Children, Young Persons, and Their Families (Advocacy, Workforce, and Age Settings) Amendment Bill

I want to begin the Committee stage of the debate by again starting where Labour started in the second reading debate, and that was to point out that we have long had a desire to be in a position to support this bill. But, really, the Committee stage will determine whether or not that is going to be possible for us.

We have long advocated for the clauses in this bill that allow the age of care and protection to be increased. In fact, we would have liked to see the age overall be increased, both for the age of care and protection and for Youth Court jurisdiction, but we accept that half is better than nothing. However, as I outlined in our second reading speech, that proposal has come at a cost. In the same bill where the Government has done an excellent thing by increasing the age of care and protection—which we have pushed for, for 8 years now—it is also proposing to allow very permissive powers to the chief executive to delegate what currently only social workers and the New Zealand Police are able to do, under our laws.

We have a Supplementary Order Paper (SOP)—I want to flag now, up front, before I delve into the Committee stage debate—that would, essentially, delete clause 7, which is all of the powers that allow the chief executive to delegate the powers of social workers. We do not feel there is adequate explanation or constraint around those powers, and our support of this bill beyond the Committee stage will be contingent on that SOP succeeding. We made that view known in the second reading debate, and I have made that view known personally to the office of the Minister for Social Development. We have wanted to be as constructive as possible because of our support for elements of this bill. But this could not be at the cost—the massive cost—of what the Government has asked of us to make those changes. I also want to state, up front, that if it comes to that—and we will be very disappointed if it does—it will be with great sadness, because we have walked alongside the likes of the Dingwall Trust and Lifewise to see this point and the age of care and protection raised.

I want to come specifically, though, to clause 4 of the bill. Clause 4 enacts the raising of the age of care and protection but it also highlights the difficulty we are creating for ourselves by having two distinct age ranges within the Children, Young Persons, and Their Families Act. Clause 4(1) sets out that the amendment to section 2(1) of the principal Act will replace the definition of “young person”, which in Parts 2 to 3A, now means “a person of or over the age of 14 years but under the age of 18 years:”, and in Parts 4 and 5, now means “a person of or over the age of 14 years but under the age of 17 years:”. So this bill is basically saying that there are two different meanings to the words “young person”—that a young person can be two completely different things. For the purposes of care and protection, which under the Act is set out in Parts 2 to 3A, there we will agree that a young person is under 18 years. But under Parts 4 and 5 of the Act, which are all the parts that relate to the youth justice system, oh, you are not a young person until you are 18; you are a young person until you are 17. That makes absolutely no sense.

If we believe there are grounds to consider that a young person should be someone under the age of 18 years, then we should be consistent about that. There is no rationale in this bill to say that we consider you a child for care and protection, but we do not consider you a child under the criminal justice system. I want to be very clear here. If we are looking for a rationale—a consistent one—there should be one no greater than the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. That is the guiding principle that says to all countries, not just to New Zealand, that a young person is a child if they under 18 years, and we should treat them that way, not least for care and protection. But if you are going to have that convention, then perhaps the most important measure of society is whether you are willing to do that in your criminal justice system, where you have the ability to imprison.

In terms of the practicalities of what these split definitions in clause 4 mean here—essentially, we could have a situation. Parts 2 to 3A of the Act relate to care and protection, including family group conferences, but often those family group conferences are dealing not just with care and protection issues. Often they will deal with youth justice issues. We could have a situation where you could have a family group conference around the future care and protection needs of a child, but you would not be able to discuss any criminality that might be involved, because that could be dealt with only in a District Court. We have now split this young person in two, based on an arbitrary measure of their age.

We are firmly of the view of Andrew Becroft, who is our Children’s Commissioner but has been Principal Youth Court Judge, that you cannot do that in any functional system—we need consistency—and that the Youth Court is not a soft touch. It is the best option for a person in that age group in terms of rehabilitation, the ability to restore, and the ability to prevent a young person from staying in the system. So we are not saying this just because we believe in the rights of a child; we are saying it because the outcomes are better as well—the outcomes are better.

We have an SOP as well—SOP 248—that will bring consistency to what is currently two split definitions in clause 4. Having said that, I will highlight that although we want the age raised, generally, we will vote for the clause that allows for the age of care and protection to be lifted because we do support that happening.

I want to come now to clause 6. This gives an amended set of duties to the chief executive around giving consideration to the needs of those who are in care. So, basically, it is giving a chance for a young person to express their views around the services they receive—basically, around what happens to them. The point we want to make is that we absolutely support these clauses and we will be voting for them. But we really want to give a bit more clout to them, and put a bit more responsibility on the chief executive to make sure they are actually happening. One way we thought we could do that was to publish annually what action had been taken to make sure that the views of children were being taken into account. We are going to pop that into the bill as well, through our SOP. If memory serves, it was a suggestion from the Children’s Commissioner at the select committee that we thought made absolute sense, not least because the Children’s Commissioner has an advocacy role for children at present, and does a very good job, but it is very difficult for the Office of the Children’s Commissioner, on its roughly $2 million budget, to play the advocacy role it would like to play, to give children that voice.

We are adding new functions in here, but there has been no suggestion as to how that would be funded. It is our view that if we put in a requirement to report to Parliament, we would have a very acute eye as to whether or not we were doing enough to operationalise what is here in the legislation around giving children a voice, keeping in mind that, of course, the Office of the Children’s Commissioner, in recent times, has had to close offices and has had to reduce visits to residential facilities, which is a legislated function that it has, from 1 year to 18 months because of the financial constraints that it has. If the intention is that the Office of the Children’s Commissioner is the one to operationalise some of these checks and balances that ensure children in care are having their voice heard, then it is absolutely under-resourced to do that job.

I would be very keen to hear the view of Nicky Wagner, the Minister in the chair, on what opposition there would be to simply putting in a requirement that we just report on the first anniversary of the commencement date on how well we have been doing in giving young people a voice. I think it seems like a fairly common-sense provision, to me.

I want to come to clause 7. This is where a number of our most significant concerns lie. I imagine it is something that I will need to continue a call on.

We raised in the second reading our concern with these new sections. This entire section allows the chief executive to delegate social worker powers to anyone they are satisfied meets three basic tests. The first requirement is that they meet section 41 of the State Sector Act 1988. I have looked up section 41 and that mostly relates to what practically you need to do to delegate any powers as a ministry. Basically, in summary, it says that the Minister has to approve it and you have to write it down. That is, basically, what section 41 is, so it is not too dissimilar to what is noted in the bill itself. I would like to come back in another call to speak more on this.

I rise to take a call on the Committee stage of the Children, Young Persons, and Their Families (Advocacy, Workforce, and Age Settings) Amendment Bill. This is a bill that we have been quite clear we are unable to support in its entirety. There are specific provisions in the bill, however, that we are very happy to support if they were all that was contained in this bill. In my contribution this afternoon I would like to go through some of those specific provisions and talk in a bit more detail to them: the lost opportunity that we see in some, the very real concern that we see in others, and the sense of hope in others, again.

First of all, I would like to speak to the commencement date, which is in clause 2. This bill is intended to commence on 1 April 2017, which is set to coincide with the start of the new ministry, which has been so poorly named: the Ministry for Vulnerable Children, Oranga Tamariki, which has raised very significant concerns in the community. I think the point has been well made that “Oranga” in terms of well-being is cancelled out by the concept of vulnerability. To put those two things together in a title is misunderstanding the concept, and, actually, it wipes it out in practice. We have concerns about that.

It does need to be understood that what this legislation does is not a mild tinkering with our current child protection service. This is a potential dismantling of the State care and protection services, and that is enabled by this legislation. But there is very little detail in this legislation. As was pointed out by some of the submitters to the Social Services Committee—I think the phrase from the Children’s Commissioner was that it seems that the legislation had “outstripped the policy process”. It may have been put a little bit more eloquently than that. But it is basically saying that we have got legislation that enables anything to happen, because the policy work has not actually happened to work out what this will mean in practice.

