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

I move, That the Children, Young Persons, and Their Families (Oranga Tamariki) Legislation Bill and the Vulnerable Children Amendment Bill be now read a third time. I am so pleased to be here as the Minister for Children to move the third reading of this legislation. It marks a significant step in what has been, and will continue to be, a considerable journey to transform the way we care for and protect our most vulnerable children and young people. In April 2016 I released the independent expert panel’s report on the state of our care and protection and youth justice system. The report made it very clear that the system that was supposed to protect our most vulnerable children and young people was broken. It made a clear case for change and it proposed a bold set of recommendations. The Government responded to these recommendations by agreeing to major reform. This legislation is the second significant piece of legislation in this reform and it represents the biggest change to the Children, Young Persons, and Their Families Act 1989 in its nearly 30-year history.

Right throughout this journey I have made it clear I did not want adult political agendas to dictate the shape of this legislation. These are changes that affect our children and young people, which means it is their voices and their experiences we must listen to if we are going to get this right. To the members of our Youth Advisory Panel, many of whom were here yesterday for the Committee of the whole House, and their supporters, I want to thank them for their contribution to this legislation. I thank them for every story they bravely shared and I thank them for every piece of feedback they have given me. Their voices have been, and continue to be, central to the changes we are making, and they have been invaluable in helping me to understand what more we can do to provide all children with safe, stable, and loving homes—and I always add, preferably with their own family.

As I said in the House last week, I made a promise to this country’s children and young people that their voices would be cemented into legislation and that their safety and best interests would be at the heart of everything we do. That is exactly what this legislation will achieve. This legislation 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. These changes signal a significant shift from responding to a crisis to a much greater emphasis on prevention, early intervention, and transition support to independence.

We have got a lot of work ahead of us over the next 4 to 5 years if we are to deliver lasting and significant change for our most vulnerable children and young people, but this legislation undeniably represents a major milestone. To provide the foundation for the new child-centred system, it revitalises the purposes and principles of the Act to embed a truly child-centred approach. Being child-centred is about elevating the status of children’s interests, rights, well-being, and views. It is about listening to them and putting their need for safety, stability, and support at the centre of all decisions and actions. Everyone agrees a child’s safety must come first, but this does not need to be at the exclusion of wider whānau who are able to provide a safe, stable, and loving home.

During the progress of the legislation I have engaged widely with community groups, NGOs, and iwi right across the country to ensure the legislation clearly articulates this. We know no child exists in isolation, which is why the legislation highlights the concepts of mana tamaiti, whakapapa, and whanaungatanga. These concepts acknowledge that all children have their own intrinsic value and that they are part of a wider group. Children are not only part of their own immediate family but also part of their wider family group, their community, their culture, and their whakapapa. Together, these help give children an identity, a place, and a sense of belonging, and, because of this, this legislation recognises the need to strengthen families to care for their children.

We know that six out of 10 children in care are Māori and young Māori are overrepresented in the youth justice system. This legislation specifically seeks to improve outcomes for Māori. It places a set of duties on the chief executive to give a practical commitment to the principles of the Treaty of Waitangi, including an obligation to seek to develop strategic partnerships with iwi and Māori organisations. And it requires regular public reporting on how well we are improving these outcomes for young Māori.

This legislation also enhances support for young people to transition to independence. We know a parent’s role does not end the day a young person turns 18. As parents, we stick around to give our children the advice and support they need as they start to make their way in the world, and the State needs to do the same. That is why this legislation will allow young people to remain with or return to a caregiver up to the age of 21, with the possibility of receiving additional advice and assistance up to the age of 25.

The legislation creates an information-sharing framework to enable timely and appropriate exchange of information about vulnerable children to promote their safety and well-being. For years, those working to protect children have told us that a major barrier to keeping them safe is the lack of an active and consistent approach to information sharing between agencies and professionals. Within strong safeguards, this framework will allow information to flow as required to those who need it, when they need it, so we can keep children safe from harm.

This legislation also improves support for young people at risk of offending or reoffending. Significantly, it includes 17-year-olds in the youth justice system, but makes it clear that those charged with serious and repetitive offences are to be dealt with in the adult courts. It is a change I am very proud of. We know, from the evidence, that this will set these young people on a better path long term while also reducing risk and harm in our communities.

