Children, Young Persons, and Their Families (Oranga Tamariki) Legislation Bill

I move, That the Children, Young Persons, and Their Families (Oranga Tamariki) Legislation Bill be now read a second time. I want to begin by acknowledging the Social Services Committee for its thorough consideration of the bill. I also want to acknowledge the many individuals, organisations, and iwi who made submissions, and particularly the iwi leaders group, who, of course, now support the bill. The committee received over 440 written submissions and nearly 100 submitters were heard in oral hearings. It is very encouraging to see such strong public engagement, and it demonstrates our country’s commitment to securing better outcomes for its children.

Making sure that every child is in a safe, stable, and loving home requires all of us, in every community, to protect and support our children. It also requires all of us to listen. As I have said many times in this House, this Government is committed to ensuring that our most vulnerable children and young people are at the centre of every decision made about them. They deserve to have a voice, and they absolutely deserve to be listened to.

This bill seeks to provide the foundations for a child-centred care and protection and youth justice system, and will support the core services of the Ministry for Vulnerable Children, Oranga Tamariki through a series of wide-ranging reforms. These changes signal a significant shift from a focus on crisis response, and as we embark on this transformation over the next 4 to 5 years we will see a much greater emphasis on prevention, early intervention, and transition support to independence. This shift towards prevention and early intervention is a key tenet of the child-centred approach, and this Government expects that investing earlier in whānau and families and supporting them to stay together will mean that fewer children end up in State care. I would hope that all members in this House share this ambition.

The bill also provides a framework for young people to transition to independence. As any parent knows, young people often need a bit of extra help as they start to make their way in the world. It does not matter whether they are starting university, a new course, or their first job—the role of any parent is to be there and support them while they begin to stand on their own two feet. That is why new provisions in this bill will allow young people to remain with, or return to, a caregiver up to the age of 21, with the ability to grant additional advice and assistance up to age 25.

I want to take this opportunity today to address the noise that has been swirling around this bill. Before it was even introduced, people were discussing what these changes would mean and how they would affect families. Some of this discussion raised legitimate issues and concerns; some of it was little more than mischievous misinformation. The amount that has been written and debated on this topic has been quite eye-opening. It has shown me two things. First, this is a topic that New Zealanders rightly care about with great passion, and that is encouraging. Less encouraging, however, is that in a number of cases adult agendas appear to have been placed above the best interests and needs of the child. This has been very frustrating for me as I have always said to my Youth Advisory Panel, who have fed into this work, that my primary focus for this bill was to ensure that children and young people have a voice and a say in what is happening to them. I made a promise to them to cement that into legislation.

Over the last 3 months I have travelled the country meeting a large number of iwi, Māori organisations, and community groups to discuss this bill. As I have said, it is an issue that many New Zealanders care about, so I wanted to talk with as many groups as I could, face to face, to explain what we are trying to achieve and how this bill is an important step along that path. I have to say these meetings were really enlightening. In every meeting I met dedicated, passionate people who want the best for their families, whānau, communities, and iwi. They are people with an unwavering focus on ensuring children have the best possible opportunities and the best support should the State need to get involved, and these are people who overwhelmingly support making sure we work together sooner so we can prevent children needing to leave their families.

We had a number of incredibly valuable discussions about the role of whānau and family in a child’s life. I strongly believe that as long as a child’s or young person’s wishes and best interests are respected and they are safe, the best place for any child is with their family or whānau. My profound hope is that effective prevention and early intervention will see fewer children needing State care and more children living in safe, stable, and loving homes with families that are their own.

I accept that in the initial draft of this bill this intention was not as clear as it could have been, and I am heartened to see the select committee agreed with the recommendation to clarify the wording around this to align with the original intent. These changes now better set up the bill’s original intention—that where it is safe and in their best interests, children who are removed from their usual caregiver are returned home whenever possible, and, that where they cannot be returned home, and it is consistent with their best interests, there is a preference for a placement within their wider family, whānau, hapū, or iwi. We know no child exists in isolation, which is why there is an increase in prominence to the concepts of mana tamaiti, whakapapa, and whanaungatanga. This recognises that all children have their own intrinsic worth and that they sit as part of a wider group. It acknowledges that they are part of their own immediate family unit as well as their wider family group, community, culture, and genealogy. These layers give the young person an identity, a place, and a sense of belonging.

The State must unequivocally and unapologetically have high aspirations for any child who comes into its care, which is why a number of changes to care support provisions have been made. These changes will ensure that children get the special protection and assistance they so rightly deserve, whether physical or emotional. They will also address children’s healthcare, education, and other day-to-day needs, and will support them to fulfil their aspirations and developmental potential. It is not enough to protect our most vulnerable. We must give them what they need to live happy, healthy, and successful lives.

The committee has also recommended some changes to youth justice provisions, one of which is to allow 17-year-olds who have been transferred to adult courts to be transferred back to the Youth Court when the charges against them are reduced.

This Government is committed to honouring the voices of the many children and young people who have told us what they want to see in the future care and protection and youth justice system. These legislative changes are just one part of the Government’s response. Through strategic partnering, a trauma-informed practice framework, wider engagement with communities, and better support for families, whānau, and caregivers we will build on these changes so we can establish a truly child-centred system. Ultimately, this is what is needed to help ensure vulnerable children and young people have the best chance to have happy childhoods, be resilient, develop a sense of belonging and identity, and grow into flourishing adults.

I want to finish with what I consider an important signal. Earlier this year I wrote to the committee and asked them to consider changing the name of the Children, Young Persons, and Their Families Act. I am very happy to confirm that the committee has proposed renaming it the Oranga Tamariki Act 1989. This change represents the aspirations we hold for New Zealand’s vulnerable children—that their well-being and voice are at the centre of all we do. We must listen to our children and young people, which is why I hereby commend the Children, Young Persons, and Their Families (Oranga Tamariki) Legislation Bill to the House.

I stand to speak to the second reading and just register that Labour is unable to support this bill. It takes a village to raise a child, and when we think about that, we think about the ecosystem within which a child is raised. While I acknowledge the speech—it appeared heartfelt—by the Minister for Children in terms of the approach to revamp Child, Youth and Family, you cannot look at legislative change in isolation from all the other aspects that impact on the vulnerabilities that many of the children who we are here today to speak about are currently facing. I so want to support a bill that will put children and their whānau at the centre of better legislation and that also improves policy decisions for long-term outcomes and strengthens the capacity of our community and voluntary sector to be funded well, which is where, actually, many of our families are seeking support and help at an early stage. It has to go hand in hand in order to work well.