We are being asked to pass legislation that provides for protection of our children who have been hurt and damaged, without knowing what that is going to mean in practice, and this is going to come into force on 1 April. I do think that the commencement date, and the time frame for this, is really important to consider. Although I have been pushing for a long time for changes, for more money to be going into the system, for more urgent action, and for the need for urgency—as have others on this side of the Chamber, because we know that kids right now are unsafe in the system as it is operating and the Office of the Children’s Commissioner does not have adequate funding to be able to provide oversight of the safety of the system—if the policy work has not been done to make sure that we get the right answer, to make sure that we have got a system that will protect those children, then it is not right. That really has to be our first priority. We have to put the thought into that, to make sure we are not making mistakes. The Green Party is not confident that that work has been done.

I move on to speak to some of the other points that we do support in this legislation. We do support the raising of the age of care and protection to 18. This, again, is one of those things that has been asked for, for a very long time. I sat on the Social Services Committee when we considered the Vulnerable Children Bill. We heard from young people who had been transitioned out of care at a time when they were not able to sign a lease on a flat to be able to live independently, and who ended up homeless on the street. At that time it was really clear to me that we needed to raise the age of care and protection to 18, yet this Government chose not to do that.

Here we are, several years later, finally—after several opportunities have passed—we are giving this House the opportunity to act on that call from those young people and to be able to provide that smoother transition for those young people into the next stage of their life, and that is really critical. However, as has already been pointed out by Labour’s Jacinda Ardern, it is nonsensical from our perspective to be raising the age of care and protection and not be raising the age for youth justice as well. As we were told time and time again by the submitters to the select committee, these are often the same young people. Many young people in our society who have youth justice concerns have been in care or are in care at the same time. To say that if nothing is going wrong, you are a “young person”, but if this half of you did something wrong, you are an “adult” just does not make sense.

New Zealand is lagging behind internationally in understanding this. We have an exception in place on the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. That is an international agreement that puts the onus on us to recognise that our young people are children until the age of 18, regardless of whether they have committed crimes or not.

This is not to say that our system does not hold those young people to account if they do something wrong. Youth justice responses are actually more effective than adult justice responses. This is not about giving young people a pass; this is actually about recognising that they are children. This is about having an effective system that is consistent and sets out consistent expectations and responses, and it is also about what is effective.

It was really compelling to hear the new Children’s Commissioner—I think it was his first submission, when he got to present on this—who was previously the Principal Youth Court Judge, telling us how effective the youth justice system is and how much more beneficial it would be for all of us, and especially those young people, if we were to extend the age to 18.

We will be very happy in the Green Party to be supporting Supplementary Order Paper (SOP) 248 in the name of Jacinda Ardern, to be able to define “young person” and replace “17 years” with “18 years”, to get that consistency in our system. It really needs to be done. It should have been done before, and it is, frankly, embarrassing for me that New Zealand is one of the last countries in the world that is still treating our children as adults in the justice system.

I do not have that much more time in this call, but I would like to also say that we will be supporting the other aspect of Jacinda Ardern’s SOP. That adds a little bit more grunt to the aspect of the bill that embeds the views of young people and children into the system and that requires publishing annually, after the first anniversary of the date of commencement, how the views of children and young people have been given regard to in changes in the system. There is more that we would, perhaps, have added to this, but this is, I think, just taking us a little bit further in giving the intent that has been specified by the Minister previously as the purpose of this bill.

I rise to take a call on the Children, Young Persons, and Their Families (Advocacy, Workforce, and Age Settings) Amendment Bill in its Committee stage. We had the report from the expert advisory panel (EAP), and some of those findings in that report were quite significant. Hence, in response to that, the first phase of changes to the Children, Young Persons, and Their Families Act is quite important.

The previous speaker, Jan Logie, in her comments talked about, in a sense, the legislation as it stands and some of the challenges. We do not disagree with that. In fact, it is out of the EAP, and we think that is important.

The expert advisory panel report was significant because what it did was raise a number of significant things. There had previously been 14 different reviews. What was a point of difference for the Minister for Social Development and her leadership but also for the Social Services Committee was around looking towards overhauling the system. Inside of that, there was no disagreement that there needed to be some change. There needed to be change that was significant in a number of different ways, hence the reason for the first part of those changes, through this bill.

The first change that was significant was in regard to the raising of the age and extending the State’s responsibility for the care and protection of a vulnerable young person until the person’s 18th birthday. In fact, I can remember—it might have been in 2012 or 2013—I was at an event for the Dingwall Trust, I think it might have been. Ms Ardern was there. I remember the young people who got up and shared their stories about their transition from State care, the challenges that they faced, and the trauma, at times, in regard to having a place of lodging and accommodation—they had already been through a traumatic experience themselves, which led them to their current circumstances. They pleaded, they encouraged, and they challenged the system that at that time it was important that we needed to have that change. So I believe that this is important. We also heard in submissions from those same young people about this. In hearing that, this change is actually quite significant for those young people. The extending of State responsibility is critically important to that, as well.

The second part that I think is important to the changes is ensuring that vulnerable young people are able to express their views. We know that inside the Children, Young Persons, and Their Families Act itself—we have talked about the paramountcy foundation clause that exists. That is to ensure that we have the voice of the children—that the concerns of the children are taken into account—but what we have not always factored into that process is where you include the voice and the concerns of children. Part of the EAP’s work was to ensure—and the Minister had commissioned it—that there would be a youth advisory panel as well. What was quite interesting in the panel’s responses was around the needs expressed by them—that they were not always taken into account. They said that what was critically important was to ensure that they had a stable place of lodging, rather than being transitioned from one home to the next. That was quite a common story that was expressed.

Ensuring that they have a voice for their concerns and issues but also opportunities is critically important, hence the reason why, inside this bill, we ensure that the voice of children is included. That actually is consistent. When we talk about the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, we talk about the other jurisdictions internationally that also have attempted to include the voices of children, hence the reason why the youth advisory panel was significant and important, as well.

The third thing that I believe is important is the establishment of a youth advocacy service. The important role that that plays is to ensure that—a variety of services are needed. They may not always be social work practices and they may not always be those that are therapeutic services, such as counsellors, psychotherapists, and the like, but there are a range of other youth advisory support services that exist. That service is critically important. We believe that that component is important as well.

We know that the EAP said that the system does not place children at the centre, and does not meet the needs of vulnerable young people. It is fragmented. It lacks clear accountability. It is not organised in a way that we believe is consistent and also has the best outcomes of the young people and their whānau at heart. We believe that these changes have been important—we heard from submitters inside the select committee, as well.

It is encouraging to see that the majority of the House is actually in support of this legislation, especially its first phase of changes, which are coming back. I commend this legislation, in its Committee stage, to the House.

Labour has been clear in its position. Jacinda Ardern has outlined previously that the bill contains a change that we have pushed extremely hard for, and that is the raising of the age for care and protection. It is something that we believe passionately in, and it was the basis of our support for this bill at every stage up until now. But also within the bill is a regressive and dangerous set of provisions, in my view, that will allow the chief executive to delegate powers that can currently be performed only by Child, Youth and Family (CYF) social workers. There is no ability in the new legislation for Parliament to have the kind of oversight of these powers—the checks and balances—that has previously been in place. We cannot support that provision when it could allow any professionals, at the whim of the chief executive, to hold powers like the removal of children.

I want to speak a little to that, because my experience with the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child provisions goes back a way, to when I was working in Treasury a number of years ago. It has been a source of some embarrassment to New Zealand that we have not met our obligations internationally in this respect, so it is good that that age is being addressed, but it is also a concern that we have been slow to act to meet our obligations. In part, I think this is motivated by the fact that we do not fund this area as well as we might. It is an incredibly difficult area to address because it deals with complicated problems. When we have children who are vulnerable, who are in trouble, and who come from families where things are not as they should be, something has to go very wrong before the State intervenes, and so, by definition, the problems we are dealing with here are complex.

My concern is about the accountability loss for Parliament. If we enact these clauses, we will not have the same oversight that we have had. The danger that we have seen repeated in this House—and it has happened in the healthcare sector, too—is that we delegate responsibilities down, without allowing the funding to follow. We delegate to the community the care for vulnerable people—often in the mental health sector—without allowing adequate funding for that care in the community. It may well be that in many cases that delegation is appropriate—that community care agencies are the best people to handle the care of vulnerable children. But there must always be accountability at the parliamentary level, in my view, for the quality of that care because it is incumbent upon the State to look after all of its citizens, and especially its most vulnerable citizens.