This legislation also changes the name of the Children, Young Persons, and Their Families Act 1989 to the Oranga Tamariki Act 1989. It is a change that reflects the aspirations that we hold for New Zealand’s most vulnerable children, and one that recognises that their well-being and voices must be at the centre of all we do.

As I have said time and time again, 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 that we can establish a truly child-centred system. Ultimately, this is what is needed to help ensure our most vulnerable children and young people have the best chance to have happy and healthy childhoods, develop a sense of belonging and identity, and grow into flourishing adults.

I would like to acknowledge the Social Services Committee for its consideration of this legislation. The changes it has recommended have greatly improved its clarity. I also want to thank the many individuals, organisations, and iwi who made written and oral submissions on the legislation. It is always encouraging to hear how passionate New Zealanders are about making a difference in the lives of our children and young people, and I sincerely believe the changes in this legislation will help make that difference.

As I conclude today, I want to once again thank those young people who have been involved in this journey. It has been nearly 2 years since I was sitting in my office talking to our first panel of young people, who gave up their time to me and the panel and gave the expert panel a first-hand insight into our care system. I remember them telling me that this is happening to them, it is their lives, but no one ever asks what they want or what is best for them. To them, to the current Youth Advisory Panel members, and to the members of VOYCE - Whakarongo Mai, thank you. I hereby commend the Children, Young Persons, and Their Families (Oranga Tamariki) Legislation Bill and the Vulnerable Children Amendment Bill to the House.

It is with great regret that the Labour Party will not be able to commend this legislation to the House. I do want to go into some detail about the aspects that we do support in this legislation, because I do not want the perception out there to be that we disagree with everything that is being proposed here. I will go into some detail on the reasons why we cannot support the legislation.

But I want to start by acknowledging the submitters. We had over 400 submissions come to the select committee on this, an indication of the passion and commitment out there to this, to children. We had submissions from individuals, academics, lawyers, social workers, and also individuals who had personal experience of being involved with the care, protection, or youth justice systems as children, parents, or caregivers. We had submissions from NGOs, iwi authorities and affiliates, health and/or social service providers, and a variety of other organisations. And they all submitted because they care. They all submitted because they are sick, like so many of the public, if not all of the New Zealand public, of seeing stories of James Whakaruru, Delcelia Witikā—stories like Isaiah Neil, which we heard recently through the media.

As legislators, our role is to shape the legislative changes, using an evidence base, and to ensure that we do not repeat the mistakes of the past. But based on some of the comments last night in the debate, which did get quite heated, I do want to say that we do not have the monopoly in this House on caring for children. There is no one party, I think, that cares more about children than any other. We just have different ideas on how we achieve the end result.

Last night the Minister for Social Development said that every child deserves to be loved. Well, no one in this House would disagree with that. But, as far as we are concerned, that love is not just confined to this one particular legislation that we have in front of us. So I do want to put it into context: when we are talking about love for children, we are talking about protecting them from abuse. But we are also talking about ensuring that they do not live in poverty, that they do have adequate, healthy homes to live in, and that their families have incomes and time so that they are able to provide the care that those children need. If we talk only about love, in isolation, with regard to this legislation, then we are never going to be able to provide that overall care that the children we are talking about need and deserve.

We have heard throughout the journey of this legislation through the House, from the Minister, that the focus has to be on putting children at the centre, and, again, no one would disagree with that. We all want children to be at the centre of this legislation. But we cannot take that approach with regard to just this particular legislation if we are going to be able to provide the care that we want for those children.

I am going to refer to an amendment that I put forward on the Social Security Act rewrite in respect of amending the principles. The amendment that I put forward included a principle about ensuring that the well-being of children is upheld, and that would mean that every policy in the Social Security Act would, actually, have to be analysed in respect of ensuring that in no way is there any detrimental impact on children. But the Minister has already said she will not be supporting that. Again, unfortunately, what we see is a view on children that in isolation, just in regard to the children who may be affected by this particular legislation, really sets us up to fail, and that is my point. If we do not have that holistic approach and we are not looking at every area that we can improve to improve the lives of children, then we are setting ourselves up to fail, and that is the concern that we have on this side of the House.