But I want to come back to the recommendations of the Social Services Committee. Really, if you are just entering this debate, you will already know that the bill as introduced was poorly consulted on and there was a lot of noise, concern, angst, heartfelt emotion about the way in which there was a lack of consultation amongst community groups in social service sectors, which are critically impacted by the way in which this legislation would have an impact.

New section 4, inserted by clause 6, outlines the legislation’s purposes. If I were to summarise some of those main aspects, it seems that part of the purpose ensures that there will be a change in purchasing services by Child, Youth and Family, in terms of investing in opportunities for young people. That is untested. There is a social investment approach, but it is still at its very early stages and it is unclear what that will mean for the community and voluntary sector, which is contributing to supporting young people, and what those contracting arrangements will look like. Intervention supports for young people—while we do have a youth justice system that is critically geared towards stopping young people going into the adult justice system, at a community level there is significant underfunding of community-based services at an intervention level for young people to then be leading a positive alternative pathway, rather than a path of offending.

There is also a support there for strengthening whānau. Many of us will know in our communities we have supports around this area that are geared towards supporting whānau—whānau that are presenting with vulnerabilities. But they will tell you, time and time again, that their service can only be bolstered by the way in which other core aspects and access to stable circumstances can be achieved, such as housing. Many of the families that we are talking about are actually critically affected by the way in which other Government ministries are applying policy for housing. Instability actually leads to vulnerability, in housing, and, often, some of the kids we are talking about are picked up simply because they are living in cars and not in homes.

There is another aspect to this, which is the external environment. Really, it is on more of an aspirational level, but I want to comment on it because when we look at new section 4(1)(d) inserted by clause 6, and the provisions following—they are all the way in which it appears the Government wants to look towards partnering with other organisations and iwi, which is often held to be the opportunity here. Iwi have innovated a response in this space out of necessity, because they see the long-term need to ensure that more young people are not being picked up by the State and critically impacted on. The Government really has not had ability to impact on that environment except to look at that innovation and then gain from it. I simply make these comments because if the Government is seeking to ensure that it has a methodology around long-term impacts for our children, the legislation, as well as the way in which the Government is making investments around building the community and voluntary social sector, as well as supporting whānau—they all have to go hand in hand.

I want to comment on the definition of “mana tamaiti”. While I did not sit on the substantial parts of this bill during the committee’s considerations, the conversation around “mana tamaiti” and the broadening of its definition was, I think, in fact useful. The way in which the committee wanted to ensure that the intrinsic whakapapa, whanaungatanga connections of the tamaiti, the tamariki, were being considered broadened what was a very limited definition in the bill.

I want to comment on a couple of other things. The Minister spoke around transitioning to independence, on which there is some commentary in the bill and some changes. We are really wanting to acknowledge that it is important to address this area and the way in which young people who have had traumatic placements may perhaps take longer to move into independence. The bill provides for that kind of reality. There is opportunity, we believe, to further support the way in which these people, as they move into independence, can be supported through counselling and therapeutic support. That is a really important point, and it is something that, in my brief stint when I was Minister for Youth—there were young people whom we consulted with who had been in long-term care. The systemic impact on and damage that it had caused them, and then to get further lifetime opportunities—this was a key area for them, so we want to make sure that it is really an important element.

We support the requirement of the State to ensure that there are State-funded legal representatives for young people. However, the critical time for that to occur is in the first 24 hours for young people, and it makes all the difference. We only need to read about situations where young people have been uplifted and put into police cells to see how damaging that can be. So that critical point of providing legal support is absolutely crucial.

In terms of advocacy, we believe that advocacy makes, again, a critical difference to improving decisions made for young people, but when we look at the sustainable funding of organisations like VOYCE, we are left wondering whether there is a high ambition to put children at the centre if, again, we are not funding at the other end.

There is so much to speak about on this bill, and while there was some attention paid to the name change of the Children, Young Persons, and Their Families Act, which is a good thing, the actual practice is something far different. Oranga Tamariki is about the well-being of children, and if you are looking at the well-being of children, you are looking at children from a strength-based belief, in which culture, identity, and language critically matter. However, Treasury modelling of supports in Oranga Tamariki is based on a series of vulnerabilities, so it will have four or five vulnerabilities that are identified to be able to target communities and areas that it will invest funding into. If you want long-term outcomes for children, that is not the way to be making investment decisions about where best to ensure that you are supporting the infrastructure and the ecosystem—the village—around the communities that these children come from.

I would hazard a guess that if the Government really wanted to reform this particular sector, it should look at the opportunities to strengthen the environment of children and the communities they are growing up in, and get Government agencies to talk together in ways in which we can create greater stability. Housing would be a start. Housing would be a start, because if our kids are living in a secure home and a warm home, that is just one of many but a critical difference that could be invested in to improve the outcomes for many of the children who are impacted on by this legislation.

We would like to try to support the legislation, but it is difficult to because legislation does not occur in a vacuum. It has to be supported by really important investment decisions in other areas. So with those few comments, we register our continued concern about this bill.

I rise to take a call in the second reading of the Children, Young Persons, and Their Families (Oranga Tamariki) Legislation Bill. I want to thank Minister Anne Tolley for the work that she has done to get to the place where we are at today—to get the bill to where it is. The Minister and her team have worked very hard to consult widely, from the top of the North to the bottom of the South, and from the East to the West.

They went out to consult a wide range of organisations, including Iwi Leaders Forum, on the parts within this bill. As I understand it, that was one of the most challenging hui, as the Minister and her team listened carefully to what the Iwi Leaders Forum had to say. Along with my colleagues on this side, I was very pleased when the result was that the Iwi Leaders Forum, with the changes made in this bill, said it would come and support this bill.

The other group that I also want to thank for getting this bill to where it is now are our members on the Social Services Committee. We all worked hard. We had our raruraru in the select committee, but we were able to come together and agree on the report, albeit the Labour Opposition members are opposing it.

We all know that this is the biggest reform in 30 years for Child, Youth and Family, and the bill proposes a number of things. It allows young people to remain in care, or return to care, up to the age of 21, and be able to transition from care up to the age of 25. That is really important, because that is what a group of young people whom we heard from said. They came from the Youth Advisory Panel to the Minister to discuss how they had been left out. We also heard from those young people through the Youth Advisory Panel, who said that at times there was always an assumption that they should return to their whānau, when some of them said that they did not want to return to their whānau.