If we look closely at the history of the cost pressures within CYF, we can see that CYF is struggling already within its current budget. In 2016-17, for example, it is forecasting a deficit of up to $36 million due to demand-driven costs. That has a very real impact on its ability to deliver services. What I am concerned about is that this framework that we are looking at here in the Committee, which is likely to go through, will facilitate something that has the best of intentions behind it but upon which the State cannot deliver and cannot then be held accountable for. It is a basic principle of public policy that the State ultimately—particularly in these matters—should have a care and protection overview and accountability function, to know that it is discharging its duties properly.

So I would be interested in the Minister in the chair perhaps addressing how those accountability measures are going to be put in place, so that the public can be reassured that this legislation really will achieve what it is going to achieve on what is already a very limited budget. Thank you.

I am very pleased to take a call on the Children, Young Persons, and Their Families (Advocacy, Workforce, and Age Settings) Amendment Bill. I do want to acknowledge the work that Minister Anne Tolley has done in her time as Minister for Social Development and that, you know, I am aware that the Minister is wanting to make some changes to support our most vulnerable citizens, and I do commend her for that work.

What I want to point to in this bill is that I do believe that there are some bigger principles and some wider policy discussion that needs to go in place, because I believe that this is one of a suite of changes that the Minister wants to make. It is evident that some of those changes will impact on the way that this particular piece of legislation will operate when it becomes an Act, and actually is enacted into Child, Youth and Family.

Why I say that is because of some of the comments that the submitters made at the select committee. There were several submitters, such as the New Zealand Council of Christian Social Services, the Nurses Organisation, and the Public Service Association (PSA), and they had a similar theme. Their theme was that they were concerned about the fact that the legislators were being asked to support radical reform to the core functions of the State before any detailed design, including impact analysis and stakeholder consultation, was undertaken. Also, there was a comment by the PSA to say that its members were dubious about agreeing broadly to these preliminary proposals without knowing how they might impact on advocating for vulnerable children in the future. The submitters were giving us a sense that there is a broader plan in place and that this is one aspect of that broader plan, and without actually knowing the aspects of what the Government has in mind, it is difficult for us to be supporting some of these proposals.

One of the most significant proposals in here, which Jacinda Arden spoke to and which relates to new Part 7—the details that are in schedule 2 of new Part 10—relates to the ability of the chief executive to delegate responsibility. The example that has been quoted by other members in the House has been about the responsibility with regard to the uplift of children. That is a significant issue. It is a significant issue for Māori and Pacific families, and it causes an awful lot of distress. My concern in this regard is that we have not been given fulsome details about who might be the responsible agencies that may then take up the role of caring for our vulnerable children, should they be uplifted. I believe that part of that discussion is yet to be decided, and that is part of a wider, broader policy debate that is currently happening within the Ministry of Social Development.

I would really recommend that we get a sense of what is going to happen before we actually decide the mechanism with which we are going to allow that to happen. I understand that there are some principles in some clauses within this piece of legislation that sit outside that framework, but in this regard, which is the most significant—the uplift of children is a hugely distressing and disruptive thing to happen within a family, and many families do not recover from that. It takes many, many years—sometimes generations—to recover from that if it is not done well, and in this regard I would want us to give full consideration to the mechanisms of that and to who is actually going to provide that support.

I do want to pick up on the discussion of the previous speaker, David Clark, about accountability, because not only does the responsibility of that particular act need some further discussion but also how we are going to ensure accountability back to the ministry in that regard. It is a significant part of the legislation and one we need to give considerable discussion to. Thank you.

I thought it would be appropriate if I took a call at this stage and addressed some of the issues that have been raised in the debate to date. I thank all members for their thoughtful approach to this first piece of legislation.

I stress that this is the first piece of legislation to be put in place in order for the new ministry to be up and running on 1 April, with some changes in place to help what is going to be a programme of—I keep saying—4 to 5 years’ change. I understand everyone’s enthusiasm and perhaps impatience for those changes to happen fast, but I stress—and it will indicate why I am not going to support the Supplementary Order Paper (SOP) from Jacinda Ardern—that in order to make this work, we have to do it properly. We have tried on many, many occasions to make some quick fixes and, actually, it has not changed the lives of those young people who are in State care. So I have said from the beginning that we are going to take this slowly and carefully, and we are going to make the changes in the time and the manner that we can be assured is going to be in the best interests of the young people who either are in State care or are at risk of going into State care.

So let us take some of the issues one by one: first of all, the idea of immediately bringing into this bill the 17-year-olds in the youth justice system. There are about 5,000 of them who would have come, from the time this bill was enacted, into the youth justice system. There is not the capability to deal with them. Whether it is through the police youth aid, whether it is through community organisations, or whether it is through NGOs, there is not the capability to deal quickly and effectively with that number of extra young people in our youth justice residences. I am sorry, but I could not stand in this Chamber, hand on heart, and say that there are about 100 to maybe 120 of those 17-year-olds who are quite serious offenders and that our youth justice residences could cope with that number from the date of the time that this legislation comes into being. So—

💬 Hon Ruth Dyson: Well, phase it in.

That is right. As I have said before, the youth justice age is under consideration by Cabinet. It is under careful consideration as to how that might be phased in, if at all, and no decisions have been made at this stage. To just plonk an SOP down and say that “From the time this bill is enacted, it is going to happen.” is headline-making, and it might make people feel good, but I can tell you it will not have the effect for those 17-year-olds that the genuine mood of this House wants to achieve. So that is the first thing.

I make the point that we are extending that age of care quite carefully. This bill represents that first change, up to the 18th birthday. We believe that we can manage that effectively, but, beyond that, we have already signalled we want to create that right to remain in care up to 21, and that will be phased in. That is in the second piece of legislation, and we will show some indication of when that will be phased in when we believe we are capable of providing the sort of support that these young people need.

There is no point in legislating for stuff that we cannot deliver. And it is not just a question of money; it is a question of capability and it is a question of effectiveness, because we have a system in place now that is not delivering. We have got to change that, and we have got to change it from the ground up. Quick headlines are not going to change those kids’ lives.

Secondly, I want to deal with the issue of publishing the young people’s views. Look, I understand the desire to see that this is truly happening—I genuinely understand that. All I can say is that this bill is not the appropriate one to do that in. The next bill is the appropriate one to show how those young people’s views are in place, when we have that much broader piece of legislation that shows what those major changes are going to be. If you want to get an idea of that, I have already made available, I think, four, possibly five, Cabinet papers that show the sorts of changes we are proposing to make in that second piece of legislation. I hope to have that in the House by the end of the year, and I am happy to provide full briefings on that legislation to anyone who wants it.

The third point in SOP 248 is around the point that the previous speaker, Poto Williams, talked about. I do accept that it is hard to understand why you would make a change like that without that broader aspect of how it is actually going to work in practice. Let me assure you that I have not proposed that change lightly—the Government is not proposing that change lightly, and we do understand that it is a significant change. First of all, research, evidence, and overseas experience show—and, actually, our own social workers themselves know—that too many more of these young children today are presenting with higher and more complex issues that cannot be solved by social workers alone. We need that multidisciplinary approach—many professionals sitting around and working together to help children, young people, and their families.

To give some examples of what might be possible by making that change: for instance, we are talking with a large number—and Child, Youth and Family already has six contracts, I think, with iwi that are wanting to take, and are taking, more and more responsibility for dealing with their tamariki. I can see that there could be the possibility of working with capable iwi that have the capacity to actually put that process into practice themselves. It could be delegated to appropriately qualified people within an iwi to work with their tamariki. That is a possibility.

There is also a possibility of working with some of our very well-qualified NGO providers that have qualified social workers themselves, whom we may wish to contract with in terms of some of those issues. Again, as I say, we might have a multidisciplinary team where we have paediatricians, child psychologists, hospital social workers, etc., all working together, and one of them might make the application. That is the sort of thinking behind this change. The Social Services Committee has strengthened some of the oversight around that. All of that has to be published in a way that the public can access, so they can see who these people are who are having these delegated powers. I do appreciate that some of this is quite high level, ahead of the operating practices. That does make it difficult, and those are the right questions for people to be asking.

As I say, I think that the select committee has done a good job on this bill. It is the first bill, with just a few changes. I am hoping to have the major legislative change that we are proposing in the House by the end of the year. I do thank the select committee and members of the House for their attention to these kids, who really need major changes to the way the State takes responsibility for their lives, to ensure that they can live full lives.

