Vulnerable Children Bill, Children, Young Persons, and Their Families (Vulnerable Children) Amendment Bill, KiwiSaver (Vulnerable Children) Amendment Bill

I move, That the Vulnerable Children Bill, the Children, Young Persons, and Their Families (Vulnerable Children) Amendment Bill, and the KiwiSaver (Vulnerable Children) Amendment Bill be now read a third time. In this country, from the moment a child is born or even conceived, the Government is there to provide support for them, their parents, and their wider family. We have free education, and our schools are the envy of many countries. Good health care is available and affordable. Currently, our under-sixes can go to the doctor for free, and from next year that will include every child under 13. On a broader level, our kids can pretty much play any sport or musical instrument that they choose. They can aspire to the highest levels of Government or business or anything they want, no matter their gender, sexuality, ethnicity, or their background. We seem to have all the right settings for our children to grow into happy, healthy adults who aspire to achieve great things.

However, we have problems in this country that, despite decades of attention and funding, have not changed for the better for too many of our children. In our country, child abuse is a shameful problem that every New Zealander has a stake in. On average, around eight children each year die as a result of abuse, neglect, or assault. Many more are found by Child, Youth and Family to have been abused or neglected, with nearly 23,000 substantiated cases of abuse or neglect just in the last financial year. There are also a significant number of children in circumstances that put them at really serious risk of harm. The costs to the country are significant; the costs to children are simply unacceptable.

I have been the Minister for Social Development since 2008, and every single day the needs of these very children have been at the forefront of the work that we have done. The faces of the children and adults I have met who have shared their shocking, sickening, and horrific stories are with me and many New Zealanders every day. I remember the 6-year-old who was proudly showing me around one of our facilities, and who paused at the door of the bedroom, took a deep breath, and reminded herself that, actually, bed can be a safe place. I remember the wonderfully eccentric man at the Wellington City Mission who took me through his life story, and, after half an hour of talking, I could trace his lifetime of pain and suffering back to his horrendous abuse as a child.

So where were we? Where was the Government? Where were other New Zealanders then, for people like him? In 2012 we launched the White Paper for Vulnerable Children and the Children’s Action Plan, which set out an extensive package of reforms to address child abuse and neglect in New Zealand. The reforms would be nothing without the close to 10,000 submissions from New Zealanders. These bills are a critical step in giving effect to the changes in the Children’s Action Plan. These include ensuring joint accountability across justice, health, education, police, and social development for the well-being of our vulnerable children. They also include the new requirements for the screening and vetting of Government workers and contractors who work with children. All up, these new requirements will cover around 182,000 New Zealanders. There are also new workforce restrictions to prevent those with serious convictions who pose a danger to children from coming into contact with them. The legislation will also switch the onus on parents who have killed or severely abused or neglected a child, and they will now have to prove they are safe to parent subsequent children.

But let me be very clear: this legislation contained in these bills is a small part of the work that is already under way and that has to be done under the Children’s Action Plan. We can pass laws to improve screening and vetting. We can pass laws that place restrictions on dangerous people, where there are currently none, but we cannot pass laws that stop children being beaten, neglected, or sexually and emotionally abused. I believe that anyone in this House would have passed those laws plenty of times over if they could have. We cannot pass laws that stop children being killed by those who should love and protect them. We cannot expect that throwing more money at this problem, without changing how we work, will actually fix anything. Accepting that this is as good as it gets for those children is simply not good enough.

So that is where the Children’s Action Plan, of which these bills arising from the Vulnerable Children Bill is just one part, will make a difference. It is multi-dimensional, cross-agency, and community driven. It is more than 30 interwoven initiatives, and it will bring the right people together in communities around our vulnerable kids. It will give us a whole lot more options to respond to the different needs of these most vulnerable children. Firstly, we want to support vulnerable children and work alongside their families to keep them safe, so that they never reach the point where they need the involvement of Child, Youth and Family. This is very much trying to get in early to prevent that really serious abuse and neglect.

That is where our new Children’s Teams come in, along with the new hub that takes notifications from the public, the police, and other organisations, and then plugs it into the vulnerable kids’ information system, to make sure that there is then that follow-through on who is intervening, at what level, and where. They work with children and young people who are vulnerable but who are best helped outside of Child, Youth and Family’s statutory service. As well as doctors, teachers, and social workers, there is Plunket, Family Start, Whānau Ora, parenting services, iwi services, and budgeting services, to name but a few. Too often vulnerable children are still at the back of the queue when trying to access these services. It makes absolutely no sense that they are the children who need it most but, because their parents are either unable to advocate for them or do not have the skills to do it, they are always, it seems, at the back of the queue, and we fight to get them at the front.

I have had enough. New Zealanders have had enough. This legislation will mean that that joint accountability across chief executives will change the whole dynamic throughout our agencies. That is, for me, a big start in what really needs to be done. We have to back up the work that is happening on the ground. Too often it is the Government following the lead of communities. Actually, that is fine, but more often we are a barrier to the work that could be done in accessing services for these very children.

The Children’s Teams understand the unique needs of each child they deal with. They then have direct access to services, whether it is health, justice, social work, or housing, and they can fast-track these most vulnerable children through that system. The support also goes to their parents where it needs to. So if we have mothers and fathers with mental health or drug and alcohol issues or with problems finding work, we can make sure that they get access to those sorts of services as well. Our two pilot teams in Rotorua and Whangarei have worked with over 110 children so far. We are hearing about better attendance at health appointments, better parenting, re-enrolments at early childhood education and school, better access to welfare support, happier children, better behaviour, and reduced offending. There has been a lot of learning and some hurdles along the way, and I think there is going to be a whole lot more, but it is clear that the mix of services and that early support is what will make some of the biggest differences.

I want to thank the Social Services Committee. I really want to thank all those officials who have put so much into this, not just of their professional time, but, I know, of their personal time, because they saw it as that important, and who stayed late, worked over Christmas, and did all those sorts of those things. I am really cognisant of that and extremely grateful. But I think that most of all I want to thank New Zealanders for giving attention to these children, not just when there is a horrific case. Too often we turn our attention to them when there is a name and a face that we can put to it, and I understand that—I do it myself—but I think we have to care about them every day. I thank the House and those members who are supporting the bill. I will treat that with the respect that I know it deserves. With that, I commend these bills to the House.