A message that was really clear with the submissions that came through was that, actually, the consultation process in regard to this was less than adequate, particularly in regard to Māori, who were really only consulted after the fact—after they made some noise about the fact that they had not been consulted in the first place. So when we hear the Minister talk about the consultation that she undertook with Māori families, with iwi, with hapū, and with Māori communities, we do roll our eyes because she actually did that after the complaints came rolling in. She did not undertake that consultation at the get-go—

💬 Jono Naylor: Are they happy now?

—which is what she should have done—please do not talk, Jono Naylor—particularly given that 61 percent of the children who go into State care and 71 percent of those who end up in the youth justice system are Māori. Why did it not enter her mind to consult earlier? But she did it after the fact. So I do want to point out that the consultation was flawed on this, and then it was even after the fact.

One of the biggest issues that Māori and that we on this side of the House have with this legislation that the Minister has drafted was the removal of the “whānau first” principle. It was so confusing in the Committee of the whole House last night, because we had the Minister saying “No, I did put it back in.”, and then we had tweets where we saw the Minister saying: “I will not put this back in.” Then, unfortunately, our children’s spokesperson and deputy leader, Jacinda Ardern, confirmed—and the Minister agreed—that it does not have the power of the original family-first principle. She has watered it down and there is a word in there—that is, “preference”—that really does not push or hold the ministry to account with regard to trying its very best to actually place children with their whānau, hapū, or iwi, if they have to be removed from their caregivers.

The debate went back and forwards last night, and I think the inference was that those of us who thought that the family-first principle should have remained intact were putting that above the safety of children, when of course that is not the case. What we are saying is to look widely—look widely. Look widely amongst that child’s family, hapū, and iwi to find an appropriate safe place for that child to go to. That is all we are saying, and we want that commitment in our legislation. But the Minister for Social Development has removed that commitment. That concerns us, and it is one of the major reasons that we on this side of the House cannot vote for the legislation.

There are other areas that we have concerns about, and I raised this last night—particularly given that I have been on it for about 6 months—and that is the issue around data collection and data sharing. There was a very strong submission made by the Privacy Commissioner on the flaws in this legislation and the dangers of the data-sharing provisions, and yet again we see this Minister ignoring the Privacy Commissioner’s recommendations. What happened last time she ignored the Privacy Commissioner’s recommendations? She ended up having an IT system portal, where she was doing her individual client level data collection—where that information was being uploaded—shut down because there was a security breach on it. If she had just listened to the Privacy Commissioner earlier, then we would not have been in the position where we were putting people’s information at risk of being exposed publicly or amongst people who should not have access to that information. So here we now find ourselves in the same position, where the Minister is ignoring the expert advice because she thinks she knows best.

The Minister has said that she wanted to hear firsthand from children about what their experiences were and what they wanted, and none of us underestimate the importance of that—we all do. But can we also acknowledge that many of the submitters who put submissions in on this legislation were actually formerly in State care, so they may be adults. She said that she did not want any adult political agendas to dictate what happened here. They may be adults now, but they were affected. They themselves were affected by the legislation and the issues with the ministry. They have first-hand experience.

The disappointment here is that we have a Minister who was all set for changing the legislation to fix the system, when the reality is that there are cultural issues and there are resourcing issues that the Minister has yet to address. Unless those things are addressed, then, unfortunately—unfortunately—we are going to continue to see the cases we have recently seen, like the Isaiah Neil case.

I rise to support the Children, Young Persons, and Their Families (Oranga Tamariki) Legislation Bill and the Vulnerable Children Amendment Bill in their third readings. These bills represent the most far-reaching reform to the Children, Young Persons, and Their Families Act 1989 since it was introduced 30 years ago. Why? Because the expert panel, after its research, found that the old system did not place children at the centre of its services. It did not meet the needs of vulnerable children, it was fragmented, it lacked clear accountability, and it was not organised around a common purpose.

Last night, when we were going through the Committee of the whole House, I felt that the debate was very rigorous, and vigorous. People got to say what they needed to say, and I want to thank them all for that. I especially want to thank Ron Mark and Ria Bond for sharing their stories with us, as wards of the State back in those days, as young children who, due to issues in their families, were placed under care with foster parents. I applaud Ron Mark’s proposal this afternoon in the House, lauding the foster parents of children—who looked after him and Ria Bond and others.