Tēnā koe, Mr Chair. Thank you very much for this opportunity. First can I take this opportunity to farewell Mr Fred Whata, who worked hard to ensure that Māori values were in the justice system—a rigid justice system. He was based out of Rotorua and was laid to rest on Thursday of last week—can I farewell him.

In farewelling him, I cast my mind back to other significant contributors to this discussion. Despite not being in the earthly realm with us today, their influence continues, and Judge Mick Brown is one who comes to mind. When the Minister for Social Development spoke about the length of time it takes to make such changes, I could not help but pull out my copy of Pūao-te-ata-tū – Daybreak—published some decades ago—and consider some of the recommendations made in there. I am reminded of the quote used by the member Jono Naylor, who quoted my grandfather in his maiden speech. He said: “We have come too far not to go further. We have done too much not to do more.” I am reminded of that particular saying at this point in time, when I consider the proposed changes in this bill.

My colleagues on this side of the Chamber have certainly expressed their view quite clearly on it, and I want to contribute in the same vein, with regard to—as detailed in Supplementary Order Paper 248 submitted by Jacinda Ardern—the changes around the age of 18, and with regard to how important that is in the wider debate about those particular circumstances that those young people find themselves in. It speaks to the confusion that is offered in this particular instance for so many of our young people, and I mentioned this in a previous debate on this bill, around a sort of rite of passage: “When am I a young person? When I am no longer a young person? What does this mean when I turn 18? I am still 17. Can I drink? Can I drive?”—well, not at the same time, and they certainly cannot drive after drinking. But they are wondering: “When can I do all these things?”. There is a large confusion amongst our young people, and we want to make sure that the law is very clear—I would not say “seamless”—that for these young people who find themselves in these unfortunate circumstances, in this particular instance it includes up to 18-year-olds.

I also want to talk about clause 7. Clause 7 is the one around the delegation of powers, and I take the Minister’s point around the delegation of powers to, potentially, iwi that look to care for the many Māori and many of their descendants who find themselves in the Child, Youth and Family system. Although I appreciate that there are a lot of Māori operators in the social work space, I cannot help but have a sense of trepidation and concern about, not the intent, but what this would look like. How do these powers of delegation actually play out on the ground, if we are, for example, as the Minister pointed out, giving responsibility to iwi to look after their young people? I have got a lot of concerns about that because in Tāmaki-makau-rau, where most of the children in State care are, we know that the majority of those tamariki are actually from Ngāpuhi, and, in terms of iwi influence, Ngāpuhi’s ability to provide services on the ground in Tāmaki-makau-rau is almost non-existent. I say that in respect of actually facilitating and executing those responsibilities of care as an entity—as a tribal entity—in Tāmaki-makau-rau, and that is a bit of a concern to me, although I acknowledge that many of the social workers in Tāmaki-makau-rau are actually of Ngāpuhi descent. But it gets back to that scope of delegation of powers and who that should go to.

I commend the stance made by many of the iwi at the Iwi Leaders Forum around their commitment to our young people. In fact, I was there a number of years ago when Naida Glavish and others made that commitment at the Iwi Leaders Forum. A number of years later, not much has changed. Speaking of “not much has changed”, if you just look in the Pūao-to-ata-tu – Daybreak book, you will see that the number of children in State care back in the 1980s is actually not too dissimilar from the number today.

I would like to thank the Minister for Social Development for standing and taking a call on this, because it is good to engage on the substance of what we are debating. However, I must say that I found the statements of the Minister rather confusing, if I am honest. We are being told on one hand that this is going to take 4 to 5 years, that the Minister does not want quick fixes, that she is going slowly and carefully, and that she will make sure that the changes will be in the best interests of the children. Yet we are passing legislation without the content and the policy work having been done.

That seems to me as if that is a process going ahead of itself and actually is being rushed, and I would challenge the Minister to question herself on that point. When the response is that we cannot raise the youth justice age because there is no capacity to deal with the numbers in the system at the moment, when there is the ability to phase it in through this legislation, I would ask the Minister to bring us a Supplementary Order Paper to actually phase in that aspect of it. If there is not the capacity right now, then let us not rush through this legislation, which is going to create mixed messages and confusion within the system. Let us phase that in in a proper time frame, so we can do it all at once, in a way that is consistent and does honour the wholeness of those young people.

Also, I really do take exception to the Minister giving us examples about what might happen from the delegated powers. I acknowledge, as the first point around that, that this legislation, as it is written at the moment, enables the wholesale delegation of what are currently Child, Youth and Family social worker and police powers. And they could be delegated to anyone, and they could be any of a large number of powers, including the uplifting of children and the search of houses. They are very, very significant powers. The Minister has told us that “Well, yes that work hasn’t been done yet, but that is OK.”, and that on some of the issues we should just trust her, despite the fact that the State Services Act guidance tells us that legislation should not enable the wholesale delegation of powers—but we should trust her because there is the possibility that iwi may be able to take on these roles.

So those of us who are concerned that 60 percent of children in care currently are tamariki Māori—and I would challenge anyone in the Committee to suggest that that does not show that institutional racism exists within our system at the moment. So, OK, we will enable iwi to be able to work with whānau, and, to me, I am actually OK with that. But what we have seen in the consultation to lead us to this legislation is that the expert advisory group consulted—and it said that it consulted with 200 people. The only people in that list identifiably from iwi, or even from Māori social services—there were nine. Nine out of 200.

So tell me how that is in any way going to lead to a Treaty-based solution. You throw it out there that this will enable iwi to be able to care for whānau, when there is so much deep concern that tamariki Māori are being taken and severed from their whakapapa and their families. You throw it out there that this will enable iwi to be able to work with those whānau, when there has been no decent consultation. There is not even a sniff of partnership in the process to this point. I think that is dishonest, and I will not accept that. The Green Party does not accept that we should be passing legislation without any specificity, on the promise of something that is not matched by evidence or practice up to this point. That is, frankly, unacceptable.

I do love passion, because it tells me that a speaker firmly believes what they are advocating, and you cannot ask for more than that. But I guess, of the points that have been discussed here today, if I was to categorise them, New Zealand First would be saying that it would pass the general thrust of this legislation. New Zealand First will still continue to support the bill through this Committee stage. With regard to the five points that are enunciated in the commentary on the bill, New Zealand First has already put on the record that it supports four of them, but it is concerned about the fifth bullet point.

There have been a couple of other things raised here today in regard to which I need to put our view squarely on the table. The first one is around Supplementary Order Paper (SOP) 248, which effectively raises the age of criminal responsibility from 17 to 18. New Zealand First will not support that SOP, and New Zealand First will probably draw the Committee’s attention back to 27 May 2008, when the second reading of my youth offenders bill was held in this House.

New Zealand First has reviewed all of the data. In fact, I have to commend Darroch Ball, who has picked up the social services portfolio for New Zealand First in his very first term. He has done a sterling job. One of the things he has done—and it has surprised even me—is to go back through and have a look at the data that we argued was clearly available to everybody in respect of youth offending. That data is very, very clear. Sometimes we gloss over these things and forget victims and we do focus on the offender.

I guess what we would say of that data, which is the reason we would not support this SOP, is that we challenge the statements being made by certain people—namely, the former Judge Becroft—about how wonderfully successful the youth justice system is, because we would say that the evidence shows that it is not effective. We know that back in 2008, 43 percent of all violent offending was carried out by youths—43 percent of all apprehensions across all crimes, all categories, and all age groups came down to the age group of 10 to 20. That, in itself, begged questions about the effectiveness of the youth justice system and questions as to what it was we were doing right and what it was we were doing wrong.

In fact, the evidence showed that all the 18-year-old adults of whom Judge Becroft was saying “Well, they’re adult offenders.” had all been through the youth justice system and had been failed within the youth justice system. They had gone in there at the age of 10, 11, 12, 15, 16 and had all been subjected to the wonders of this world-leading youth justice system, and the result was they were in prison at the ages of 18, 19, 20, 21. Of course, people used to argue back and say: “Well, that’s about adult offenders. It’s adults that are going to jail.” No, these adults were the graduates of the failing youth justice system.