It is a pleasure to rise to speak at the third reading of the legislation formerly part of the Vulnerable Children Bill. I congratulate the Minister for Social Development on bringing the legislation forward and bringing it all the way through to its third reading in a timely fashion. I also want to commend the work that was done at the Social Services Committee on the Vulnerable Children Bill, because I think that it did improve the bill, and we were able to ensure, I guess, that some of the more problematic parts of that bill were taken out, actually. That was what happened; quite a significant part of that bill was taken out. I also want to acknowledge Anthea Simcock from the Child Matters organisation in Hamilton, because I understand that quite a lot of what has ended up in this legislation has been as a result of her advocacy around the issues for children who are vulnerable, and vulnerable to child abuse. I think we should just call it what it is, quite frankly. So I congratulate Anthea on her involvement in this.

It is of course with great sadness that I reflect on another Hamilton occasion, which I am not so pleased to acknowledge. Very recently our community in Hamilton has witnessed the death of an 8-month-old child, an infant from our community. That is a very, very sad occasion, and it makes us all reflect on our community and what it is about our community that allows children to be put in the sort of danger where they lose their lives in terrible, terrible circumstances. I just want to say at the outset that this legislation, although a good start, is sadly a little bit of a wasted opportunity, because there are so many other areas that could have been addressed in this legislation and that would have actually allowed it to deserve the title of legislation that really will protect all vulnerable children.

Although there are some very useful measures that will regulate and make it safer for children who are being cared for in the services that are provided by the paid workforce, we do know that in New Zealand, very sadly, the majority of child abuse cases and child deaths due to abuse happen not because of actions done by people in the paid workforce but by those who have relationships with those children that ought to be loving relationships and protective relationships, but have instead turned out to be abusive relationships. So although this legislation deals with a proportion of this ugly problem that we do have here in New Zealand, sadly, the vast majority of cases will be untouched by this legislation, and I think that is a great shame. We have still got an awful lot more work to do—an awful lot more work to do.

I want to reflect on some of the areas that the legislation does cover. As I have made reference to, it does deal with people working in the children’s workforce and ensures that there are some more robust screening and vetting processes in place than there are currently, and that is useful. There is also a very controversial part of the legislation around the removal of subsequent children. This is the situation where if a parent has already had children removed from them because of their neglect or abuse of those children, at the birth of a subsequent child, that child can be removed. I guess it is not terribly controversial in one way because that already happens in a New Zealand setting. That is already the situation. But what this legislation does is allow that to happen with, I guess, less evidence from Child, Youth and Family that the subsequent child is at risk, and I think that that is a big step to take.

I watched with great interest 3rd Degree earlier this week, I think, or it may have been last week, where we saw the story of the mother of Delcelia Witikā, who was one of those children whose name just brings the horror of the situation straight in front of us. I watched that with great interest because she was a mother who had been convicted of the manslaughter of her children—I believe it was the manslaughter of her child. She was a woman who was herself subjected to extreme domestic violence and she failed to protect her child from that level of violence as well. What was interesting was looking at her and her life more than a decade on, I think, from that terrible event that occurred. It was interesting to note that she has had a subsequent child, another daughter, who is not directly in her care but whom she has contact with. She has a completely different relationship, a completely different life, and a completely different environment in which she is engaging with that child, so it actually gave me great hope. It gave me great hope that from terrible circumstances, parents can actually get to a stage where they feel that they can have a loving relationship with another child, so I think that is something that we need to discover more about and we need to understand more about.

It was with great sadness that I heard Delcelia Witikā’s mother, whose name I cannot remember—Tānia, I think; Tānia Witikā—describe the chaos that she was living in, the poverty that she was living in, and the environment, where drugs and alcohol were a very normal part of daily life. I do believe that until we get to those root causes, until we address those issues, and, in particular, until we get really serious in this country about domestic violence—because that was very much a part of this story—then we will not be able to protect children like Delcelia Witikā in the future. I think that is the challenge that we still have in front of us, and the provisions in this legislation to remove subsequent children are not really the answer that we need to get to in this country. The answer that we need to get to is to have those children born into a loving environment, where they have the resources necessary, where they are not living in poverty, and where they have, I guess, the ability to sustain a loving family environment. That is going to take more than this legislation. I think the Minister for Social Development has already acknowledged that, and I applaud that.

Let us not kid ourselves for one minute. Unless we deal with the issues of poverty, we actually confront those, and we acknowledge those, we will not be able to deal with them. I would say exactly the same about domestic violence. I am very concerned that we have in this country an increasing number of incidents of domestic violence happening, but a lower number of arrests and a lower number of convictions. That to me is the story of a country that is turning a blind eye and that is trying to suppress how serious the problem with domestic violence is, rather than a country that is prepared to own up, acknowledge the problem, and know the size of it before it can even begin to address it, and that does concern me because I am not in favour—I am not in favour—of sweeping things under the carpet. I think that as a country we have done that for too long. I am absolutely dismayed to learn that the police stopped reporting the levels of domestic violence in their annual report 2 years ago, because that is a symptom of a country that is wanting to sweep matters under the carpet rather than expose them, understand them, and deal with them. We will not protect our children if we cannot protect women in their own homes, quite frankly.

Violence against women and children is a big cost to our country. It is a huge cost to our country, and not only to those individuals but to each one of us, because we are all affected when we, as a country, cannot say that we can protect the most vulnerable. The children talked about in this legislation are amongst the most vulnerable, and I do not believe that we are doing enough. It is a start with this legislation, but I do not believe it is enough to actually make sure that we can stand up and be proud of what our country is doing with regard to protecting these children. Thank you.

It gives me great pleasure to rise to speak to this third reading of the legislation arising from the Vulnerable Children Bill. I begin by congratulating the Minister for Social Development, the Hon Paula Bennett, who is very passionate about her portfolio, and you can see it in the work that she has actually produced in the welfare reforms.

As I stand to take this call on the third reading of the legislation, I am reminded of a 3-year-old who died in hospital back in 2007. She had suffered horrific neglect and abuse and torture while neighbours, whānau, and the wider community stood watching. Staff at her kōhanga reo smelt cannabis and urine on the little child, but did not notify Child, Youth and Family. Justice came too late for that child. Her abusers and killers were eventually convicted, but they were the very people who should have protected her and cared for her and loved her but failed to do so. Her name is Nia Glassie. Today, as we conclude this legislation, I am reminded of that bright-eyed little girl in her yellow sunhat with a bow, full of hope and promise, who died tragically back in 2007. I am also reminded of the Kāhui twins and thousands of other children who have been abused, neglected, and killed in New Zealand over the years. No doubt, somewhere in New Zealand, as we debate this legislation, sadly, there will be children being abused, beaten, neglected, and unloved.