So this bill had to be able to cater for those who wanted to return to their whānau and for those who did not want to return to their whānau, who did not want to return because they still felt vulnerable and felt at risk there. Centring this bill on children and young people was the best thing to do for the way forward. I really do have to applaud the Minister and the team that she worked with and the advisers, and I applaud the panel of youth who gave that advice on the way that this bill was going to actually work for them.

I think that extending the youth justice system to include lower-risk 17-year-olds was also a gap that was found in the review of the legislation, and so we were able to extend it out to 16. We had just a couple of submissions that said that they did not want that to happen. But we, as a committee, said “No, no. This is where we will go with this.”, and we listened to the argument.

So, as I said before, the bill actually places children at the centre—children at the centre. I heard in another contribution just before that it was children and whānau, but they are actually children. They are the most precious things in our lives. They are our future. It is our responsibility to make sure that they are safe, and this bill does that for those young people who are at risk.

I want to extend my thanks to the 442 interested groups and individuals who took the time to submit to the select committee, and to the 98 individuals and organisations that came along and gave oral submissions to us. They were very interesting and very thought-provoking, and I just want to extend my thanks to them.

So, without any further ado, I am very proud and very pleased to commend the bill to the House. Kia ora.

Tēnā koe e Te Māngai o Te Whare. It is my pleasure to speak on the second reading of the Children, Young Persons, and Their Families (Oranga Tamariki) Legislation Bill. I want to commend Jo Hayes as the chair of the Social Services Committee. It was an intense process. I sat in on the committee a couple of times. So I want to acknowledge the 314 submissions and the 98 oral submissions, and also just highlight, from the Children’s Commissioner’s submission, that the relevance of this bill is to over 60,000 children who are captured within our care and protection and youth justice systems every year. Sixty-one percent of the children in the care and protection system are Māori and, unfortunately, 71 percent of the youth justice residency clients are Māori. So this bill is incredibly relevant to Māori, and I will explain our continued opposition to this legislation.

But before I do that, I just want to highlight some positives. I agree with the Minister for Children that the name change of this bill to the Oranga Tamariki Act or the Children’s and Young People’s Well-being Act is fantastic, and so I am hoping there will be no more references to the Ministry for Vulnerable Children. I also want to acknowledge the gender-neutral language within this bill that, along with that, highlights and recognises a child or young person’s sexual orientation and gender identity. Finally, I do want to commend the Minister and the committee for the references to whānau, hapū, and iwi that are in the bill, because they had been removed and, presumably, that is the basis on which the iwi leaders are now supporting it.

However, I will read you the first sentence of Labour’s minority report under “Consideration of whānau, iwi, and hapū”. We said: “Labour made it very clear from the outset that we could not support a bill that removed the ‘whanau first’ principle as set out in section 13(2)(g) of the principal Act.” And I am going to read it, because it is relevant—section 13(2)(g) says: “where a child or young person cannot remain with, or be returned to … family, whanau, hapu, iwi, and family group, the principle that, in determining the person in whose care the child or young person should be placed, priority should, where practicable, be given to a person—(i) who is a member of the child’s or young person’s hapu or iwi (with preference being given to hapu members), or, if that is not possible, who has the same tribal, racial, ethnic, or cultural background as the child or young person;”. And that is the relevance of our opposition to this bill.

I have tried to find out where this particular prioritisation of children being returned to hapū and iwi if their family, for whatever reason, cannot care for them is in this piece of legislation, and I cannot find it. I am sorry, but I cannot find it. And I would like to highlight new section 4(1)(e) inserted by clause 6: “ensuring that, where children and young persons require care under the Act, they have—(i) a safe, stable, and loving home from the earliest opportunity; and (ii) support to address their needs:”. Where is the reference to—and this is where I would put it, in (e)(i)—a safe, stable, and loving home within whanaunga and hapū and iwi from the earliest opportunity? If that was in this piece of legislation, we possibly would support it, but it is not there.

Why is this a huge issue for us? Actually, it is an issue because the Government has a duty of care. And what is that duty of care? That duty of care, which is a legal obligation and responsibility, is to safeguard children and young people from harm while they are in the care of Oranga Tamariki or Child, Youth and Family—whatever we are going to call it.

I want to highlight the Canadian experience, and it is incredibly relevant. So in February this year, the Canadian court, after an 8-year class action suit, had given $1.3 billion to 16,000 Ontario aboriginal children who were placed in non-aboriginal homes between 1965 and 1984. It was under federal provincial agreement. And what the court has said is that the federal Government breached its duty to take reasonable steps to prevent the children from losing their aboriginal identity.

One of the quotes from a plaintiff in the case—“We were black kids with the intention by the Government to make us white.” The findings were that these children lost their identity, which led to mental disorders, substance abuse, and drug and alcohol abuse, which led to cycles of incarceration and suicide. So the Minister of Indigenous and Northern Affairs in Canada, Carolyn Bennett, said that the Government will not appeal that decision. It really is highlighting that in Canada it was called the “60s swoop”. In Australia it is called “the stolen generation”, and so I think that our Minister and our Government, given 61 percent of the children in care are Māori, do have a duty to ensure that our Māori children do not lose their Māori identity by being placed in the system.

It also corresponds, from my perspective, to new section 5(1)(b) inserted by clause 8: “the well-being of a child or young person must be at the centre of decision making that affects that child or young person,”. And then it references the child or young person’s rights according to UNCROC, which is the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. Article 8 of that convention is that the child has the right to the preservation of their identity, and State parties must preserve their nationality, their name, and their family relations, which, as defined in this bill, is their whakapapa and their kinship. The State also has a duty to help children regain any identity that has been taken away from them.

There is hope in this bill, because under new section 7AA(1) inserted by clause 12, which outlines the duties of the chief executive in relation to Tiriti o Waitangi, there is an opportunity for the preservation of identity, in that part of the legislation. It is specifically in new section 7AA (2)(c) where “the department seeks to develop strategic partnerships with iwi and Māori organisations, including iwi authorities, in order to—”. And here is where it gets really interesting. Nowhere in that list of relationships does it commit the Minister and the CEO of Oranga Tamariki to explore the relationship with hapū and iwi, and our rights and responsibilities in the development of the polices, the practices, and the services that Oranga Tamariki will deliver. That is the guts of the issue, because, as has been highlighted by the New Zealand Council of Christian Social Services in its submission: “At the heart of the contention of this bill is the assumption that the 1989 Act … it represented, has failed Māori tamariki. In contrast, our members tell us the 1989 legislation is not the issue but rather its application in practice,”.

