate that the Minister, Government members, and parties that support the Government have been talking about the fact that the commissioner is independent. That is totally wrong. The commissioner’s office is administered by the Ministry of Social Development. It is under the umbrella of the Government’s social welfare agency. Secondly, the commissioner is appointed by the Minister. If the commissioner were appointed by a cross-party process or in some independent way, then maybe we would have revisited our view on this bill. The point is that it is a political appointment and it is a political office. Because that is the case, we know we will never get honest, open truth about issues that affect children and families—issues that should be being pushed into the view of Parliament and the wider public in an honest manner. We do not get that here.

Interestingly, the Social Exclusion Unit under Tony Blair’s Government in the United Kingdom performs some of those roles. It actually talks about some of the tough issues that surround child abuse and children who are harmed in their families. The unit is quite fearless in talking about the role that family breakdown and long-term welfare dependency play in child abuse, and in being open about the fact that many children in foster care fail to do as well as children who are living in a family, whether it be their own family or an adoptive family. Here, in this Parliament and this Government, we do not talk about those issues. They are all swept under the carpet, because it is not seen to be politically correct to do so.

That is my real worry about the Commissioner for Children. Although the commissioner may want to raise some of the tough issues to do with children and the way we are bringing up kids in New Zealand, he or she will be silenced by the fact that the Minister for Social Development and Employment does not want these issues to be put into the public arena. If the Minister did want those issues to be put into the public arena, then he would enable it to be well known that child abuse more often occurs in broken families where there is a long history of welfare dependency, and he and his Government would do everything they could to reduce long-term welfare dependency in New Zealand, which would include helping solo mums to get back into the workforce and get off welfare.

There is a bizarre situation in this country whereby the Ministry of Social Development has a policy agency that has even published reports stating that long-term welfare damages children and that sole parenthood damages children. Yet this Government passes laws that make both of those situations worse. We now have laws that say, essentially, that if a mother with a new baby goes on to the domestic purposes benefit, she can stay there until her youngest child is 18 years old, and she will not be required to take a job. That means that that young woman could be on welfare for life. If she chooses to have another baby at the right time, she will have a whole lifetime of being dependent on the taxpayers of New Zealand for her well-being and of being unable to be a working role model for her child.

One of the most important things parents can do for their children is to teach them the values of hard work, and to take responsibility themselves as parents and to teach their children to take personal responsibility. We do not talk about any of those things, because the Government does not want those links between family breakdown and welfare dependency to be related back to the growing levels of child abuse in this country. I am not saying that they are the only issues—we all know that child abuse is very complicated—but until we have an open and honest Government that will allow an open and honest debate about these issues, we will never start to solve the difficult problems that face us and every child today.

The Commissioner for Children is excluded from being involved in the Family Court, and—[Interruption] I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. The level of interjection is such that I cannot even hear myself speak.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Clem Simich): I agree. There will be no more interjections that are continuous like that.

The Family Court is an area that the Commissioner for Children should be speaking out clearly on. There was an article in the New Zealand Herald just a couple of weeks ago by a Family Court lawyer, who identified ways the Department of Child, Youth and Family Services fails when it brings cases in front of the Family Court seeking to take a child from the parents’ home or to place a child in care. The article stated that the department often does not turn up on time, that it does not have its case organised, and that, half the time, it is a complete and utter shambles. If there is anything the Commissioner for Children could do to help make things better for the department so that it can help solve child abuse in this country, that thing should be the commissioner speaking out very strongly about what goes on in the Family Court and lobbying for more openness. If we had an open Family Court the public could judge for themselves, and some of these problems would disappear pretty quickly as the Government realised that it had to get its act together.

I come back to the issue of accountability and responsibility. As I said, parents and the public should be going to the Minister, rather than having to go to the Commissioner for Children, to talk about the difficulties they have with the Department of Child, Youth and Family Services. But I have to say that we have a bizarre situation right now. The Minister who was in charge of the department previously, Steve Maharey, basically ducked away from any responsibility for the department once the baseline review was due to come out. That review has been completed and we now realise just how deep and systemic the problems and failures are within that department. Now there is a new Minister, Ruth Dyson, who fails to accept responsibility for her department. We cannot get the Minister to accept responsibility in this House, and it is that Minister to whom people should be going when they have problems with the department or problems with children in this country.

The last reason why we do not support this bill—apart from the fact that the commissioner is a political puppet, and apart from the fact that it shields the Ministers from true accountability—is that the Labour Government, in enacting the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, will use the Office of the Commissioner for Children as a back-door way to repeal section 59 of the Crimes Act, and thus ban smacking in New Zealand. The Government will use a back-door method—through the Office of the Commissioner for Children—to do that. I warn New Zealanders that that is on the Government’s agenda, and it is one other reason why we do not support that office, which is a political machine of the Labour Party.