My heart actually aches when I think about that, because for me, unlike Ms Sue Moroney, who says that poverty is the reason, poverty cannot be the reason why parents and loved ones abuse their children. Poverty cannot be the reason that they beat up little children who cannot do anything to protect themselves. As parliamentarians we have the responsibility to give every child a better start to life. Yes, we are all agreed on that. New Zealanders are sick and tired of the abuse statistics we have had, and they have said enough is enough. This National Government is doing something about it and delivering on our promise. But poverty is not the reason why people abuse children. As a parent who struggled for many years to conceive a child, I know just how precious a child is. For me, my son is a miracle, and I cannot for the life of me understand how anyone could abuse a child—how anyone could possibly abuse a child. All I can say to those abusers is: may God have mercy on their terrible, terrible souls because I certainly cannot find any mercy in my heart for them.

I get quite emotional just thinking about the abuse some of these children have suffered. But it has been an absolute privilege working on this legislation as a member of the Social Services Committee and now as the chair of the Social Services Committee that has examined this legislation. I would just like to take this opportunity to say thank you to the officials who have given us expert advice—and they are sitting up in the gallery now; they have been nothing but professional—committee clerks who have assisted us, and my fellow members right across the House. There have been times when we disagreed on points, but I have to say that all members agree that we want to provide the best outcome for our children in this country. We might differ in the way that we want to do the job, and I respect that, but we agree that we want to provide the best possible outcome for the children of New Zealand.

The coroner at Nia Glassie’s inquest actually said: “Decent members of a community should not stand by, and whanau and other family members should not turn a ‘blind’ eye,”. I am in total agreement with him that it is a shared responsibility. It has to be coordinated, collaborated on, and acted on right across the Government social services sector. Even the local sparkie or the plumber—everyone who visits a house—who sees abuse has a responsibility. They cannot turn a blind eye. The future of New Zealand rests on what we do now. How we protect our most vulnerable children will show what sort of society we become and what kind of a nation we are.

The National Government’s reforms are major and far reaching and represent the most significant legislative reforms to address child abuse and neglect since the passage of the Children, Young Persons, and their Families Act. This will bring better Government accountability, better vetting and screening of people who actually work with children, and better guardianship and protection laws. We are making five heads of Government departments accountable. For the first time, the Ministry of Social Development, the Ministry of Education, the Ministry of Health, the Ministry of Justice, and New Zealand Police are all responsible and accountable. They will have new responsibilities and child protection policies, which will have a direct impact on every front-line worker. Children are the most valuable asset a nation has and we must protect them, and I believe this legislation does. I commend it to the House.

Kia ora, Mr Assistant Speaker. Thank you very much for the opportunity to contribute to this third reading of the legislation arising from the Vulnerable Children Bill. I would like to acknowledge my colleagues Rajen Prasad and Jacinda Ardern, who are not here and who have worked diligently, prior to my becoming a member of the Social Services Committee, on the passage of this legislation.

I want to commend the Minister for Social Development for taking responsibility for a cohort of New Zealand children who are within her area of responsibility. I can see the rationale for highlighting and ensuring that our most vulnerable children—our children who are encapsulated for whatever reason, particularly within our Child, Youth and Family system—are being targeted and highlighted, and the rationale for us supporting and protecting their positive health and well-being.

I want to start with a few comments based on the Minister’s introduction about what a society should do, and guarantee, for all our young children. I believe a society should ensure that all young people who are born in New Zealand have access to the clinical services that are going to ensure that when they arrive in the world, here, that they have access to doctors, to midwives, and to all the services that will ensure their positive health and development.

I believe that our children should expect a free education system here in New Zealand, which starts with early childhood education. I think that the prioritisation, however, from our perspective needs to occur before our children are born. From this side’s perspective, we think that issues related to housing provision, the quality of that housing provision, and making sure that families have an adequate income to make sure that they can have a wage relative to the cost of living in this country is a context that cannot be denied, and it cannot be underestimated in terms of that framework around which this whole focus on vulnerable children comes from.

Unless we address the symptoms of society, unless we address why we are having over 150,000 Child, Youth and Family notifications every year, when nearly 30,000 of those notifications are actually substantiated, this will continue just to be either window dressing or putting band-aids on problems. My contribution is going to focus on, I guess, another prioritisation and another set of things that we could be doing as a Government, as a society, to make sure that we do not produce children who are going to end up in our care system.

The reality of this piece of legislation, and what we are talking about, is that it is a bill that essentially is about children who will be encapsulated within the State. These are the children who are vulnerable to neglect and to abuse because they live in circumstances where their parents have got problems. They have got alcohol problems. They have got drug problems. They have got housing problems. We are going to assist these children who are in State care, but I would prefer, and our side would prefer, that we focus on ensuring our kids do not end up in the State system.

We would prioritise, for example, some of the solutions that the group led by Professor Jonathan Boston, and put together by our Office of the Children’s Commissioner, focused on. Their whole mandate was about Solutions to Child Poverty in New Zealand: Evidence for Action. Some of our prioritisation would be about how we prevent kids from getting in. We prevent kids from getting in—and they have given us the solutions. There are six things that we could do immediately that would make sure that our kids get the best start in life, and that we support those who are the most vulnerable.

Recommendation No. 1 is that child support payments should be made to sole parents. That was the primary recommendation. We know that children growing up in sole parent households are vulnerable. That would be their No. 1 priority. The second priority is to ensure a warrant of fitness for all rental properties. Unless our families are within a quality, warm, dry home it means they are living in unstable circumstances; they are living in circumstances where their needs cannot be met.

The third priority was a public-private partnership around microfinancing. Too many of our vulnerable families are living in debt, so they need help in terms of budgeting, and they need help in terms of financial literacy, but at the end of the day if the money that they are receiving, even if it is a benefit, is not enough to pay for the rent, to pay for the power, to pay for food on the table, there is nothing that that family can do to get out of that circumstance.

They also recommended food in schools, because the reality is that a lot of our children are hungry. In terms of the Minister’s responsibility, yes she is responsible for nearly 30,000 kids in Child, Youth and Family care, but she is also responsible for 180,000 children who are the children of parents who are on a benefit. That is the greater context that we should be talking about. In addition to the Fonterra and the Sanitarium KickStart Breakfast programme in schools, we should be having hot meals. That is the sad reality in New Zealand today: our children are hungry, and we need to feed them.