So we would put on the record that we are happy to have this conversation in the context of the age of responsibility, in a more holistic form that examines coldly and clearly, on facts, the effectiveness of the youth justice system, the parameters of its jurisdiction, and what types of punishments or rehabilitation programmes it might be able to utilise or put into effect. We would say of this conversation around raising the age of criminal responsibility—accepting all of the arguments about the development of the brain. I have spent a lot of my time between my stints in Parliament involved with fostering kids and have had the privilege of listening to many clinical psychologists talking about the development of the brain. I understand those arguments.

And, by the way, I was a foster kid myself and was a kid who went through State care as a ward of the State. If you want to have this conversation about raising the age of care to 18, I am happy to endorse that because I was one of those kids who were put out at the age of 17. In fact, I often tell the story about how I got home and my parents had run away. Well, in actual fact, my foster parents no longer had any responsibility for me and, therefore, I had no home. In actual fact, when I joined the army at, get this, the age of 16—uh, oh! I was able to be subject to the military justice system, with everything that goes with it, because I was smart enough, bright enough, and intellectual enough, and my brain had developed to the state that I could understand the difference between right and wrong. But no, today, 16-year-olds are not, it would appear.

So I was in the military at the age of 16, but as a ward of the State in the care of the army. At the moment I turned 17, I was discharged as a ward of the State. I was out of the army’s care, I was out of the parental care of my foster parents, and I was on my own.

To find that we are sitting here in 2016 discussing this is a little sad, but I compliment—and I have done so privately—the Minister for Social Development on having the courage of actually making this move and raising the age of care up to 18.

We could probably have a conversation about going further than that for some young people who have gone through specifically traumatic events that have shaped the way they think and behave, through no fault of their own. But you cannot move the age of criminal responsibility and ignore the fact that age of 17, young people are fully entitled to make a decision around being parents, and are fully entitled to drive a vehicle and make split-second decisions about how they manoeuvre that vehicle at speed on a highway, where thousands of other people are driving. We cannot say that they do not have the compos mentis or the intellectual ability or the cognitive skills, or that their brain is not developed enough to be held responsible for their criminal behaviour, but they are able to be given a firearm and given a firearms licence, and they are allowed to drink under supervision—or not—and allowed to drive a vehicle of any cc rating on a motorway. That is a conversation that we are prepared to have. We would like to have that conversation around the age of responsibility, because there does need to be consistency right across the law, and we have failed to address that.

We will not be supporting the legislation. We would support a thorough, in-depth examination of the youth justice system. If we could get some improvements in there, then we would be open to a further conversation—but not one without the other.

On the issue of tamariki Māori being ripped from their iwi and put into ward care, let us just put on to the record James Whakaruru, “Lillybing”, Moko—there are a whole bunch of Māori kids out there. Me and Ria Bond, another ward of the State in the New Zealand First caucus—we know exactly what people are talking about. I had six foster parents, all of them Pākehā. Did I miss out on Te Reo Māori? Did I miss out on tikanga? Did I miss out on those things? I probably did. Was I given the opportunity to pick it up later on? Not when I would have liked to. But those things can come to you, and they have come to me. I ended up being Chief Executive of the Federation of Māori Authorities, and I have done a whole bunch of Treaty settlement work beyond that.

What is more important than anything—and this cuts across any decision to place people with a particular race of people because they think they will be better off there—are three things: that the home that they go into is a home where they will be loved, that the home that they go into is a home of compassion, and that the people who have chosen to put their hands up to take those children into their care want them in there, and they are not an accident and an inconvenience. That is all that matters, and it does not matter whether those caregivers are Chinese, Scottish, Irish, English, or South African—it does not matter. For me, as a Māori, the only thing that was important was being cared for and brought up in a safe home, in a loving home, in a forgiving home, because, boy, I made lots of mistakes and I caused lots of people a lot of heartache and heartbreak, and yet those foster parents stuck with me. That is what matters.

That brings us to the other point. We do have concerns about outsourcing and the opportunity for privatisation of care and the corporatisation of it. That worries us. We have no issues with dealing with NGOs like Fostering Kids, the Salvation Army, and some of those other NGOs that have been giving care, like the Open Home Foundation, for decades. But it would worry us if this legislation was used in some way, in some part, in some form at a later stage down the line to introduce a more corporatised model, and for the State to be devolving itself of its ultimate care and responsibility to those children.

It is a pleasure to speak in this, the Committee stage debate of the Children, Young Persons, and Their Families (Advocacy, Workforce, and Age Settings) Amendment Bill. I particularly want to focus on Supplementary Order Paper 248 in the name of my colleague Jacinda Ardern, and focus on our rationale for deleting clause 7 of the proposed legislation. New section 7A, inserted by clause 7, is titled “Delegations made under section 41 of State Sector Act 1988 to social workers”, so the emphasis in this particular part of the bill is, in fact, on diluting the influence of social workers and social workers’ current statutory responsibility in the management of the processes that determine whether or not young people are going to be removed from their families, and then on who, in fact, is responsible for caring for those young people.

I have managed to find the document titled Statutory Care and Social Work: Service Specifications, which the Ministry of Social Development released in 2015. It says that under section 19 of the Children, Young Persons, and Their Families Act, in working with iwi social service, cultural social service, and child and family support service providers, the social worker actually is empowered as a care and protection coordinator within the system. They have a statutory function and a statutory responsibility under section 20 to convene the family group conferences.

Within the proposed legislation there will be a requirement for delegations to persons who are not social workers. So it got me thinking: why would we want to remove that delegation? Why is the social work profession now not central to the whole functioning of the assessment of the needs of children, young people, and families that it then determines what the response is from the State? In the legislation we will enable the chief executive to delegate to—this is from new section 7C(2)(a)—“the person [who] is appropriately qualified to perform the function or exercise the power, taking into account the person’s training, experience, and interpersonal skills;”. So, currently, people who are qualified in the social work profession are deemed to fulfil that responsibility.

I would really like some further clarification from the Minister about whom she envisages is appropriately qualified to actually meet the objectives of the Children, Young Persons, and Their Families Act. Looking through the objects of the Act, it is about promoting “the well-being of children, young persons, and their families and family groups by—(a) establishing and promoting, and assisting in the establishment and promotion, of services and facilities within the community that will advance the well-being of children, young persons, and their families and family groups and that are—(i) appropriate having regard to the needs, values, and beliefs of particular cultural and ethnic groups; and … (iii) provided by persons and organisations sensitive to the cultural perspectives and aspirations of different racial groups in the community:”. So there is very much an emphasis on people having the skills to determine and make a diagnosis of what the actual issues are.

When you look on the Child, Youth and Family website, at its job description for the people who are most appropriate to perform this function, the ministry is really clear about what you need: “A qualification in social work (minimum of a Diploma at level 6, or Degree at level 7 or higher) is the preferred qualification.” It talks about consideration being given to applicants who have some papers towards a social work qualification at level 6, but there is a big emphasis on “papers that provide a theoretical framework for understanding human behaviour and there is a clear commitment to completing a recognised social work qualification.” So I think it is really important for the Minister to justify why, at the heart of Child, Youth and Family, the social work profession is now being completely—in some ways—erased.

I know, having completed a Bachelor of Social Policy and Social Work, that it is a 4-year commitment to a degree that then would have empowered me to have the qualifications to be able to make some of the determinations that we want from people who are participating in determining what the needs of the young person are and what the needs of children and families are, with the hope—

It is a pleasure to be able to rise to speak on this bill in this Committee stage. I think what we need to do is ensure that we do understand that this is, in fact, a bill that is in the context of a complete overhaul of the way that we are approaching Child, Youth and Family and the way that we do child welfare here in New Zealand.

I just want to address a couple of things that have been raised throughout this debate already this evening. The first point I want to just address is that it was said that the new title, “Ministry for Vulnerable Children, Oranga Tamariki”, has elements that are somehow contradictory to one another. I think it is a little bit disingenuous to put it that way—talking about vulnerable children and then, of course, “Oranga Tamariki”, where we are talking about the well-being of children. I would have thought that actually, for vulnerable children, we want them to have positive well-being and have positive outcomes. So I actually think that the title of the new ministry actually is exactly where we need it to be. It is about actually wanting us to ensure that vulnerable children will have good outcomes and that there will be good well-being for them.