It has been an interesting time in the Social Services Committee, as Carmel said, with over 440 written and oral submissions, of which 98 came to the select committee. We heard what they had to say, and those were very interesting comments that they made.

I want to also point out some of the areas around the purpose and principles of the Act that give explicit recognition to the Treaty of Waitangi, and especially to our mana tamaiti, mana tamariki, whakapapa, and whanaungatanga for tamariki Māori. That is very, very key to this bill, and I want to applaud the Minister and the expert panel for actually making sure that this is part and parcel of the Oranga Tamariki bill.

I will not go on, because I am going to lose my voice very shortly. All I have to say is that I am very proud of the work that the Minister has done and of what the select committee has gone through. I commend the legislation to the House. Kia ora.

Today out on the steps of Parliament there was a gathering of men and women who had been harmed while they were in the care of the State. It was a very moving time to be out there amongst them. Many of them have had very damaged lives, a lot of them have got criminal convictions, and they all have a story to tell about how the State has been a poor parent to them. I got to speak to some of them. I have to say that it was quite moving because many of them are my age, and in talking to them I felt there but by the grace of God go I. They talked about how their home lives, while not perfect, were their home lives where they felt safe and happy, and how the moment that they were uplifted their lives changed and they were no longer the same.

Many of them held photos of themselves as children before they were taken from their families. Now, I am not saying that the family environments they were in were entirely adequate and appropriate, but imagine if we had taken the time to deal with the issues that the parents were dealing with—perhaps the life outcomes for those people who were outside on the steps of our Parliament today may have been different.

I just want to give you a couple of reflections from two of the men I spoke to. When I said that we were going to be debating the third readings of the Oranga Tamariki legislation this afternoon, one of them said to me: “How can you say now that you’ve got it right when you don’t recognise what you’ve done wrong?”. Another one said to me: “Gangs didn’t make gangs; Governments made gangs.” When his whānau was stripped from him, his whānau became the gangs. So how can you say that it is right when you do not recognise what you have done wrong?

Last night I was hoping to get another call during the Committee of the whole House in this debate, because there was one aspect of this bill that was not examined, and that was the criteria by which children would come to the notice of the State, in terms of being uplifted. There is one significant difference between the previous legislation and this legislation, in that what is included is domestic violence. So the experience of domestic violence in a child’s life now becomes a criterion by which they could potentially be assessed for uplift into the care of the State.

As Labour’s spokesperson on family and sexual violence, I have a little bit of understanding about what that might mean in terms of the numbers that may now come under the purview of this legislation. I just want to share this with you if I can—share it with the House. In a previous role, as manager of Waves Trust, a family violence network organisation, a piece of research was undertaken whereby we looked at all of the police call-outs to homes where family violence had occurred in 1 year—a 12-month period—in the Waitakere police command area. So we looked at all the police reports. Of those police reports, we identified that there were 3,500 children in the Waitakere police area who were either present or normally resident in a house where the police had been called out to a family violence incident—3,500 children in the Waitakere police area.

There are 35 police areas across the country, so if you extrapolate that, there is a potential for 122,500 children who would come to the notice of the police because family violence occurs in their house and the police have attended. This is what the police already know. It is documented. We already know it. We know also that there are about 46,000 notifications to Child, Youth and Family of which examinations are conducted, and those children may or may not require support by Oranga Tamariki, as it is now. But if we think that there is a potential for 122,000 children to now come into the view of Oranga Tamariki—we did not get an opportunity to discuss with the Minister yesterday, and like many things in this piece of legislation, we have not had sufficient opportunity to ensure that there are safeguards for those families to deal with the issues that they face rather than run the risk of having their children uplifted from them.

There is another statistic that came out of this research, and it is important. If we think about those 3,500 children in Waitakere who were identified as being present or normally resident in a house where police were called out to a family violence incident, do you know how many of those children actually received any support or care? Well, I know, and I am going to tell you. Of those 3,500 children, about 10 percent were then notified to Child, Youth and Family. That is roughly about 330 children. Of those 330 children, less than half were then provided support, in some form, by Child, Youth and Family—so they were allocated to a social worker. Of those, only 55 children received any therapeutic intervention for the violence they had experienced in their home.