What it says is that the practice—the institutional racism of Child, Youth and Family—has failed to honour the bicultural intent of the legislation. That continues to remain the big challenge for our support of this legislation, and we will continue to fight against the system that erodes and strips Māori children’s identities away from them, because what happened in Canada—children ending up in prison—is exactly what has happened in Aotearoa New Zealand. There are high rates of mental illness and drug and alcohol addiction. A lot of the people who are living on our streets who are homeless—the most vulnerable members of our society—have been a product of this racist system, and this legislation does not address that issue. That is why we will not support this bill. We are not shameful, as the Minister said when she left this House. She said shame on us. Well, I actually say shame on you, because you have not addressed the issues that have created so much disorder.

It is a pleasure to rise to speak on the Children, Young Persons, and Their Families (Oranga Tamariki) Legislation Bill. I think it is a fantastic step forward, and it really comes out of the expert panel’s report on modernising Child, Youth and Family, which was released in April of last year. Some very strong words came from the previous speaker, Louisa Wall, and I admire her passion. I do not agree, but I admire her passion.

That report found quite clearly that the child was not at the centre of the legislation, and that was a major part of the discussion. I was not involved with this bill all the way through, but I did sit on the Social Services Committee for a good part of its consideration, and there was a lot of passionate discussion. I would like to take an opportunity to acknowledge the Hon Hekia Parata, who, on that committee, made an invaluable contribution around definitions and so on, and the language. It really highlighted to me what a terrific loss, what a tremendous loss we are going to have in this Parliament when she leaves after the election. I pay tribute to her because she has been a fantastic Minister of Education, as everyone knows—probably one of the best ever. But to see her contribution in other areas—my admiration has grown significantly since sitting on that committee with her.

One of the earlier speakers said it takes a village to raise a child, and I totally agree with that, but we must do that in a way that will ensure that when that child comes under State purview, they are in a safe and loving home and environment. To not do that is really to abdicate the role of the State to give that child a chance at a happy childhood and to grow up through that. They are not going to be torn away from their cultural identity. In fact, we spent hours on that very point to ensure that it was covered in the legislation and around the words. It seems legal definitions are things that people can get quite het up about, but the language has to be clear, and in my belief it is clear in this bill. This is about keeping children at the centre of this legislation and ensuring that they have a fair crack at life and can maintain their cultural identity and roots. It is with great pleasure that I commend this bill to the House. Thank you.

It is with a heavy heart that I rise to speak on this bill, the Children, Young Persons, and Their Families (Oranga Tamariki) Legislation Bill, at second reading. You know, this is incredibly important legislation. It is legislation whose intent is to protect children in this country, and I am sure that protection of our kids is dear to the heart of every single member of this Parliament. It is our duty, as members of Parliament, particularly, to be interested in the well-being of our children. They have no ability to vote, so that puts a particular onus on us to be looking out for their interests; often they do not even get a voice in the process, and hardly did, and nor do they get directly to us as the Social Services Committee.

I just want to express how profoundly upset I am at the Government screwing this up so badly that this is probably going to pass with one vote. This legislation that should have every single person in this House in support of it, because it is so important, is going to just get through. The Government did not consult and did not listen, and the issues that it is trying to pretend do not exist in this legislation have not been addressed, despite some progress through the committee.

The Children, Young Persons, and Their Families Act was introduced in 1989, and for many years after that people came from all over the world to look at how our child protection and youth justice system was working, and many countries have looked to us for leadership because of that piece of legislation. I am not in any way saying that the way it has been implemented has been perfect. We have just heard from the last speaker, Stuart Smith, actually, about some of the challenges that we are facing, but the problem we heard from submitter after submitter is not fundamentally with the legislation. Of course, there are things—since we signed the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child and the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities and the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples—that needed updating in this legislation, and we certainly could have got behind legislation that did that. But it is such a shame that, actually, this legislation does not even make us compliant with those conventions. It goes some way—some way—and then puts in some massive structural changes that risk the good things in the system, which could work really well if they were properly resourced.

As for the, you know, comments that people are actually supportive of this, I do just want to quote some of the submitters and the comments that were made about the legislation as it was first introduced. It was variously described as “a dog’s breakfast”, “more confusing”, “taking us back to the 1950s”, “a tractor rolling over Māori”, and “poorly drafted, poorly thought-through and consulted”. I do acknowledge that there has been some significant improvement in the legislation from the bill that was first introduced, particularly around provisions for protection of tamariki Māori and their cultural identity. But even in that area, where there has been significant progress made, as Louisa Wall pointed out so eloquently previously, the key measures that we looked at to see whether the changes had got the bill over the line did not get it over the line. We do not, in this piece of legislation, have the assurance that when a tamariki Māori is removed from their whānau for their own protection they will then be placed into a whānau, hapū, or iwi home where they will be safe.

I did take offence in turn from the Minister saying in her opening speech that she had been offended by a sense that adult agendas were taking precedence over the needs of children. Well, for the people whom I heard presenting, that was not what their opposition was. This was not about adults’ needs; this was an acknowledgment that the well-being of our children is integrally tied up with their family. You cannot separate those things. If a family and the extended family is unwell, then the child will be unwell, regardless of whether they are living with them or not.

It is actually just fundamentally racist—to me—to suggest that children will not be safe, or could not in any instance be safe, within their extended whānau, hapū, or iwi. These are large groupings. The fault is, and the truth is, that the institution has not developed the systems to be able to work with iwi to find those safe places. Here we are punishing those children by virtue of suggesting that their families are not safe because the institution has not been resourced to be able to create that safety.

The history of racist practice within this institution has to be acknowledged. We heard it leading up to the development of the original legislation, and we heard it again through these submissions. It was heartbreaking to hear the stories that were presented to us about the loss and the hurt and the deep mistrust that has developed as a result of the Crown’s failure to protect tamariki Māori, which is kind of part of the burn of this. The sense that has been coming from this Government is that it is going to protect these children when Māori have failed, when the truth is that children have been taken from their families and put into State care and hurt, and that we have hurt those children by our failure to ensure that those systems were appropriate and looking out for those interests of those children and their whānau.

There are many things to be able to say about this bill, and I have run well over time already for the things I wanted to say. I did want to point out some of the things—an annoyance about where there is progress in this bill, and yet it does not go far enough. As an example: we support the—well, no, actually, I want to go to the information-sharing provisions, because this is a really critical point of our opposition to this bill.