I think we would all acknowledge that some great work has been done by Child, Youth and Family over the time of its existence. There has been great practice done in various shapes and forms and it has been world-leading in different ways, but, as Alfred Ngaro intimated before, there have been 14 reviews, and yet we are still not achieving the kinds of outcomes for children in care that we would want to achieve. I want to commend the Hon Anne Tolley for grabbing the bull by the horns and saying: “Actually, we’re going to put a line in the sand. We’re not going to accept those negative outcomes that we have been achieving, and we’re going to do things differently to ensure that we get better outcomes, better well-being, for our vulnerable young people in New Zealand.”

Of course, this very first step is about raising the age from 17 to 18, and I think that is absolutely critical. I think any parent of a 17-year-old, if they have any values whatsoever, would not necessarily just boot them out of the house at the age of 17 and say: “You’re on your own.” It does not make any sense whatsoever, and yet that is the way it has been. So this legislation is going to go some way to putting that right, and we have had indications that there is a possibility down the track that we will extend that further, but this first step is absolutely the right step in that regard.

There has been some unrest, I guess, throughout this debate about section 7, or clause 7, I think—I cannot remember; I am probably using the wrong terminology—in terms of the delegating powers of the chief executive. This type of thing actually occurs already. If anybody has heard of the Open Home Foundation or Barnardos, or any of these other very good non-governmental organisations that are engaging in care and protection work on behalf, sometimes, of the ministry, they do some very, very good work.

Poto Williams talked about the upheaval for families when children are uplifted and the ongoing scars. Having been involved in that practice, I can tell you that it does leave scars on social workers at times, as well, not just on the families, although, obviously, it is far more traumatic for the families. If there is an ability to be able to delegate some of those responsibilities to someone who is going to be able to do it with a greater sense of care and be able to achieve a better outcome and better long-term outcomes for those young people than perhaps having eight social workers and two police officers break down your door and storm into your house and pick up your children—well, if there is a better way of doing that I would absolutely support that because I can tell you now that that is not a great thing for families and it is not a great thing for social workers, either.

So let us just be sensible about this. We are not trying to pass it off to anybody. What we are wanting to do through this bill is ensure that children and young people in New Zealand will be given the very best service that we can possibly give them, that we will extend the age of care, and that they will actually go into families where they are loved, where they are cared for, and where they are supported, not just because they happen to be relatives. We have had some practices that do need to change to ensure that we have better outcomes long term, and I support this legislation. I look forward to further legislation where we will be able to do even more for the young people of New Zealand.

I want to take the opportunity to respond to some of the comments that Minister Anne Tolley made from the chair, and to seek a little more clarity from her. It is always helpful to hear directly from the Minister around the intent for some of these clauses. The Minister responded to some of our calls around clause 4—about having a split definition for the age of care and protection and then a split definition for youth justice, as this bill now contains—by saying that she had worked through the number of young people who would be brought into the system and there simply was not capability within the system to deal with an extra 5,000 young people.

I have two quick responses to that. Firstly, not all young people under those circumstances would need to go into a youth justice residence. They would not all, by default, be given supervision with residence, as was implied, and so we would not suddenly have 5,000 people needing to go into the system.

Even then, there would be a way to deal with that. The implication was that there was not capacity within the youth justice system to deal with it. Even then, one simple way around that would be to phase in the commencement of that element of the bill. On this side of the House, we would have supported that. We are absolutely pragmatic; we understand that it would take time to build what capacity might be required. I would, for instance, encourage the Minister to shut Te Puna Wai ō Tuhinapo tomorrow and start again, when it comes to services in the South Island. If that means building in a later commencement date so that we have services that are not dangerous to young people, we would work alongside the Minister for that. We have the capacity in this House to build in commencement dates that are staggered, so we would support that. I do not think capacity within youth justice is a justification to have what the Children’s Commissioner has described as a very difficult logistical way to deal with young people in two systems.

The second point that I want to make is—the Minister talked about this bill being, overall, about trying to do things differently to make sure we improve outcomes for kids. Look, no one is saying that the outcomes we have now are good. Even the former Children’s Commissioner Russell Wills pointed out that in some circumstances the point at which we intervene is not necessarily an improvement on the environment that these young people are in. That is a staggering comment to make, and should give us pause for thought. No one here is arguing that we have got great outcomes and we do not need to do anything.

However, making the argument that this bill we have before us, for instance, is going to be the thing that changes everything fails to acknowledge that we never actually really gave the current system we have a very good shot. The analogy I would draw is that it is like driving a brand new car around for 10 years and never servicing it, never changing the tyres, and never putting oil in the car, and then, when it breaks down, saying: “Well, that car was stuffed. Let’s chuck it out.” If you do not service a system properly or resource it properly or work alongside to build the capacity of your professionals properly, of course you are going to have problems. Taking powers away from professionals and giving them to others carte blanche, with a blank cheque, changes nothing about the way you originally resource the system. That is just an analogy I wanted to make.

I also want to absolutely acknowledge that when the Minister talked about clause 7, which has been the most controversial of all of the clauses that we are discussing, she talked about the need to make sure that we do the work properly. I absolutely agree. In fact, had the Minister wanted to take a bit more pause over this bill—maybe keep it at the select committee a little bit longer and spend a bit more time putting more definitions and constraints around the delegated powers—we would have been able to give that clause proper consideration, because some of the examples I have heard of how we might want to delegate powers have been reasonably innocuous. For instance, I have heard the idea that psychologists might want to have the ability to put a report directly to the Family Court, rather than via a social worker. That is a reasonably innocuous thing to do. If that was what the bill said, yes, we would have been able to consider that and probably look quite favourably on it. That makes sense.

That is not what this bill says, and I must be absolutely clear on this. In fact, what the members on the other side of the House referred to when talking about other community organisations—[Bell rung] Mr Chair.

The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Trevor Mallard): Jacinda Ardern.

Mr—oh, my name, right. In fact, when the members on the other side of the House have talked about other community organisations being able to carry out functions, obviously, we support the ability of those organisations to be part of the differential response model. We implemented that. We implemented that, but we clearly defined what our intent was and what power those organisations should have, and, in fact, they are powers that those organisations were comfortable with. We had a scenario at the select committee in which we had organisations that might have the professionals the Minister describes as taking over these powers, which said (a) “We don’t know what they are.” and (b) “If they are as big as this bill implies, we don’t want them. We don’t want those powers.”

Let us be absolutely clear. Given that the Minister talked about the need to take a multidisciplinary approach to working with children, that makes it sound like we are going to have psychologists and social workers working alongside each other to formulate a plan for a child. That is what it sounds like. But what the bill says about this multidisciplinary approach—let us be very clear—means that they might have the power under section 39 of the Children, Young Persons, and Their Families Act given to them. What is that power? That is the power to remove a child. That is the power to go and uplift a child.

What about section 40? That is the enforcement of access rights—that is, taking possession of a child and taking them to an access arrangement. You do not need a multidisciplinary approach to uplift a child under those circumstances. What you need is accountability, responsibility, and oversight. That is what you need.

What about ensuring that a child is at a hearing? Or search warrants to recover a child who has absconded or is absent? Or safety warrants? None of these are things that are about, for instance, trying to give psychologists greater access to the Family Court or, for instance, giving a paediatrician a say in a care plan for a child. All of that we would probably have sat down and considered very reasonably. That is not what this bill does.

Minister, I would just like to highlight again that we absolutely agree that we want to, of course, work towards the best outcomes for children. But there is a reason that since 1989 the Children, Young Persons, and Their Families Act has been very specific that only police officers and Child, Youth and Family (CYF) social workers—not even differential response social workers, not even contracted social workers, but CYF social workers—have those roles. That is because we have to be the ones with the care, the responsibility, and the accountability. If we make a mistake collectively, as the State, then we are the ones who must take responsibility.

The closest example I can draw is that you would never want these powers to be held by the likes of Serco. The Minister might say that that is an extreme example, but, actually, I have got nothing here in clause 7 to demonstrate to me that it could not have that power delegated to it. In fact, new section 7C(2)(b) in clause 7 explicitly states that you could have someone who has contractual obligations and who sits entirely outside the State have these powers awarded to them. That is significant, and if that is not what the Minister intended to do, then the Minister should have been explicit about that. We might then have had a position where all of us could have supported this bill, because the Minister knows how hard we campaigned for some of the elements that are in this bill.