The fifth priority was about young people—young parents. They should be supported, because we know that education is a resilience that they need, so we need a continuation of our teen parent units. Whilst I was in Invercargill last week I visited a teen parent unit. The wonderful thing about these teen parent units is that young parents can come together. They can learn to be good parents, but they can also learn together and actually have some dreams and aspirations about getting National Certificate of Educational Achievement level 2 and then transitioning on to higher education. That is what those teen parent units provide for these young kids. It is actually a stable support system, which means they learn to be good parents, their children go to the local early childhood education centre, and they are also on a pathway to a better life for themselves and their children.

The final one was about community hubs. The whole focus on community hubs was about ensuring we have access to those services that the Minister talked about earlier—health services, education services, and social services. In terms of a couple of big deliberations and debates we had within the select committee, there was one about the requirement of safety checking of people who are paid to work with children. Essentially, this bill is going to check people who are paid by the Government to work with children. What it does not do is check people who are working with children and who are either voluntary or who are working with Scout groups or sports groups or other groups, because of the compliance costs.

There was a huge debate within the select committee about whether or not all people who work with children should be required to go through some sort of police checking. This legislation, in addition to identifying the children at risk, supporting them, and protecting them, was also about identifying abusers. That was what this legislation was about. We identify the abusers, and then we make sure that we know where they are so we can monitor any form of engagement they have with our kids.

I have not got much longer to contribute to this debate. What I want to finish on is a story from my own electorate, and it is relevant to Melissa Lee’s contribution about poverty not being the primary reason for child abuse. I would agree with that, but people who live in poverty live in stress. My local police commander told me a story about what they did over the Christmas period. They identified the 50 families with whom they have had the greatest family violence interactions. What they did was visit those families before Christmas and they gave them a food parcel. They visited those families after Christmas and they gave them a food parcel. They said to those families: “If you need help, call us. Don’t call us after the family violence incident; call us beforehand and we will come and we will support you.” Of those 50 families, they had only one incident over the Christmas - New Year period.

So what that means is that poverty actually does contribute to how stressful families are. It does contribute to how adults interact with each other. It does contribute to the consumption, in some instances, of alcohol. So for people to dismiss poverty as one of the underlying reasons why our children are vulnerable actually means that they are not in the reality of the children whom we are here to protect. Thank you.

It is with genuine sadness that the Green Party is opposing these bills arising from the Vulnerable Children Bill. The Green Party and its MPs are absolutely passionate about making New Zealand a great place to grow up in for all of our children. We believe that the State has a key role in keeping children happy, healthy, and safe. But in order to do that, the Government must be prepared to do what our children need them to do to keep them happy, healthy, and safe. Human rights are a Government’s obligation and not just a good idea. The National Government had that opportunity. Its White Paper for Vulnerable Children generated a huge volume of submissions from experts and workers on the ground who told Ministers what children needed them to do in order for them to be able to grow up healthy, happy, and safe. But, faced with all of that evidence, the Government closed its eyes and then closed its heart.

Today we saw the Minister for Social Development admit to Parliament for the second time this week that she was unaware of research showing that children in the most economically deprived families were five times as likely as children in the least deprived families to die from sudden unexplained death in infancy. One baby dies each week in New Zealand from conditions associated with low income. You might think that the Minister responsible for child welfare would make it her business to be aware of the health impacts of poverty. Instead, she remains wilfully ignorant, and that is outrageous. The thing is, we know, and this is backed up by history as well as current research, that if we guarantee the essentials, then we will guarantee the opportunities. Our institutions have been teaching for years this concept of the Maslow hierarchy of needs. At the base of basic needs are our physical needs for warmth, rest, water, shelter, and safety. They are universally—I thought, except for the jeering from the other side—understood to be our basic needs.

The Green Party wants to ensure all of our children have their basic needs met. We want to address the causes of vulnerability so that all of our children can thrive. That is why we put child poverty on the political agenda last term and we have been continuing that through this term. That is also why we have been working so hard to put domestic and sexual violence back on the political agenda. Poverty is created by, and can be eliminated by, Government policy. Child poverty and deprivation escalated in the 1990s due to Government policy. It is not out of our control. We continue to unashamedly call for action at every single chance we get on this issue, because it is at the heart of the welfare of our children. Although violence is not quite so easily amenable to Government intervention, and no one thing is going to solve it, we can still significantly reduce it. This bill is not going to do that.

Over 17 percent of children in New Zealand regularly go without essential items like fresh fruit and veges, shoes that fit, their own bed, and warm, dry houses. Think about that for a moment in this land of plenty. More than one child dies every single week in this country of plenty from illnesses related to poverty. When I was working at the University of Otago Medical School, the Scandinavian head of paediatrics, who had recently arrived, left her position early because she had thought she was coming to a developed country. She could not match that expectation with the prevalence of what she considered Third World diseases all around her. The level of disease in our children because of Government policy is shocking. It is a national shame, and I use the word “national” in both meanings.

Violence is a major issue of ours in this country as well. It is estimated that more than a quarter of New Zealand children are affected by domestic violence. Between one in three and one in five girls are victims of sexual violence, and between one in six and one in 10 boys are sexually abused, and there are much higher levels of risk for children with disabilities and within other minority groups. This week we heard again from the Owen Glenn report about how our system is failing on the most basic level to provide protection and safety for our children, and to provide pathways out of violence. They do not exist for many people in this country, and the State is complicit in blocking people’s pathways out of safety, in actual fact. The Government’s response to those experiences, those experiences from agencies on the ground, is to say “Oh, look! We’re on to it. We’ve reformed the Family Court. We are doing this.”, when, in actual fact, those reforms are undermining the protections of those very people they purport to care about.

You put those two realities of poverty and violence together and it is no surprise that the Government got around 10,000 submissions in response to the call for submissions. How amazing! So many people in this country care about these issues. There was so much hope and time put into these submissions, and I want to thank New Zealand for that.

But when we now look at the legislation that has come to us in this House out of that process, I feel genuinely angry. This Government had the chance to respond appropriately to those submissions. The Government could have created a child poverty Act that would set targets and measures for eliminating child poverty at the base of the welfare of our children. It could have established a Minister for children to advocate within Cabinet for children. The Government could have reformed our Family Court, the Child, Youth and Family service, and justice systems and ensured that there was funding for the support agencies that are so crucial in the response and the safety of children, to address the myriad issues that are compromising their safety at the moment.

