Vulnerable Children Bill

It is with great sadness that I rise after my Supplementary Order Paper 436 has been defeated, but we now come to the point—the summary debate, in a sense—around the Vulnerable Children Bill and whether or not it is appropriately titled, through the fact that it is indeed called the Vulnerable Children Bill. I think my colleague Poto Williams really summed up some of the issues around the problematic nature of trying to partition off who is vulnerable and who is not, when you are referring to children. It was a really significant debate amongst the children’s workforce and the children’s sector when the first green paper went out. I think that in particular she has raised an important point around family violence and the fact that, technically, if you are taking a definition of vulnerable children in the way that Child, Youth and Family currently behaves, being exposed to family violence is not, by default, what it tends to be treating as a vulnerability. The fact is that you are not automatically brought within the remit of work of Child, Youth and Family simply by witnessing family violence. I do not think that that is because the evidence does not stack up for that—to the contrary, the evidence absolutely does—but simply because the scale of cases faced by Child, Youth and Family means, I think, that it is unable to do so. That needs to change. That absolutely needs to change.

I became even more convinced of that some time ago now after I read every coroners report from the past few years that involved the death of a child in the care of Child, Youth and Family—every one. The thing that struck me the most was not the similarities between the cases or how devastating each and every one of them was but the number of cases where children and young people had harmed themselves. It was not necessarily because they had been subjected to direct child abuse or because they had had violence against them, but in every single one of those cases where that child or young person had harmed themselves there had been significant family violence in their home—significant family violence. There was one case in particular that still stays in my mind. It reminded me of how important it is that we recognise the impact that family violence has on a child and the vulnerability that flows from that. The fact that there is no default support or counselling, even, for those children is a significant issue, let alone the fact that there is no default position that Child, Youth and Family takes heed of when children are exposed to family violence. We heard from the Children’s Commissioner some time ago that there was a move to try to move away from the default of police referring family violence cases to Child, Youth and Family, because it was simply being overwhelmed with cases. We must be mindful of the impact that family violence has on vulnerability.

When you use the words “vulnerable children”, as well—and, again, I refer to whether or not it is an appropriate title for this bill—this actually should be about vulnerable children and young people. As my colleague Sue Moroney has said, we have sought and will continue to seek for the Children, Young Persons, and Their Families Act to take into its auspices 18-year-olds. The care of the State should not cut out at the time a child turns 17. That point was made so strongly by the Dingwall Trust in the magnificent submission from a young person there. But on behalf of young people there was a written submission from Robin, who is 20 years old. She said: “The average age of leaving parental care in New Zealand is 23, so why does the care system relinquish all responsibility for us when legally we are not deemed adults? Why are we taken out of care when we cannot legally sign for papers such as tenancy, housing, bill payments, let alone vote. We don’t need the added stress. Picture your average teenager dealing with emotional, hormonal or physical changes to the body, with the added strain from school, exams, peer pressure all while trying to fit in and develop their own identities. The difference between this teenager and a teen in care, is that at age 17 your average teen is not expected to do this on their own. At 17 your average teen has emotional support from family. We do not. Financial support from family. We do not. Has a place to fall back on, we do not. We are alone. We’re alone.” I think that completely summarises what needs to change in the care and protection system for those young people.

Yes, the Minister for Social Development has put in provisions, particularly in Part 3, where if a young person who is over the age of 17 and in need of additional support is referred to the chief executive, the chief executive “must provide, or arrange the provision of, such advice and non-financial assistance as the chief executive in his or her discretion considers necessary to enable the person to achieve independence;”. So around the notion of vulnerability we still have a high level of discretion, and that is where it becomes problematic. So we wanted to take out some of that discretion. We wanted some of those places where it says “may” to become “must”, particularly when the bill talks about financial assistance. Currently in this bill the chief executive is able to make a judgment and “may provide, or arrange the provision of, such financial assistance … in his or her discretion”. There is also no obligation for them to provide for housing, and that is probably the biggest gap we have.