One of the submissions was a note that the provisions were consulted on with the Privacy Commissioner and the Privacy Commissioner opposed them, and yet they were brought before the committee and they have not been fundamentally changed at all, even though the Privacy Commissioner opposed these changes. The Hestia Rodney Women’s Refuge Māori Caucus submitters noted that they are seeing now that whānau are starting to lie to them because they are scared of losing their children. They also noted that women are often given an 0800 number to call if they are concerned for their safety, as victims of domestic violence, but they will not call it if Child, Youth and Family people are going to be called.

So this is not a side issue. This is central to ensuring that victims are able to protect themselves and their children, and that people who may represent a danger to their children are able to seek help early. We have to create a system that is going to work for them, and this legislation—we are also considering the Family and Whānau Violence Legislation Bill at the moment, which has alternative information-sharing provisions that actually contradict this. So, clearly, not even the Ministers are talking to each other, and who is going to fall through the cracks? It is our children, and we are risking them being in more harm after this legislation goes through.

It is a pleasure to rise on behalf of New Zealand First to speak on the Children, Young Persons, and Their Families (Oranga Tamariki) Legislation Bill. New Zealand First will not be supporting it. There are a couple of reasons why. The first one—I will just mention it briefly—has already been covered quite a bit in the House by the Opposition. I think Louisa Wall stated it—that in general there is quite a lot of ambiguity about the way that the legislation is written and how it can be interpreted, especially on the ground.

What the Government needs to understand is that what is written in the legislation here, when it boils down to it, is just a bunch of words. Unless that gets translated into what happens on the ground, to ensure, obviously, that it is quite clear to a case worker or someone who is working with children on the ground what the priorities need to be, then it just will not work. It is going to be an especially interesting process as we go through the Committee stage and look at those different paragraphs and clauses in the legislation and see exactly how the Government will attempt to change those with amendments.

The second point that I wanted to make, which I want to spend the majority of my time on, is something that does not actually get debated often in this House, especially through the process of this legislation. I believe that is because New Zealand First stands alone on this, and that is that we oppose any move of the youth justice system to include 17-year-olds. Unfortunately, that is actually included in this legislation, and because it is not mentioned often, or at all—I noticed that the Minister for Children did not mention it at all, and I think only Joanne Hayes mentioned it once—I believe that it gets missed, but it is quite important, and it is essential that we speak about the reasoning behind why the Government wants to change it and why that reasoning is flawed.

I just wanted to point out something. It is quite an interesting fact that in 2008 when the National Party was in Opposition the change to the youth justice system to include 17-year-olds was already on the table in the House here, and it was put there by the Labour Government. National Party members stood up and said that if they supported this change to the youth justice age to include 17-year-olds, people would think that National members were a bunch of wusses. They stood up and said that 16- and 17-year-olds should be treated like the adults that they are, because of the adult crimes that they commit. What a flip-flop we have. In fact, in 2008 John Key campaigned on being tough on crime, and especially on youth crime. Look at how far the National Party has come from where it was—this bill shows that as an actual, demonstrable, and tangible fact.

The fact is that this legislation will introduce 17-year-olds—more young people—into a failing youth justice system. What we hear is really pie-in-the-sky rhetoric, from both sides of the House now, about how the youth justice system is the best in the world, how the youth justice system is working, how the youth justice system benefits young people, and how it is a lot better than the adult system. That is demonstrably not true. What we hear from the Minister every time I ask her a question, and what we hear from all of the submitters, including the Children’s Commissioner, is that they have got evidence and proof that the youth justice system will be better for 17-year-olds—and that is just not true at all.

Talking about just the court system, this legislation wants to have the lower end of the 17-year-olds who offend move into the youth justice system and the Youth Court. If we talk about just the Youth Court, we know that the Youth Court currently has an 80 to 90 percent reoffending rate—an 80 to 90 percent reoffending rate—and that is not even talking about how those young people got to the Youth Court in the first place and how that is failing them with the Police Alternative Action. Now what this Government wants to do is include more young people in that. The Youth Crime Action Plan a couple of years ago came out and said that it was going to steer away from building more youth residence beds. What did this Government just say it was going to do this year? Add 54 more. This youth justice system is not working. It is failing those young people.

The most important part is that for some strange reason the Government is portraying the 17-year-olds who will be included in the youth justice system as the one-time offenders, the 17-year-olds who make mistakes. That is just simply not true. The majority of the 17-year-olds who will be dealt with in the Youth Court are the ones who have been recidivist, high-level offenders when they were 14, 15, and 16. The Police Association in its submission said as much. That is what it said. I asked the Police Association whether, if this change was to be implemented, it would reduce youth crime. There was only a one-word answer, and that was “No”. The Police Association said no, it would not.

Now we have had Mr Nash standing up on this side of the House through question time over the last couple of days and talking about the Police Association and about all of the surveys and why the Minister is not listening. Well, the Police Association survey showed that front-line police, 75 percent of them, did not want the Youth Court age to change—75 percent of them. But the Labour Party backs this change in the Youth Court jurisdiction. Fifty-five percent—the majority—of the police officers who are youth aid officers and work with young offenders can see that this change will not make a difference for them, and, in fact, will make it worse.

I just want to spend a couple of minutes going through the evidence—the evidence that this National Government and the Minister gave me through Official Information Act requests and written questions and through the submission process. I asked a simple question. The Minister stood up in this House and said there is evidence and proof that 17-year-olds would be better off in the youth justice system, and I said: “Well, give me the proof.” These papers I am holding are the stuff that the National Government and the ministries have given me as the justification for why they have changed it. This is their evidence.

By the way, the majority of it, if not all of it, is American. This is all based on American studies with the American justice system—what a comparison. All of the data that is in here comes from the 1980s and 1990s, and some of the actual research was printed in 2007 or earlier. Members opposite, when in Opposition, did not want to change the situation when they had this evidence. When they read through this evidence, they did not want change. Now National Government members are using the same evidence to change it. It is utter lunacy. It is just lunacy.

The first bit of evidence is about arrest and its effects on juveniles, and I have highlighted a few points. This is the evidence that the Minister has given me to justify the change in the youth justice area. It was found that between the group of youth for whom there was a police decision to charge and a match-controlled group, there was no significant difference in the prevalence of frequency of subsequent serious delinquency. That was one of the points.

The second is from a study on the effects on violence of laws and policies facilitating the transfer of youth to the adult system. It says that over the longer term there was reduced recidivism for some juveniles and increased recidivism for others. That means the transferred youth sometimes decreased in their recidivism and sometimes it was up. There are inconsistencies with which this Government is using its research.