And what did it do? You know, this legislation is not any of those things. I acknowledge that both of those actions, those bills that could have come to us, would have been big calls, but I think that the tenor of the submissions and all the reports we have had over the years into these issues would have justified a big call. What this Government has given us instead is this legislation, and I am now going to reference the Parliamentary Library’s analysis of this legislation. It says that there are two main things that this legislation is going to do. One is that it is going to create child harm protection orders. Well, that turned out to be a bad idea and has been taken out of the bill. Two, it is going to institute safety checking for children’s workers. So there were two big ideas in response to the appalling rate of death and poverty of our children. It boils down to safety checking for children’s workers, which we had no evidence is needed and is going to make any difference, and is going to be coming out of the pockets of our community organisations, which are struggling to provide the absolutely essential social services to protect the lives of our children.

Excuse my emotion—it is because New Zealand deserves more than that. We are a country of plenty. We have the evidence from the experts, from our community, and from our children telling us what we need to do to make a difference for them, and yet this is all we are given. It is an absolute travesty and I am disappointed in this House that we could not deliver what our children need.

I am honoured to rise and take a call in the third reading of the legislation arising from the Vulnerable Children Bill, but also too to take the opportunity to balance the conversations and the debate in this House. There has been lots of talk about the intent of the legislation but I want to bring it back to the intent and the purpose of the legislation. The legislation is part of a series of measures that National is introducing to protect and improve the well-being of vulnerable children. Last night I was speaking to a number of young leaders and one of the questions that came from the floor was this: how do you know when you are in politics that you are making a difference? I would like to answer that question that was asked last night this afternoon. I believe that I can say that about this legislation, and I know that we can say that here both in this Government, in the National Party, which is supporting it, but also too those in the Labour caucus who are supporting this legislation. Why? Because we know it is making a difference.

We know it is making a difference because from the submissions that we are hearing we are really clear that it is putting children at the heart of our legislation and at the heart of our concern and our intent as a Government—children. That is simply what this is about. It is about children—vulnerable children, children who through no fault of their own are in circumstances where they cannot protect themselves or cannot provide for themselves, hence the reason why the State must intervene. However, at the same time, what this legislation also says is that the answers do not lie with the Government alone. The answers lie with shared responsibilities with those who are the carers, those who provide services, schools, parents, and the State as well, and other surrounding services that wrap around to support that.

I want to make some comments because there has been lots of talk about other things that impact children, which are not the intent of this legislation. This legislation is about protecting and providing that which is needed. There has been talk about poverty. We know that there are a number of children and families who are in hardship. We do not disagree with that. But can I remind members of this. Hēnare O’Keefe, who was one of the candidates for Ikaroa-Rāwhiti following the death of the late Hon Parekura Horomia, told the story at a Whānau Ora conference that when he was growing up in Ruatōria there were dirt floors. They had very little. They had to boil their water, they had to go outside, and they had to hunt for things. They had very little and a large family. But here is the powerful thing that he said at that Whānau Ora conference: poverty is no excuse for abuse; poverty is no excuse for failure. What he was saying is this: you may have hard times, you may have difficulty, but you do have an opportunity to be able to do the best for your family and for the people who are around you.

💬 Andrew Little: But it is an explanation. Bury your head in the sand.

Mr Andrew Little may barrack along but to his own supporters who are out there, I say that poverty is no excuse for abuse.

💬 Andrew Little: But it is an explanation.

What this legislation does, Mr Little, is protect children who are vulnerable.

💬 Andrew Little: Disgraceful!

There is nothing disgraceful about this. Just this week I was at Tick4Kids. It was run by Unicef and this is what it said. It asked this question: can we ensure that children are at the heart of our legislation and policy-making? So this is what I can say we are doing as a Government. Part of this legislation is ensuring that we have a Children’s Action Plan and more social workers in schools and hospitals. We have increased funding and services for children in care. We have Children’s Teams in Rotorua and Whangarei that have been operating. We have a national children’s director who coordinates those Children’s Teams. We have Child Protect line, the Vulnerable Kids Information System, and the Vulnerable Children’s Board of chief executives who share accountability and responsibility. We are putting children at the heart of policy and of legislation because that is what this legislation is about.

I want to clearly say this: this legislation has got action to it; it is not just about talk. For all the rhetoric that it talks about things that we can do, this legislation is staying true to its intent—that it is protecting children who are vulnerable and children who need our support to protect and provide for them. This is not the perfect legislation. This is not the answer to all the challenges but it is the answer to one thing. When the State needs to intervene, when it needs to ensure that children are protected and provided for, then that is what this legislation does. I absolutely support this legislation and its third reading but, most important, I support this legislation as it goes out to the communities, to the homes, and to the places in which this legislation will ensure there is shared accountability and responsibility to protect our children who are vulnerable in New Zealand. Thank you.

Talofa lava, kia ora, and thank you, Mr Assistant Speaker. I rise on behalf of New Zealand First to talk about this legislation in its third and final reading. The legislation sets out to achieve some goals. It proposes solutions that are much needed for problems, given the epidemic that has been in existence for quite a while in New Zealand. We are all aware that problems associated with vulnerable children are complex, and so the solutions identified in this legislation may go only so far. The member who has just spoken is absolutely right: it is not perfect legislation—not yet. Obviously, we need to look at this legislation carefully because there are underlying issues that must be clarified. After all, we do not want the same situation as with legal highs and the Psychoactive Substances Bill to be repeated in this House, and we certainly need to avoid causing harm to our tamaiti and fanau.

Although the legislation rightly focuses on reinforcing the need for shared responsibility, better accountability, harm minimisation, and increased support for the protection of vulnerable children, let us be clear here: there are loopholes. Vulnerable children are defined as children who are at significant risk of harm to their well-being now and into the future as a consequence of the environment in which they are being raised, and in some cases due to their own complex needs. It is a very good definition with a telling measure of how effective the legislation can be. It gives the harsh reality of why we have so many vulnerable children in our country. The journey for better outcomes still finds only a band-aid solution. That is not to say that answers are easy or plentiful. In fact, the legislation poses some good answers to past problems, and we acknowledge that. However, a responsible Government should always look at the fundamental issues that lead to our societal woes.