This bill applies, presumably, to vulnerable children but also to young people, because special guardianship orders, for instance, can apply to an 18-year-old, and yet the additional arrangements under the Children, Young Persons, and Their Families Act apply only to 17-year-olds, so already we have a bit of a gap there. But when we are talking about the vulnerability of children, we are putting children out of State care at 17 without having adequate housing arrangements for that small little gap of young people. If you are 18, Housing New Zealand can suddenly take an interest in you; if you are 17, it will not. I have seen examples of that. I visited a youth services provider once and heard the story of a young person who had gone to it for housing help. They were no longer under the care of Child, Youth and Family. The only place the youth services provider could refer them to was the women’s refuge. That was the only place the provider was able to find shelter for that young person. So we have an absolute gap that would be fixed simply by moving the obligation of Child, Youth and Family so that it continues to have a responsibility to a child who has been put under the care of the State until they turn 18.

Granted, the Minister has said in the debate on this bill that up until the age of 20 we want to make some options available for their transition to independence. But there is just a bit too much discretion around that. It is very much an optional thing. Sure, some young people will not want to continue to be in residential care, but let us keep the option open for them and let us put the onus on the State to provide that if that is what they seek.

Additionally, you can see then why the Vulnerable Children Bill perhaps should be the “Vulnerable Children and Young Persons Bill”. They are whom it should have covered. Perhaps our wider point all the way through this debate, though, has been that, actually, the word “vulnerable” is fraught. If we want to lift the well-being of vulnerable children, we should actually be focusing on the well-being of every child. If we put in place provisions that have an element of universalism and then we overlay that with additional targeted support for those who need it most, we are more likely to have beneficial outcomes for a wider range of children. Yes, of course there are going to be families and children who are at the hardest end of neglect, abuse, and offending, who need the direct and immediate attention of the State. None of what we have said around lifting the well-being of all children tries to dilute that—not at all.

As I made the point yesterday, we have tried too hard in this bill—or the Government has—to try to separate out social issues that cannot be separated out. The Government has tried to say that abuse sits here, neglect sits here, other issues like domestic and family violence sit over here—you barely get a mention of it in some of the work that we have seen off the back of this action plan—and material deprivation and poverty sit way over here. In fact, let us dump a whole lot of personal responsibility mantra over the top of it. The Government has tried to compartmentalise and partition it, and you simply cannot do that when it comes to children.

I stand up at the debate on the title clause of the Vulnerable Children Bill and I just want to speak in response to a few of the things that have been raised. This is the Vulnerable Children Bill, which is for those children who are most vulnerable. It is for those who are most at risk of abuse and neglect and who are already being abused and neglected. The point that I did want to make in respect of that title and this bill is that this legislation is actually one small part of the work that is going on in this area. You do not have to legislate for everything that you do, and in so many ways it is the actions of those who are on the front line and the actions of those non-Government organisations, the Children’s Teams, and the Government departments and how they are working that are actually going to make the biggest difference. Legislation has a part to play but it is not the only response to what we have to do for children.

Members have raised what they consider to be missing from this legislation. I think the work is going on. There is more work that constantly needs to be done, but it is not work that needs to be legislated. For example, no one denies that some of the causes of child abuse and neglect are around, in many cases, mental health issues for parents and families, ongoing alcohol and substance abuse issues, obviously domestic violence, long-term poverty, intergenerational welfare dependence, and, I think, really, a real hopelessness that you see from many of the causes that have now led to the symptoms of people feeling incredibly isolated, and not part of a community, not part of a family or extended whānau, and as a result, I think, living in extreme dysfunction and chaos. We as the State have a role to step in and work for those children. We do it well, and we have amazing front-line social workers who are doing an outstanding job, but there is absolutely no doubt that we could do it better.

This work is about getting into more preventive action. So when members raise the point that the Vulnerable Children Bill is not getting into the issues around family violence and the issues of what is happening in the home, I have to tell them that they are simply incorrect, because that is what the Children’s Teams are doing in the work that they do. That is where you see joint chief executives having to have a plan for vulnerable children, which this bill does include. If they are not addressing some of the causes and looking at preventing those very children from getting into the places where they are most unsafe, then they are not going to be doing their job. I have said that they will have to report transparently to Parliament on the progress that they are making on that plan.