It shows here that they found that the transfer of juveniles, initially arrested for property crimes, was associated with a decrease in recidivism. Moving up to the adult court ended up in a decrease in recidivism. Another study, a meta-analysis of restorative diversion systems, says that while the first study found that youth diversion programmes were more effective than traditional judicial intervention at reducing recidivism, the second found no effects of diversion programmes on recidivism.

This is all of the evidence that was given to me to prove and justify the Government’s reasoning for reducing the youth justice age. At best, this information and these studies are mixed. They are non-comparable with the New Zealand judicial system, and they simply cannot be used as proof or evidence, but that is what this Government has been trying to do.

It is going to be interesting to see this legislation progress through the different stages in the House, especially through the Committee stage. I would just like to reiterate that New Zealand First will not be supporting this bill for the reasons that I have covered. Thank you.

I would just like to begin where the last speaker, Darroch Ball, left off, because I think it is really important that we do spend a little bit of time and focus on the youth justice aspects of this piece of legislation. While, yes, there were some submitters—the Police Association and others—who did not like the idea of having 17-year-olds go through the youth justice system, we also had a submission from the Children’s Commissioner, who, of course, used to be the Principal Youth Court Judge, who absolutely believed that our young offenders would be better suited to go through that system. I would also like to remind the House that, actually, not every 17-year-old will go through that system. Serious crimes, as they are now, even for 13- and 14-year-olds, can still be treated through the adult justice system. So there was a little bit of scaremongering in the previous speech, which was a little ill-founded.

I just want to talk about the fact that it is a real privilege that we sometimes get in this House to be able to—well, actually, all the time—do things that are going to help make people’s lives better. I want to commend the Hon Anne Tolley for bringing this legislation forward to actually make a step change in the way that we are now treating and going to relate to some of the most vulnerable people in New Zealand—that is, the children and young people who require the care and protection of the State.

The bill came to us in very good shape. It was well intentioned, with some great things in place. But it was also very good to be able to go through what I consider was a very thorough and well-considered select committee process, where we heard from a number of submitters around some of the concerns they had, and, particularly, we have had reference from the iwi leaders group and other people who suggested that, perhaps, we needed to make some better descriptors and have some more robust descriptions of some of the things that particularly affect Māori children.

Far be it from me, as a tauiwi New Zealander, to actually comment on definitions of Māori words, but I think what is really important is the concept of mana tamaiti that actually runs through this bill, which is that we will actually recognise the mana of the individual child. We always used to have the paramountcy clause, but I think what is really important is that within the definition of “mana tamaiti” that is now embodied within this legislation in clause 4(1)—and I want to read it out. It says this: “mana tamaiti”—and, of course, tamariki in the multiple—“and the child’s or young person’s well-being should be protected by recognising their whakapapa and the whanaungatanga responsibilities of their family, whānau, hapū, iwi, and family group:”.

There has been a lot of talk in this House today about how this legislation does not actually give enough credence to children within the wider context of their whānau, hapū, and iwi. I think that within even the definition of “mana tamaiti” that I have just talked about—there are good definitions in there about whakapapa and whanaungatanga as well, which ensures, I believe, that we have got the processes in place to ensure that the mana of those children is preserved within the context of their whānau, hapū, and iwi. With that, I want to commend this bill to the House.

The next call is a split call. Marama Davidson—5 minutes.

As my colleague Jan Logie said, the Green Party will not support the children, young persons, and their families legislation, and I struggle to call it the full title—Children, Young Persons, and Their Families (Oranga Tamariki) Legislation Bill—which includes Te Reo words “Oranga Tamariki”, because it just does not fit, and submitters told us so as well.

In the second reading, I too recall that 61 percent of tamariki who are in the care of the State are Māori. So for that reason what is being proposed in this legislation is incredibly important to Māori communities. I particularly want to go into the guise of using the phrase, which sounds very popular and very heartfelt—“putting children first”.

If we recall, my colleague Louisa Wall alone reminded us that we can search as hard as we like through the bill and we will not find the priority for tamariki to be placed with whānau, hapū Māori—iwi Māori. That aside, even with the fact that that priority is not in this legislation—and that is the core of some of the big opposition from the Green Party to this bill—we can just go back to the Minister for Children’s opening address on the second reading, where she herself continues to use “children first” as the exploitative excuse for failing to keep that priority of placing tamariki Māori with whānau Māori. That is what she continues to use.

That feeds a racist narrative. That feeds a racist narrative that undermines the care that Māori whānau have always sought to uphold the well-being of tamariki. It feeds a narrative of the failure of social workers, of the failure of the system to provide support to ensure that everything is being done to find those available, safe, whānau Māori. So I really want to address those particular points. It flies in the face of the State’s own history of abusing tamariki Māori—generations of it. Generations of it—right back to the time when my own grandmother was physically and psychologically beaten for speaking her own language. The State has generations, hundreds of years, of experience of abusing tamariki Māori in its care. There is no other word for that except systemic racism.

So, with that, we should know, then, that this guise of “children first” is a continuation of that racist attitude, which says Māori children are better placed by the State. We have been doing that here and around the world to indigenous children for hundreds of years. So it is very important that I wanted to address that particular notion in this legislation. The submissions were very clear to us that there is no excuse for undermining the ability for Māori as a solution, providing good, safe care for tamariki Māori.

One of the submitters, Paora Crawford Moyle, says that part of the problem is that we are trying to fix a practice failure with a legislative solution, and that is not going to do it. What needs to instead be addressed is the institutional racism, and that is what we should be looking at, alongside the strength-based approaches and steps that would see whāngai—a cultural approach of Māori for decades, for generations—as a strength. Whāngai is the ability for other whānau Māori to step up and care for other children, which we have been doing forever as a core part of addressing the well-being of tamariki.

There is an opportunity there if we stop being culturally incompetent in this House. There is an opportunity to draw on a strength practice that is still used today in a modern context, and has been used for generations. This is where our opportunity lies. So I wanted to stand up and say Māori have the answers and the solutions to the problems, and we need to be worked with in proper partnership. Thank you.

Tēnā koe e Te Māngai o Te Whare. First of all, I would just like to thank Anita for her service and wish her all the best on her new journey ahead.