I am being honest. It breaks me that we are going to be in a position where we are going to have to vote against it because the powers that we are giving to just about anyone are too great. That is the true test of how far this bill is going.

Just to perhaps also draw on one of the Minister’s points, to finish on—she talked about, as an example, contracts with iwi and how the delegation powers would enable, I am assuming, a greater role for iwi in working with children in these situations. Well, actually, (a) we are able to do that now, (b) have you asked iwi whether they want the ability to remove a child or to investigate a child abuse allegation involving a child and do they want those powers—it is a genuine question; I have a big question mark over whether they would want those powers—and (c) you cannot say with one breath that we want to enhance the relationship with iwi, and then put out a Cabinet paper that says we are going to fundamentally remove the presumption that they are going to be the first place we go to when we place a child who has been removed from their whānau. That is in direct contradiction with all of the principles the Minister claims she is trying to uphold.

My contribution, I think, will follow on from that of the previous speaker, Jacinda Ardern, in specifically talking about clause 7. I want to just finish my earlier train of thought around what this may mean for Māori and the point that (1) there has not been good consultation leading up to this point, and (2) that Cabinet papers indicate that the Minister is looking, at the least, at amending the provisions to place children with whānau, hapū, and iwi. That is not just with immediate family, and to say that actually there is no safe person within someone’s iwi is an extraordinary statement that cannot be anything but racist. Then to say that this is about enhancing opportunities for iwi is, frankly, ridiculous.

We need to remember that it has been 20 or 30 years, I think, since Pūao-te-ata-tū. That was a result of such heartbreak for Māori of seeing children taken out of families and put into residences and abused and harmed, and the consequences of that time we are still living with, in that most of the people in our prisons are those people. We got that report because we recognised a need for a fundamental change, and yet here we are moving backwards from that time—back to that time when so much of the thought about what was going wrong with our system at that moment and how to address it was the focus of the Māori Party previously in the development of Whānau Ora. Actually, that was supposed to be the response to this—to be able to build up whānau so they were not at the point of having children needing to leave their immediate family—and yet that has not been properly resourced, and now we are having legislation that again provides some very, very mixed messages.

I will speak now to what this means for other, say, Pākehā services, even if they are working just with Pākehā families. I want to address this and what the Minister has been saying. The previous National speaker, Jono Naylor, has said: “Well, actually, why should we have this role, of uplifting children, searching homes to go and find children and assess whether they are in danger, and removing the kids, restricted to Child, Youth and Family? Couldn’t that role be given to a nice lovely NGO that has got a nice relationship and would not be quite so scary?”. Well, the NGOs that presented in front of the Social Services Committee, which that member sat on, told us they do not want that role—that, actually, core to their ability to have that relationship with those families is the fact that they do not do that work. They do not have the potential to come and uplift those families’ kids. The actual relationship is at the heart of that work, and to uplift children would be to actually undermine the entire process.

We also need to recognise, and it was stated very clearly by the New Zealand Council of Christian Social Services, that talking about handing over roles to the community sector and the NGOs at a time when they are so underfunded that their staff are just at breaking point, and we heard at the homelessness inquiry that it was a little bit like being in a war zone without medicine because they have not had funding increases for 8 years—the talk about giving those agencies and those staff members roles far, far beyond what they have now is, frankly, irresponsible. We were told that very clearly in the committee process.

We need to recognise as well that the oversight of the system is also inadequately funded—that the Office of the Children’s Commissioner has that statutory role for ensuring safety and it has said that within the existing centralised system, it is not funded to be able to adequately ensure the safety of the children. So then, if you talk about delegating out those responsibilities and powers, how on earth can they provide that check and balance when they cannot do it in a centralised system?

We also heard from NGOs that they were very concerned that this would have an impact on maintaining expertise and lead to the fragmentation of the system. It is worrying, to say the least.

I want to make a couple of points—probably three, actually—in my contribution to the debate on the Children, Young Persons, and Their Families (Advocacy, Workforce, and Age Settings) Amendment Bill. The first thing I want to do is congratulate the Minister for Social Development. Raising the age of kids in care is a really positive move, and I want to congratulate her on that. She knows that Labour has pushed for that change for a very long time. It is something that we passionately believe in. It will be good. I think most of the submitters—in fact, all of the submitters, perhaps with a couple of exceptions—supported that change. The fact that the Minister has indicated that there are further steps to take in supporting a better transition from being in care to being out of care is a really welcome move.

In fact, we had a bill before the House in 2008 that had exactly this provision, and then we lost the election and the incoming National Government dumped that bill. I am really sort of puzzled as to why it did that, and it is now introducing the very provision that we could have had in place all those years ago—8 years ago. But I guess we have wasted only 8 years, and now the Minister has, clearly, been able to win the argument within her own Cabinet and caucus and has managed to reintroduce the measure that was dumped so long ago. I remember the petition from Lifewise and the Dingwall Trust to do this very thing, and I just want to acknowledge the passionate work of those people and many others who signed the petition and have been part of an ongoing campaign over many years to introduce this policy change. I also acknowledge the former Principal Youth Court Judge Andrew Becroft. He is the Children’s Commissioner now, and his has long been a voice for this change and others.

I want to acknowledge the sad contribution that Jono Naylor made. I thought Jono Naylor had more experience in this area and would have been able to make a more thoughtful and considered contribution, but I was disappointed with it. The idea that, currently, organisations like the Open Home Foundation and Barnardos can perform core statutory roles that are, in the law, to be performed only by Child, Youth and Family is just wrong. It is incorrect, and I saw the Minister nodding. I thought she should know better. She should know better than to agree with the nonsense that that member said—that the issue that is causing such concern for so many people, which is included in this bill, is currently able to be done. What a nonsense. Why would we be changing the law to allow it if it is currently being done? Jono Naylor said that the Open Home Foundation and Barnardos are breaking the law around the country currently, and the Minister nodded her head.

💬 Jono Naylor: No I didn’t. You should’ve listened, Ruth.

There are some provisions—I did listen. It was hard work, but I did. The idea that any role can be performed by any organisation is just without moral, in my view. There are some actions that should have the accountability of a Minister and the accountability of a department and the accountability to Parliament. In my view, the removal of a child from their family is one such provision. We should not say that it should be done by any organisation, without any professional qualifications mandated, at the discretion of a chief executive who has very limited accountability to Parliament and has accountability only, really, to the State Services Commission. I think it is wrong.

I agree with the differential response model. I think it is a really good programme, because it shows that there are lots of organisations that can provide high-quality support to children in our communities who need that support, but the differential response model never went as far as saying that the removal of a child is not the responsibility of a State. I want to invite the Minister to consider over the dinner break one single point: the Minister would be celebrated around the country if she persisted with the raising of the age in care. Everyone would celebrate that move, and there would not be a negative word against this Draconian provision, this regressive provision, of saying that a child can be removed from their family by somebody other than a Government department—a statutory responsibility that we would give to a Government department.

I think it would be a great thing on an issue that is as important as the welfare, the well-being, the care, and support of children who need intervention in their lives to have a good outcome. We can debate about a whole lot of the other provisions that other colleagues have mentioned tonight, but I think it would be a great outcome for Parliament in a week when we have shown that with natural disasters we can present a unified response, because we are more mature than the way that we often behave in this Parliament. We can rise to the occasion. I think it would be a great move for the Minister to rise to that occasion, to put aside that section of the legislation that gives, other than a statutory responsibility to a Government department, an intervention in a family without any accountability to this Parliament. That is a step too far, and it has caused Labour to say that because of that step, we are unable to support this bill—a bill that has got the raising of the age of children in care, which we have campaigned for for so long.

It is a mistake. We would love to support this bill, Minister—and we do not often say that about National bills. We truly do not. We say it when it is true though, and in this case it is true. With the removal of that one provision, this could send a really strong message to families in need, to Child, Youth and Family as an agency, and to the non-Government organisations—the community and voluntary sector—which do so much good in our society. We could say to them: “Parliament as a whole listened to you.”