Let me start at the beginning. A total of 3,500 kids in Waitakere are identified as living in a house where family violence has occurred, and only 55 get any therapeutic intervention. So what happens to those other children for whom family violence is a very real, traumatic experience that is going to impact them for the rest of their life? What about them? So, Minister, I am sorry that I was not able to discuss this yesterday, because I would really have loved to get an answer about that.

This is the crux of our argument—the system is so broken that a piece of legislation is not going to fix it, particularly if you are not consulting with the people who are going to be the most damaged by it. And they were out on the steps of Parliament today. They were the ones who have been uplifted into the care of the State, and they have lived the consequence of our policies—of Government policies. And we all share the responsibility for that, as politicians. Those are the people whom we needed to talk to about this legislation. The 3,450-odd children in Waitakere who do not receive any support despite the fact that they are impacted by family violence—those are the people whom we need to speak to.

There was so much promise in this legislation. There was so much opportunity, and it has been wasted. It has been wasted because we have not examined what we should do. My colleague Carmel Sepuloni talked about this not being just about the experience of children but being about ensuring that the homes that they live in are warm and dry. It is about ensuring that their parents have sufficient funds to support them. It is about ensuring that there is food on the table and that there is enough money in the house to pay for the electricity bill to keep them warm. None of those systemic issues has been addressed at all, and, I am afraid, none of the issues that those men and women told us about today has been addressed in this legislation. It is a shame to us all that we did not do better on this.

I actually stand with a sense of pride and support this change in legislation. Can I just start by saying I find it really disappointing when I hear that a lot of the arguments for not passing this legislation are based on the fact that the system is broken now and we are not doing enough. So, then, when an opportunity comes for us to change and do better, people are going to vote against it. They would rather, then, that nothing happened, and it remained broken, and that we continue to have those outcomes. That is, effectively, what they are saying by not supporting this, and I find that incredibly disappointing.

The State cannot always deliver the same results for a child when it takes on that child as a good, stable parent, but it needs to do much better than it has been doing. The statistics of levels of achievement and outcomes for young people who have been in care are actually despicable. I want to congratulate—

💬 Marama Fox: What about the statistics for suicide?

Well, actually, they are not just statistics, as Marama Fox points out. They are actually people. They have had terrible things happen in their lives, and we have got to make sure that we do everything in our power to make sure that we deliver better outcomes for their lives.

I want to acknowledge and commend the Minister for Children for a couple of things—firstly, for taking the initiative to say: “It is not good enough, what is happening now, and we are actually going to try to do better and do more.” I also want to commend her for taking on board those changes that came out of the Social Services Committee to make the legislation that she put up even better, and for her acknowledgment of that. I also want to acknowledge and thank those submitters, those 400 individual and group submitters, who actually came to the select committee and said: “Yes, we need to do better for the vulnerable children and young people in New Zealand. We’re not so sure that you’ve got this legislation exactly right, and here’s how we think you should improve it.” It has been a pleasure to be able to take on board a number of the things that they have suggested, so that we can do a better job.

I want to acknowledge and I want to thank, particularly, some of the people who have been through the process of being wards of the State—of being clients of Child, Youth and Family in its various iterations over the years. The trauma that they have suffered has been significant at different times. In the very short stint that I had as a care and protection social worker for Child, Youth and Family, I think back to how traumatic I found it at times—uplifting children and the like. I can only imagine what it was like for them.

We do need to do better, and we will do better. This legislation gives much more room for Oranga Tamariki to be able to work in the areas of prevention, to work in the areas of intensive support and intervention for people, to improve youth justice outcomes, and to lift that level of transitional support that young people will now be able to access as a result of this legislation. Will we get it perfectly right every time? I would like to say that we will, but I doubt that we will, because there are always humans involved in this process, whether they be perpetrators of abuse, or whether they be social workers who are doing their very best—and I want to acknowledge the great work that is done by care and protection social workers in New Zealand. Will we get it perfect? No, we will not. But this legislation will go a long way to ensuring that we do far better than we have done before, and I commend it to the House.

I rise to take a call on the third reading of this incredibly important piece of legislation, which I believe everyone in this House cares about really deeply. It is with great sadness that I register the Green Party’s opposition to this important piece of legislation.