More and more within our communities we can see that families are broken. They are wrecked, frustrated, and, of course, unhappy. Children are hungry. They are insecure. We have far too many children right now at risk, and families are struggling. Parents are jobless and desperate for help. There are not enough jobs out there. There is not enough work for them with reasonable wages or salaries. Finances are crumbling because wages are too low. The increasing costs of education, health, and basic needs are too high. Although the recent Budget actually dished out the New Zealand First policy of free general practitioner visits for children up to intermediate school level, sadly, they still have to wait for a number of months before they can get it. Morals, principles, and values are weakening, and these important fundamental pillars of our society are clearly being ignored and considered unimportant. And the list goes on. All the while, addiction to substances that make anxiety go away is increasing. Our unhealthy culture of drug and alcohol use is rife.

Although the legislation arising from the Vulnerable Children Bill offers worthwhile measures to mitigate the societal ills currently threatening the safety of our children, I say we must remember the fundamental issues beneath this problem. Let us not forget the fundamental issues that cause the problem highlighted in this legislation. Research on the issue of child abuse has shown that it is closely linked to economic and social deprivation. These are the types of core issues that the Government needs to pay attention to. I must say that today is the day that I agree with a phrase that the chair of our Social Services Committee mentioned about poverty—that poverty is not an excuse for child abuse—and I have said it quite a number of times, even when I came into Parliament at the beginning. It is not an excuse, but it does not help—it does not help. These issues are inextricably linked to vulnerable children.

This Government has allowed integral core community issues to spiral out of control. It has been too focused on delivering the best outcomes for the select few while neglecting others in need. Just look at its hasty U-turn on legal highs. It let the problem fester while the community suffered, and now the fix is going to come at a huge cost to everyone involved. New Zealand is no longer the healthy egalitarian society it once was. The obvious imbalances amongst our communities have only worsened under this Government. Doing something to seriously address these kinds of fundamental issues will be more effective at healing the wound inflicted on our society, and that is vulnerable children. If the Government does nothing to remedy the fundamental problems of our country, then wounds like this will grow too large for band-aid fixes.

Many vulnerable children come from families who are struggling to support themselves under the weight of the high cost of living and unemployment. Whenever the Government wants to score political points, the words “Māori” and “Pasifika” will come up, and it is always in relation to social issues or law and order situations. But it is not only Māori and Pacific families who are feeling the pressure; it is a national issue felt by families throughout the country. Many are on the brink of collapse, just waiting to fall into a world of child abuse, domestic and family violence, and, of course, criminal offending. That is why it is important here to reinforce the need to tackle prevention rather than constantly trying to respond once harm is done.

Many abuses that have occurred involved volunteers. A lot of the cases being identified and highlighted involved those who have offered to do voluntary tasks for children. The bills fail to recognise the reality of the severe risk associated with children, which defies all logic when writing legislation that intends to protect vulnerable children. The Government should not discount this connection. Anyone with good sense would not fail to acknowledge that a significant number of vulnerable children are those already living in hardship, and I think that is a word we need to focus on more than “poverty”. A holistic approach is needed to truly protect the well-being of at-risk children from unsafe environments. The Minister tried to justify the omission of the word “volunteers” from this legislation right now. Can we afford to say that about a child’s life or child safety? Can we afford to say that? Can we afford to ignore the pleas from parents and schools about the lack of resources for them to protect their children? This includes unaffordable housing, extremely low incomes, a long list of unemployed, and, of course, poor health.

In spite of all this, it was clear before this legislation came into the House that better legislative frameworks, polices, and practices were needed to improve the lives and experiences of children and young people in New Zealand. New Zealand First supports the provisions in the legislation that specifically address New Zealand’s high rates of child abuse and neglect, because the overwhelming evidence shows that it is an urgent issue that should be addressed. Minister Bennett said at the Committee stage that screening volunteers is needed, just not this time round. Well, when? When more children are abused or more families have the opportunity to assault or abuse a child? Brené Brown said that “The truth is: Belonging starts with self-acceptance. Your level of belonging, in fact, can never be greater than your level of self-acceptance, because believing that you’re enough is what gives you the courage to be authentic, vulnerable and imperfect.”

I want to use my brief speech to acknowledge the hundreds of thousands of amazing parents in this country who raise incredible children who will be huge contributors to our communities and our country as we go forward as a nation. There is no doubt that these parents are the majority of parents in our country. They are incredible. They go across the spectrum of New Zealanders, of races, of wealth. I particularly want to acknowledge those parents who have difficult circumstances and raise incredible children. In fact, I think it is those parents who this country, our Government, and our State services should be focusing on, because we need to take a leaf out of those parents’ books and celebrate the outstanding job that they do to raise outstanding kids in difficult circumstances.

In saying that, I think we do make too many excuses for poor parenting, and that is something we need to continue to focus on. We do unfortunately have a group where there are vulnerable children—there is no doubt about that—and we do need to do everything we can as a nation to help those children in those very difficult circumstances. I want to acknowledge Minister Bennett, the Social Services Committee—the select committee that dealt with this legislation arising from the Vulnerable Children Bill—and all those parties across the House that are supporting this legislation this evening. It is another step as we go forward as a country to give every child in this nation the very best opportunity to be all that they can be. Thank you.

Good afternoon, Mr Assistant Speaker. I am very proud to take a call on the legislation arising from the Vulnerable Children Bill. It is one of the reasons that I got into the professional work that I was doing—because I acknowledge that in many aspects of our work the voice of children fails to be heard, and in this regard having legislation for vulnerable children means that the voice of children should well and truly be heard today.

I acknowledge the thousands of submissions that were made during this process over the course of the years that this legislation has traversed, which started with the Green Paper for Vulnerable Children and went on to the White Paper for Vulnerable Children. Various pieces of work fell out of that, including the Children’s Action Plan and the development of the Children’s Teams. And here we are today in the third readings of this legislation.

I acknowledge the significant work that communities, social workers, legislators, and everyone has done to bring these bills to this day. But I want to add my note of disappointment that despite those thousands of submissions and despite all the thousands of hours that went into the crafting of much of the work that the community submitted on, some of that has not made it into the bills. There are some aspects that have, and I acknowledge that, but there are many things that we have not found in these bills that will not go far enough to protect the children of New Zealand.

I will go back to what I believe was the genesis of this legislation, because I really appreciate that the Minister for Social Development was trying to curb what has become a national disgrace in terms of our child abuse statistics, and that is the case of child “M” in west Auckland. Some of you may recall that case where that poor child was the subject of torture at the hands of her parents, and one of the significant aspects in the reporting of that particular case was the failure of those services that were engaged to work with that family to actually communicate with each other. I wonder about the lessons of that case that have not been learnt and have not found their way into this legislation.