We think there are some issues that would be a step too far in this bill, and allowing the chief executive, at his discretion entirely, to delegate any of the core roles of Child, Youth and Family to another organisation or individual—there is not even a qualification put in the legislation. They do not even have to be of any particular age, let alone have a qualification. That is wrong. I think the Minister has been advised incorrectly on this issue. I think she needs to have reflection time between 6 p.m. and 7.30 p.m., and come back and say that the Government will reconsider it in the next piece of legislation, which she has said is coming down the track. That would give her time to perhaps listen to the genuine concerns.

There is not a single member in this House, in my view, who does not want better outcomes for children who have been in care, who are in care, or who will be in care in the future. We all know that we have done badly in this regard, and I know that the Minister wants to spend her time in this House making a positive difference. That is a good thing for a Minister to want. I am delighted that she has done that in so much of this legislation.

I think the Social Services Committee has done a jolly fine job. I wish I had been able to sit on it. It has got some competent members on it, and it has clearly worked hard on this bill.

Just one change, Minister: take that clause out. It is a step too far, it is regressive, and it is dangerous. We should not do it. If the Minister does not reflect well and change her mind, I will be very sad if we have to vote against this bill.

I was the Minister who introduced the 2008 legislation to raise the age. I was really annoyed that National came in and dumped it. There was no good reason. It just decided it was Labour legislation, so it would get rid of it. I think the current Minister is better than that and can show that by listening to the concerns we have about giving away core statutory responsibilities in terms of care and protection to unnamed, and not even known, organisations that do not even have to have a profession identified.

The Minister might have confidence in her chief executive, and I think that is a very good thing. That is not the point. It is a step too far to opt out of the current statutory responsibilities. Jono Naylor was wrong—we do not do it currently. Barnardos is not acting illegally. The Open Home Foundation is not acting illegally. They cannot do it, they are not allowed to do it, they do not want to do it, and for very good reason. We should have the accountability of the department and the Minister to this Parliament for something as critical and important as removing a child from their own family. Thank you.

I want to make a couple of comments. There have been some impassioned speeches in the Committee on this issue, and I understand the concerns. But I just want to remind members of the Committee that, actually, it is the court that has the power to decide when a child is removed. It is the court that makes that decision; it is not the State. The State makes representations on behalf of that child in order to keep them safe, but the essential part of the safety net, if you like, is that the court considers all the evidence and makes the final decision. That, I think, is the best protection that we can give the system.

The second thing is that the comment has been made that these powers could be delegated to anyone. Well, that is not true. Read the bill—read the bill. The bill says quite clearly that the person has to be appropriately qualified to perform the function or exercise the power, taking into account the person’s training, experience, and interpersonal skills. So it is not just going to go to any Tom, Dick, or Harry. That power goes to someone who has the experience, who has the skills, and who has the interpersonal skills that are necessary. We are not talking about just one small part. Right through the current Act, it is only a constable or a social worker who can do a large range of jobs, and that is not acceptable today. The evidence is clear that we need more than social workers, and that is what this bill intends to put in place.

So, yes, I understand that there are some reservations about this, and I am sad that the previous speaker, Ruth Dyson, is going to be sad, but we have thought very long and carefully about this. I come back to the fact I gave at the start. The court, which is completely independent from Parliament, has the power to make those decisions about whether to uplift a child from their family. The ultimate decision in a child’s life is made by a completely independent power, which is our court.

Following on from the sound contribution of my colleague Ruth Dyson, I want to make a comment on a number of matters that have been raised in the Committee but, more importantly, to ask the Minister for Social Development to clarify what evidence she has received to determine that delegating the authority, or giving the chief executive power to delegate care and protection responsibilities, in itself is a sound decision. For example, if, as I heard in previous contributions, the Minister is basing that on agreements with iwi, there would be evidence built into the memorandums of understanding that have been secured over the last 2 years, when iwi have been giving feedback on the way in which better responses to child care and protection could happen. So I want to comment on the report that she recently received with regard to Mokopuna Ora, and some of the reflections—let us say, observations—that Waikato-Tainui have experienced in trying to make a care and protection system work well within an iwi context.

There are a number of challenges. The Minister has been briefed on them, and I know that she has been aware of the various aspects of the process by which Waikato-Tainui responded to the 87-odd cases that they dealt with within their contracted period to try to ensure that (1) mokopuna were able to go back into whānau, (2) the process worked better for those who were caring for these mokopuna, and (3) there was better coordination of the discussion with Child, Youth and Family, whose processes were not as accessible to whānau as they could have been.

In working through the process, just the amount of effort that the iwi went into in ensuring and identifying and aligning Child, Youth and Family expectations of whānau who were able to be carers and the kaitiaki who were selected—there was quite a bit of intensive work to try to ensure the right whānau were being picked. By “right”, I mean whānau were being given enough information about their responsibilities but also about how to navigate the system in a way that was going to, ultimately, be beneficial for the mokopuna. A number of hui were held—wānanga, if you like—and they made some, I think, useful observations to the Minister. Were it to be adopted, there were things that were needed that were absolutely crucial.

The other part of it was the iwi support advisers, who, ultimately, were charged with working with kaitiaki and mokopuna to better ensure that whānau plans were being developed. From my understanding of the amount of intensity that went into this, very little of that, I guess, engagement required a specific set of social work; it was more around case management. If that is the case—that case management, or navigator assistance, was at the core of the iwi support advisers and of being able to develop whānau plans for mokopuna that were not only going to be implemented but implemented to the extent that you would not see these mokopuna going in the revolving system of State care—there was a range of issues that were identified in making this work.

Minister, I think the concern that I am raising right now is that this, at its initial stage, was evaluated—this whole process. There were some insights gained. Obviously the extent of wraparound services envisaged was a lot more than was thought of at the beginning, so it was a design phase that they went through. Once they presented the evidence, Minister, it would be, I think, only prudent to explain to the House again what justification to delegate State care has been received. From the information I have received there is still a lot more work to do within iwi settings in order to have absolute confidence that the care of mokopuna is at the heart of any decision-making process and that the core oversight of the chief executive of Child, Youth and Family remains key to ensuring that children are not in a revolving system of State care, but, more importantly—and I think this is the insight from the iwi experience—that there is a greater emphasis on the role of whānau being responsible within the whole process.

I am aware, Minister, that evaluations were made. There must be further evidence, beyond the case that I am citing, whereby you are making the decision to delegate—that the chief executive can delegate power—but on the basis of the report that I have seen, it is too early yet. I would hate for iwi to be used as the gold star standard of the reason why such a provision exists, when even they have observed that it is at a very early stage. Quite frankly, our children are far too important to gamble on with provisions like this, which do not give absolute confidence.

So I am asking the Minister to take a call to identify the range of evidence that has been provided to her to give her confidence that the chief executive should be given powers to delegate the care and protection responsibilities to another entity. If that evidence is based on iwi examples, I do think that needs clarification. I know that there is some nervousness that still remains with some of the iwi providers about ensuring they have got the best system possible, before everything gets delegated to iwi.

In saying that, Waikato-Tainui have been very proactive in wanting to work alongside Child, Youth and Family. They have observed that the processes are clunky and do not work in favour of informing whānau clearly of the court process, the family group conference process, and the consequent impacts on decision making. They do favour, from the evaluation that I have seen, monitored implementation of whānau plans for the successful placement of mokopuna. They absolutely favour that as a process. They raised with you, Minister, concerns about any prospect of changing section 5(2) of the principal Act, and you may wish to take a call, Minister, because you have forecast future changes to the legislation. It would be—beyond Waikato-Tainui—interesting to know whether there was a consistency of evaluation feedback, again, that would give confidence around the models being embarked on within iwi to retain children within whānau kin group care and also to monitor the prevention of children going into the care cycle so that they are into long-term care placement. Kia ora tātou.

Members, I propose to group some of the clauses for votes, to leave the opportunity for people to vote the way that they want to where there is division, but not to take all night putting the votes.

Clauses 1 to 3 agreed to.

The question was put that the amendment set out on Supplementary Order Paper 248 in the name of Jacinda Ardern to clause 4 be agreed to.

Sorry. I apologise. I have made an error in my grouping of the clauses. So I am going to go back and put Jacinda Ardern’s amendment, the effect of which is to delete clause 7.

The question was put that the amendment set out on Supplementary Order Paper 248 in the name of Jacinda Ardern to clause 7 be agreed to.