We have heard all of these nice words. We have heard that if you change the name it is a good start. The bottom line is that regardless of the words that you put into this particular bill, I support my colleague Marama Davidson in saying that, actually, it is the institution that is the problem. If the Minister for Children was brave and bold, she would address the pleas by many adults who came through a State ward system—the many adults who came through this particular system and are now asking for a royal inquiry into the treatment that they received in State care. If this Minister cared about it, we would address that and I am sure we would see many of the issues from a royal inquiry inform a better piece of legislation. At the moment, what we have is legislation that really only tinkers around the edges, really only acknowledges some parts of the wider problem, and, I feel, tries to put a coat of paint over what is a really big issue.

Take the wording “loving home” in the bill—I have seen those words right throughout the bill; “loving home”. How about this Government just provides our families with homes? That is a good start. There are no homes in this country for families. We have families sleeping in cars, and this particular bill is putting forward an expectation that we are going to provide loving homes. Of course we want to do that—of course—but let us be realistic. There is a housing crisis in this country, and families are out in the cold. If you look at some of the whānau who find themselves in those situations, they are not there because they choose to be; they are there because of a failure by this Government to actually address so many more issues that feed into this particular bill.

Scores of submissions were given on this bill, and I have heard commentary from the other side of the House about the types of submissions that were made and how long we have been waiting for such meaningful change. If only they had considered Pūao-te-ata-tū as a good foundation—the great work the group did and the report that was provided for the Government in the late 1980s. You will find a lot of answers there—a lot of answers.

As I read through this bill, it just does not quite match up to what was essentially a great piece of work that would see Māori culture at the forefront of service provision for our people—for our people, because, let us be honest, most of those tamariki in State care are from Ngāpuhi. Most of those tamariki in Tāmaki-makau-rau are from Ngāpuhi.

When I consider the provisions for strategic partnerships with Māori, I wonder just exactly how this Government expects people like Ngāpuhi—the tribe of Ngāpuhi, approximately 130,000-odd people, with no settlement—to actually be able to provide the care that we are hoping to give our tamariki. That is a real challenge and a real question, and I am sure, despite the language in this particular bill, that there are some realities out on the street—some very harsh realities. Those realities tell us that not all iwi, not all hapū, and not all whānau have the capacity to do that, despite the willingness to do it.

Those are some serious challenges that we put in front of this Government, to make sure that the language in this bill, the essence of this bill, and the intention of this bill are right so that we make sure that we address the problems and make sure that tamariki are in fact at the forefront of all we do. At the moment, the words I am hearing in this House—that is all it is; it is words. That is all it is—it is simple words.

On this side of this House it is with regret that we will not be supporting this bill. We have pointed out the reasons why, in our minority view. I am sure that as this bill progresses through its next stages in the House, there are going to be a lot of speakers from this side of the House, because this is important and we do want to get it right. Let us go through this with a fine-tooth comb. In closing my contribution, I reiterate that we will not be supporting this bill.

I am taking this call to support the Children, Young Persons, and Their Families (Oranga Tamariki) Legislation Bill in its second reading.

Very quickly, before I talk about the bill, I would like to comment on two previous contributions. I heard them say that there were flaws in operating practices—and that is why we need this bill. We want to adopt a child-centred operating model. If they really believe that we should change our operating model, they should be supporting this bill. This bill has not come before the House just like that. There has been a lot of work done behind the scenes, before the bill has come before the House.

We know that this bill is partly a product of the expert panel that was set up by this Government in April 2015. I want to acknowledge the work that the Minister in charge of the bill, the Hon Anne Tolley, has done to bring this big transformation in the care and protection system.

About this bill—as we expected, there was a huge amount of interest in this bill, as we saw from the number of submissions. We had more than 400 submissions, and around 98 submitters appeared before the Social Services Committee for oral submissions too. Looking at other select committee processes, I thought this was a very lengthy process, so I want to also thank the committee staff for their support.

I want to acknowledge and thank all the submitters for taking this opportunity to have their views heard through the select committee process. Based on the responses that we received from various submitters—whether it was to fully support the bill, partially support the bill, express their concerns, or suggest amendments—the select committee has recommended a number of changes, which I believe will align the bill with the policy intent.

During the select committee process there was one common thing that came through, and that was that people were not happy with how the Child, Youth and Family system was delivering for children. Yes, there was concern for Māori children. But I have to say that I was not surprised, listening to those submitters, because that is what the expert panel said and that is what the Youth Advisory Panel said—the Youth Advisory Panel that was set up to advise the Minister, the Hon Anne Tolley.

We know that the expert panel consulted extensively with children, young people, parents, caregivers, and social workers who are involved in care and protection. Also, the bill has been consulted on, with several agencies. So listening to those submissions actually gives me more assurance that, definitely, we need this transformation of the care and protection system. That is why we want to adopt this child-centred approach. We want to adopt this child-centred operating model. We want to deliver better outcomes for Māori children. We also want to see that the services that are delivered to various agencies are delivered in a collaborative manner, so that we can deliver better outcomes for the children who come into State care.

Also, families should be getting the opportunity to get assistance at the earliest possible opportunity, so that they can provide for and also improve outcomes for children and young people. With this child-centred approach, consultation with children is very important in this bill. But the other thing that I want to highlight is that, yes, care and protection while children are in care is important, but the transition of children from care to independence is also important. The cut-off that we had before was not working, and that is why now we have this new provision, through this bill, that these young people will be able to come back to their caregiver, to live with them until the age of 21.

This is a big step, a very extensive step, and it is well supported by allocations in Budget 2016 and Budget 2017. I support this bill and commend it to the House. Thank you.

The first thing I want to do is actually commend those dedicated women and men who have worked with our children in the previous format of Child, Youth and Family and who will go on to work with our kids in the new organisation, Oranga Tamariki. I do want to commend them because I believe that even now, despite the fact we are debating this bill and the Government is talking about ensuring much higher rates of practice and better practice, I do not believe that the Government will resource Oranga Tamariki to anywhere near the level that we expect to make any significant change for the outcomes of those children who come into State care. I want to acknowledge, celebrate, and commend those workers because they do a very difficult job, under some very difficult conditions.

My connection with what was Child, Youth and Family, and working with the legislation as it was, was as a community rep on the child protection review panel for the Waitakere site of Child, Youth and Family. I am going to reference a lot of what I say today in those terms, because I do not believe that we, under this legislation, will make significant change in some of the key areas that I believe we do need to.

In our minority report we make reference to the fact that we are removing the “whānau first” concept from our practice with our young children. Why is that significant? Why is that significant? It is because, in my view and my experience on that review panel, if you are a young woman Māori who is pregnant, you are twice—maybe three times—more likely to have Child, Youth and Family involvement before your baby is even born. If you are a parent who is involved in a family violence situation, and you are Māori, you are seven times, probably, more likely to be required to take out a protection order or to have services forced upon you or imposed upon you because you are Māori.