Already we are seeing in Rotorua and Whangarei real differences in having one plan for that child, and seeing them have faster access to all Government agencies to make sure that we wrap support around them. Whānau Ora is getting on board. It is very much about those vulnerable children—and that is why we called it that—getting into that home. We have examples where they are working with the mum to get her drug and alcohol counselling, and are working with dad to get him support for his issues that have led to domestic violence. They are there for the long haul. They have one key lead that they know, that they trust, and that they work with. We do not dictate who that is. We do not say that it is someone who works for the Government. It can be Whānau Ora or it can be iwi-led. It can be that, but they are all connected through this Children’s Team, so that we have a group of real experts who are overseeing it, from paediatricians to psychologists, to social workers, to those experts in education—across the board. So you actually do have those checks and balances that are testing back against the plan all of the time, and they are also breaking down the barriers. So this legislation is important, and I am not saying that it is not.

There are things in here that, obviously, I think need to be done, but I do not want this Committee to think that the Vulnerable Children Bill is by any means all the work that is going on for these children. If you wanted me to put a percentage on it, this bill is about 25 percent of it. The other 75 percent relates to the Vulnerable Kids Information System, which is the hub where we know all of the information is going, so that we can then make sure that those children who do not reach that threshold of Child, Youth and Family can get a response.

I thank members for their contribution through this Committee of the whole House stage. It has been helpful. It has raised, I think, some interesting debates, but, as I say, it is wider reaching than just this legislation. It is the work that happens on the ground that makes the biggest difference.

I thank the Minister for Social Development for her contribution. I also want to make a contribution on the title of this Act, as it is called the Vulnerable Children—sorry; the bill, which will become an Act, as it is called the Vulnerable Children Bill. When it becomes an Act I think that my only real reservation about the title is that I think it gives an impression that it deals with many more issues than it does.

I am going to come back to where we really started on this debate. I know that it drew an angry response from the Minister at the time, but it also was the view not just of the Labour Party but of most of the organisations that actually took part in the consultation over the White Paper for Vulnerable Children and then the green paper—I think it was the other way round: the green paper, and then the white paper—and that was the very strongly held view that if we are really going to get to the bottom of this issue, we do need to recognise that children living in poverty is an issue that makes children vulnerable. So to have a Vulnerable Children Bill and action plan for children that does not recognise that at all seemed to a lot of the people involved in the consultation on the action plan and all those processes—and it seems to the New Zealand Labour Party—to be denying that a significant issue exists.

So I guess that although we see that there is progress on dealing with a group of children who are vulnerable, there are—I do not even know how many—thousands, or hundreds of thousands, probably, of children who are vulnerable and whose needs are not addressed at all by this bill, and will not be addressed when it becomes an Act.

What I want to say to the Government is that on at least three occasions today in question time I saw representatives of the Government deny that poverty exists in this country. If that continues, then we will see a growing number of vulnerable children in our country because, unless the Government fronts up to that issue, recognises that it exists, and deals with the causes of it, then we will not get to the bottom of these problems.

We may start to feel OK about ourselves for passing a bill like this one tonight that deals with some of the issues—and it does deal with some of the issues—but let us not kid ourselves. I think that the Minister just said that it might deal with 25 percent of it. I would suggest that it is a great deal less than that, actually, because we are not recognising the breadth of the issue and the vulnerability of children who live in poverty in this country. However, I am ashamed to say that it exists in this country, because it ought not to—it absolutely ought not to.

Think about the resources of this country. We are actually a wealthy country. We are a food-producing country, for goodness’ sake! We are a food-producing nation. We have children in our country who go to school hungry. They go to school hungry and they find it difficult to learn because of that. That is a disgrace, Minister. That is a disgrace in this country. We ought not to have that problem. We do have the problem, and the Government—

I am sorry to interrupt the honourable member. Honourable members, the time has come for me to report progress.

House resumed.

The Chairperson reported the Food Bill without amendment, and progress on the Vulnerable Children Bill.

Report adopted.

The House adjourned at 9.56 p.m.