When I was working for a family violence service we had a picture of Minister Bennett on the wall. She had been interviewed by the New Zealand Herald some years ago talking about what she wanted to do to protect our children. That picture sat alongside some of the other pictures of children who had been abused, such as the one the member Melissa Lee talked about, Nia Glassie; pictures of James Whakaruru, whom I use as my personal touchstone in my work; and the Kāhui twins. What I would like to ask today is whether this legislation would have protected those children—whether it would have prevented what happened to those children. In the case of child “M”, where one of the most overriding issues was the lack of communication between those social services and Government agencies, would this legislation go far enough to protect that child? I doubt that it does. Will this legislation go far enough to have prevented what happened to the Kāhui twins? It is possible, under the provisions relating to subsequent children. Will it go far enough to prevent what happened to James Whakaruru? I am not so sure—I am not so sure.

What this legislation does not contain are things like the positive aspects of parenting—supporting parents to be good parents, simple things like promoting attachment and bonding. When you have young parents, this is a process that needs extra support and help. Does this legislation include positive parenting programmes for struggling parents? I do not think it does. Does it address what the chief social worker terms the “unholy trinity” when it comes to vulnerable children: parents with mental health issues, problematic substance abuse, and family violence. I am afraid it does not address these. The chief social worker talks about what he terms the determinants of the most vulnerable children, and this legislation fails to acknowledge them.

I was listening to some of the other speakers. The Minister herself talked about the collaboration between the chief executive officers and the accountability that they will have in addressing this issue over a range of ministries. That is great, and I applaud that, but it is not the first time it has happened. We had a national task force on sexual violence prevention, which was put together by the last Labour Government, that this Government disbanded. I just want to remind the Minister that that was a good process. That was a good process. The Minister in recent days has been talking about how much has been put into sexual violence abuse prevention—$10.4 million, I think, over the next 4 years. What I want to say is that those programmes were in place, but they were not well supported. The result is that we have to put in place legislation like this to support our most vulnerable children.

There is another issue that I want to raise, and that is in terms of legislation that has unintended consequences. I refer to a comment that I think my colleague Louisa Wall made about the numbers of arrests declining in terms of family violence. There were changes in 2011 to the Solicitor-General’s guidelines on arrests. What that meant was that there was a higher threshold required before an arrest could be made. The threshold was around whether it was likely that a charge could then result in a conviction. So police had to then make a determination on whether it was likely the situation they were seeing before them could result in a conviction in a court of law. That had a huge impact on family violence statistics. It was an unintended consequence, but it meant that fewer men were arrested in domestic violence call outs. The unintended consequence of fewer arrests is that fewer men are being compelled to attend family violence and anger management programmes, so fewer men are supported to deal with their anger. That is one of the key indicators, as determined by the chief social worker, to prevent harm to children, and by a matter of unintended consequence we have fewer men being supported to deal with their anger.

What I think we should have done is looked at having a much more positive approach to our children. Why are we targeting such a small group of vulnerable children when there are at least 285,000 children living in poverty? Yes, I understand the rhetoric that poverty is not an excuse, but, as my colleague behind me, Andrew Little, says, it is an explanation. When one of the determinants of safety in a child’s life is the level of income and resource that goes into that child’s household, then we must recognise that poverty is a key driver of safety for children. Why are we not looking at making positive changes to these families’ lives? Warm, dry, affordable homes where kids are not getting sick, children who are well fed and well supported so they are not going to school hungry and unable to learn, programmes that actually support all kids—real measures in place to address the 285,000 children living in poverty so that they can reach their potential.

I want to say I commend the Minister on starting this journey. This journey has not gone far enough. I would recommend that this journey continues so that we can do more to keep our children safe. Thank you.

That was a very good speech—shame it was bereft of fact. It was interesting that the member Poto Williams was talking about—well, in fact, it actually makes sense. It is ironic that the member was talking about what we are going to do about the 285,000 children she claims are living in poverty. That is from a party that sits there and opposes every effort that the Government makes to grow the economy. So how can members on that side of the House sit there with any justification, with any credibility whatsoever, and say that it is about lifting people out of so-called poverty, and vote against everything that this Government does? Notwithstanding that, we are one of the top-performing economies in the OECD. We on this side of the House know that a performing economy, an education system that provides jobs, and a business environment that allows people to invest and employ people are what lift children out of vulnerability. It is completely disingenuous for members on that side of the House to sit there and say “Oh, tsk, tsk, you’re not doing this and not doing that.”, when they will vote against it. The reality is the Labour Party wants the Government to fail so that it can get over this side. If the Labour Party actually did care about those children, it would be supporting things that actually helped the economy grow. It is as simple as that.

This is not the only measure. This legislation arising from the Vulnerable Children Bill is not the panacea. The Minister for Social Development has never said it is, and no one on this side of the House has ever said that. There is a range of activities, strategies, and approaches that are going on to address the issue of vulnerability with children, but one thing is for sure: what this legislation brings is the opportunity to bring some direct accountability and bring some administrative lines—bottom up, top down—in terms of ensuring that the children do not fall through the cracks. One thing is for sure: Government departments are good at resolving issues but not so good at talking to one another about what is going on.

These bills provide a very, very good mechanism. As someone who has worked in this field, I think that that in itself is something that deserves support. The members over that side know it does, because they will actually vote to support it, despite the fact that they have chastised us and said we are not doing anything. Well, I challenge the Labour Party. If you want to get on and do something, then join us and actually do what is going to get children out of vulnerability and grow the economy. Oh, that is right—it cannot do that. Thank you.

Split call, 5 minutes—Andrew Little.

I rise to speak on the legislation arising from the Vulnerable Children Bill. I just say how disappointing it is, after the members opposite claim to want to forge a collaborative approach and claim to want to cooperate, that Mr Sabin stands up and performs one of the more belittling speeches you could imagine on this very important topic. You know, this nation started this week with our heads hung collectively in shame at the stories that were released in the Glenn Inquiry report. Five hundred voices told some of the most excruciatingly painful, shocking stories about abuse and violence in this nation’s homes. It behoves us on this occasion, passing this legislation, to at least demonstrate that we are capable of not only taking the issue seriously but also speaking sensibly and, hopefully, cooperatively and collaboratively about it.

That does not mean to say we do not have criticisms of this bill. As I have said repeatedly in relation to other legislation, as is so often the case, something is usually better than nothing. This bill does take steps that will help not only to pick up the pieces but also, most important, to prevent harm to children—those who so often cannot speak for themselves and those who so often are dependent on the actions, the care, and the support of the adults around them who are not necessarily their parents but those who are in responsible roles and those who are in caring roles.