Working in Child, Youth and Family is working in an environment that is actually an institution of racism biased against Māori, and there is a lot of evidence that supports that. When we are looking at the language that this bill uses to ensure that it references work with Māori, it is actually pure tokenism because our languages—Te Reo Māori, Te Reo Kuki Airini, which is probably the parent language to Te Reo Māori—are conceptual languages, and the language that we use in legislation that supports our kids is actually conceptual language.

Recently, I spoke with a group of Cook Islands business people about the issue of climate change—and I am straying a little bit—and in that I talked about what happens to your whakapapa when you no longer have the whenua to connect that to. After I spoke, a Cook Islands leader came to me and said: “When you spoke about whakapapa, the concept of whakapapa to me is the preparation for the future. When you speak to a Pākehā person about whakapapa, they have a different concept of what that means, but in my Reo, whakapapa means preparation for the future.” So when we use the word in legislation, in this legislation, what we are saying is we are wanting to ensure that we prepare our children well for the future, and have we actually done that?

Oranga Tamariki, at the head of operations, has a CEO who is of Irish descent and a senior social worker who is Welsh. The senior social worker came here because of the work that Child, Youth and Family was doing around family group conferences—came here to learn how we did it better. And now this person is in charge of ensuring that our children—61 percent of the children who are involved in the service are Māori, and this person and the head of operations do actually not have a basic understanding of the concepts that they will be working with. I have a huge problem with that. Given we are trying to move the outcomes for our children into a positive space, we have people who do not have a basic understanding of those Māori concepts.

There was a lack of consultation with those workers who understand the issue best—not just social workers, but Māori social workers, those social workers who work with and are part of the hapū, the whānau, the iwi. For me that is also another major problem. If you are wanting to ensure that you are going to develop the best practice for your tamariki, you talk to the experts. You talk to the experts, and you ensure that their voice is heard.

Labour has a problem with how we place our children into the care of those who are not even the same nationality or ethnicity, and I want to share a story with you of a couple of friends of mine who, out of the goodness of their heart, wanted to become carers for children who have had a difficult start and come into State care. They put their names forward, they went through the police check process, they were waiting for some training, they were waiting for a whole lot of work to happen. They were about 2 or 3 months into a process that was going to take several months when they were not offered but actually given a young child to care for.

This young child was problematic because of their age and the types of issues that had happened to this young child. It became very problematic for them to continue with this young boy’s care. But the experience of this young boy, in his young life, having had several placements, was this huge disconnection—a huge disconnection. He was never connected to any real family, and he was problematic because he was always expecting to be moved on. That fed his behaviour. It became increasingly difficult for them to continue to have him, because he impacted on their own children.

But my point about that is that we invest an awful lot into these children, and into the placements, when we are not actually looking at how we support the family to keep them in the first place. When the issues actually occur in the first place, the families should be supported. I know you are shaking your head, but we are more likely to uplift children than we are to actually provide the resource for that family to keep that child safe.

💬 Jono Naylor: That’s why we’re changing the legislation.

The legislation will not work. When you take the “whānau first” concept out of the legislation, what are you saying? That is the point of the legislation, so you take the basic concept out? That is crackers. And this is what I am saying: you support the family to keep the children, and that will actually resolve a lot of the issues, because whakapapa is about preparing for the future, but it is also about ensuring that you remain connected to your history. When you destroy that, when you disrupt that, you cause problems into the future for that child.

💬 Jono Naylor: No one wants to destroy it. Read the bill.

You cause problems for that child. Words are words, Mr Naylor. Words are words; they are not actions. We have had problems for decades about this. So if the Government is so sure that it has got this right, then return the principle of “whānau first”. Return the principle—put it back in there—because that says, up front, that you are committed as a Government to ensure that whānau, and supporting whānau, is the most important aspect of care for a child.

So we will not be supporting this legislation, and we think that you have missed a huge opportunity as a Government to get this right. Thank you.

I commend this bill to the House.

We are in the voting process, and the Clerk has called for the vote. The phone call comes second.

💬 Matt Doocey: Sorry, I did not hear the vote. Sorry, Mr Assistant Speaker.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): We are voting on the motion, and the Clerk has called for parties to exercise their vote. I am asking the Clerk to start again.

I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. Can I just clarify with you, Mr Assistant Speaker—I understand it is the right of the Māori Party not to vote—how that non-vote will be recorded?

Well, it is not recorded. We are recording only those votes that are cast by the various parties. A party does not have to exercise its right to vote, and some abstain. Some parties may not wish to vote. So in this case the whip for the Government, who holds the proxies for various parties, has not exercised the right for the Māori Party, and that is quite proper.

I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. It is just a minor point. I just want to check with you. It is normal practice when not all votes are cast for the Clerk to ask whether there are any other votes. Does that not apply when a party does not do that?

The Clerk asked for the Māori Party vote. The Māori Party did not exercise its right. The whip, who usually holds the proxy vote for the Māori Party, did not exercise that right. So that point is covered.

Firstly, Mr Assistant Speaker, I must apologise. I came in part-way through, which is why I am breathing heavily from running. The situation was that the holder of the proxy vote—me—was asked not to exercise proxies from a certain time. We have since been advised that the Māori Party is able to exercise proxies, so I seek leave to cast two votes in favour of the bill that has just been passed and to have the vote amended.

Leave is sought for that purpose. Is there any objection? There is no objection. I will ask the senior whip then—the vote. I will ask the Clerk to ask for the vote for the Māori Party, and I will ask the senior whip to exercise that right.

Members, the vote on the amendments recommended by the Social Services Committee is that the Ayes are 60 and the Noes are 58, so the amendments are agreed to. The vote on the second reading is that the Ayes are 60 and the Noes are 58, and the motion on the second reading is agreed to.

I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. My understanding is that we have already voted and that the House can only correct a vote, not take the vote again, which I understand just happened.

No, the senior whip sought leave and there was no objection to the leave, and that is why I asked the Clerk to ask what the Māori Party’s vote was. We have had that, and I have now recorded what that vote was. There was leave sought. You could have objected to that, if you wished, but the senior whip did seek leave. So that is the end of the matter.

Sorry, but that was not my point. My point was that we had already progressed past the point where the bill had been read, so the vote could only be corrected, not taken again.

Well, no, by leave—I will just have to seek clarification. By leave—and I am correct in what I have done.