It is sad that in this day and age we have to have legislation like this to spell out steps that must be taken by organisations that charge themselves with taking care of children. Well, we do have to do that because the record that has developed in this country in terms of the care of children and in terms of harm to children is just an absolutely shocking record. It is the nation’s shame that we do that, that we mistreat children, and that we expose them to needless harm and danger. That is the danger and harm of other people, not of the activities that we would want them to do—running around in a playground, in a bush, or in a field. It is the exposure to violent, nasty people who would beat them up and be the most predatory people you can imagine. So we do have to do something about it.

I am not sure that this bill, in some respects, goes far enough, but it is a step. I think in other respects it goes too far. If this bill is about prevention, let it be about prevention. It is disappointing that, for example, in clause 28, when it deals with people who are discovered to be a risk to children, it does not allow organisations—whether State, State-funded or any other organisation—to simply remove them under the terms of the employment agreement. It denies them and deprives them of some of their contractual entitlements, like notice. It comes over the top and says “All right, they’re going to yank you out of there and you can go, and you’re not even going to be entitled to the very basic notice requirements of your employment agreement.” These are people who will have convictions and who will be a demonstrated danger to children, but who have been in employment—in some cases, for a lengthy period of time—and who, as a result of this bill being enacted, will be discovered to be a risk that no organisation should afford to take. Well, I accept that. But why go to the punitive step and then say “Right, you get 5 days’ pay and that’s it.” That is nasty stuff, and it is unnecessary, but it is in the bill. I know there will be some employers who will say “Listen, we have to do this, and that’s accepted, but we’ll pay you out your full notice.” But this bill actually sanctions an alternative course of action.

If it is about prevention, let it be about prevention. Let it apply not just to State organisations, not just to private organisations funded by the State, but to any private organisations, which, as I read it, are not covered by this bill.

This is a serious issue. It requires serious steps. It does not require the sort of politicising shenanigans of a Mike Sabin; it requires a Government that can work with the Opposition to actually achieve real change over time so that we can put to bed the shocking and embarrassing track record we have developed of looking after children and looking after our most vulnerable. We need to do more and we need to do better. This bill is a start but it cannot possibly be the end of addressing this serious issue. For those who say poverty is no excuse, I just say that it may not be an excuse but it is so often an explanation. A Government that fails to deal with poverty is failing to deal with the true dimensions of this problem. A future Labour-led Government will deal with the fullness of this problem—not pretend that parts of it just do not exist.

I guess I agree with a lot of what my colleague Andrew Little has just said, but we disagree on one point. He said that something is better than nothing, and I do not think that is always true. In this case, we do not agree and we are opposing the bills arising from the Vulnerable Children Bill. My colleague Jan Logie has explained our reasoning behind that.

I want to talk a little bit about what the Green Party would do about this situation. If the country gives us a chance later this year, we will be looking to address the basic needs of children in New Zealand—those unmet needs that are currently causing the environments that are driving this vulnerability and the problem that we are seeking to address. We would create a children’s Act, with targets and measures around child poverty, and by measuring the problem we would be able to manage it. That is a basic maxim, is not it? Measuring the problem would enable us to make some progress.

Our Home for Life policy will provide a genuine pathway to homeownership and would address the declining rates of homeownership, especially amongst lower and middle-income New Zealanders, while also providing secure rental tenure for those New Zealanders who are renting—and many vulnerable families are—and also a warrant of fitness for rental housing, which, again, addresses some of the conditions that drive poor outcomes.

Our Schools at the Heart programme will help with removing the barrier of inequality in the place where kids are, 5 days a week—their school. Our hubs will offer disadvantaged kids health care, social services at school, and school lunches, and will connect families to their children’s learning. Our NZ Power scheme, which we share with the Labour Party, will stem the flow of power price rises that we have experienced under this Government, and will also cut $300 from household power bills. Our solar homes package will liberate Kiwis from rising power prices and deliver real, sustainable energy freedom. We will actually resource Child, Youth and Family Services, so that it is up to the job of actually protecting children. Under-resourcing has been one of the causes of failure here.

Ultimately, what we are talking about is meeting those children’s basic needs, and Jan Logie has spoken about the hierarchy of needs that was developed by the psychologist Maslow. Basically, what that says is that if you are actually interested in children or any individual being able to maximise their potential, you first of all have to address basic physiological and safety needs—food, water, warmth, rest, security, safety. Until you actually address those factors, we are unable to deal with the more advanced psychological and self-fulfilment goals that we have for every New Zealand citizen.

It was a cause of great distress for me today to hear Paula Bennett saying that she had not actually read the basic research that links children’s health outcomes. In this country we have health outcomes, including child abuse outcomes, that are amongst the worst in the OECD and that are strongly linked, in fact, to our extremely high rates of child poverty. Those are the factors that we have to address. We have to address empowerment of the communities that children live in, and we have to create supportive environments around those communities, and that means addressing those factors that I have just talked about.

It means addressing poverty. It means doing the things that the Children’s Commissioner’s expert advisory group told us we had to do—provide health services, antenatal and throughout childhood; affordable, safe, healthy homes; stable, nurturing families; supportive communities; adequate incomes to meet basic needs; and engagement and learning from early childhood education onwards. Those are the things that will actually make a difference. It was most distressing, I think, to hear Paula Bennett, faced with a mountain of evidence from experts about the link between child poverty and those poor outcomes, saying that she could not, in fact, name a single expert who would endorse her view that the Government is doing enough. It is not; this legislation is inadequate.

One of the names that has been mentioned quite a lot in the House today is the Children’s Commissioner, who had this to say about the legislation divided from the Vulnerable Children Bill: “Minister Bennett’s announcement reflects an elevation of the rights and needs of children, and signals a very welcome change in social norms in New Zealand by clearly focusing on the behaviour of adults to help keep children safe.” There has been quite a wide range of comments in the House today, but I want to emphasise that the very point in this is that it is adults who have responsibility for their children each and every day. It is adults’ behaviour that this legislation will absolutely alter, in terms of protecting the most vulnerable children in our society.

I am very, very proud of the Minister sitting beside me in the House, the Minister for Social Development, because this is one of the toughest issues this country has faced this century, and it is a National Government that has led the charge and put those children at the very heart of this legislation and the Children’s Action Plan, with thousands and thousands of New Zealanders having their say about what has to happen and what needs to change. It is this Government that is changing it.