Like the previous Labour speaker, Poto Williams, I was on the forecourt of Parliament today listening to the experiences of people, who seemed to range in age from their 60s to their 20s, I think, who have experienced pain, abuse, rape, and torture within our collective care—within the State system. We were told very clearly today that this abuse is not just historical; this is still happening now.

We know, too, that the Government is being asked to have an independent inquiry so that we can learn the lessons and so that the people who have experienced this can feel heard and can have a sense of confidence that the solutions being proposed by Government will ensure—as they kept on telling us, this is not about them; this is about their grandchildren and their mokopuna, and about ensuring that this never happens again. Those people do not have that confidence. They do not feel as if they have been listened to. They have been fighting every step of the way through that service in the negotiations with the Crown to get any acknowledgment, and it has not felt, for so many people I have spoken to, authentic. They feel as if the Government has been covering its butt rather than caring for them or for the future, and the Green Party believes that that needs to change.

I really want to just suggest to this House that those people’s presence and the sharing of their stories and their coming with images of themselves as children, and acknowledging—some of the stories that really got me were the men who talked about having been turned into violent people through the harm that was done to them. They talked about how they abused their partners and their children because they had been turned into those people by the damage done to them by the State, and how they now, as individuals, are blamed for that—there has been no responsibility taken for our creating that situation. They are giving us a gift, by being brave enough to tell those stories. They are giving this country a gift, an opportunity to actually, properly redress the wrongs—to listen and to learn, and to make sure that we are no longer sweeping this under the carpet, but can create, together, a system that will protect our future generations and our children now.

I really think it is important in this debate, in comparing the legislation that we have been given versus what could be, to acknowledge that in this country the history of child protection services has been a history of colonisation—that tamariki Māori have been taken from families and severed from their whakapapa, and that consequences of that have been profound for those children who were turned into violent people and for the entire whānau, hapū, and iwi. There has been no acknowledgment of that. Indeed, when this Government came up with the process to create transformational legislation and reforms, it established an expert advisory group that involved no Māori. Not just a small number, but not one Māori member on an expert advisory group—

💬 Marama Fox: No experts. No experts in Māoridom.

No experts—no experts, exactly—despite the fact of that history of this being used as colonisation, with over 60 percent of children in care being Māori. But, no, their perspectives did not matter and were not valued. How can we have any confidence that this is the right answer, when the actual knowledge has not been respected?

The Green Party would have actually started by having any reforms being informed by a process similar to Pūao-te-ata-tū, actually going back to the people and letting the people decide what needs to happen to undo the harm and protect the future. That process would have acknowledged the vital role that tikanga plays in protecting Māori children—not setting it up as an opposition to the safety of children, as I still hear in the subtext of the Minister’s every speech. Within our legislation we would recognise that change happens through relationships of trust.

We would not be basing reforms on the idea that if we collect enough data and tick enough boxes, then suddenly, magically, everything is going to be OK, which is also at the heart of this Government’s offering, despite the fact that we know, through institutional racism, that so much of the existing information that is now going to be widely shared has a racist bias to it. We really risk putting tamariki and whānau at further risk through this legislation.

We would instead work on building relationships of trust, and ensure that the resources were not tied to specific budgets set ahead of time. Actually, we would look and consider going back to the way it used to be done, when a social worker would find out what a family needed and then go and apply for the amount of money to be able to deliver that, rather than going to a manager who has set budget limits to be able to meet their performance targets, which are all grounded on screwing down the amount of money that is provided in support of families. If we hear the words out of the Minister’s mouth about how we are going to be supporting these families so that children are not having to be taken, but they are not doing anything about changing the resource available for those families to address the poverty, to make sure that there are people who are able to be there to support people in that really difficult process of change, to deal with the harm that has been done to them, then does anyone think there is a chance that we are going to get a different result to what we have got now? I think that if you think that, then you are living on another planet.

We would also set up a system that is holistic, that recognises that Government plays a role within a community and that certain fundamentals, sometimes called the social determinants of health—like income; good warm, dry housing; being able to put down roots in a community; being able to access good space for children to grow and play—are actually also just as important and are more important in ensuring the well-being of our children. The Government’s approach, which is saying that this is about the individual, is actually missing the point, missing the context and the opportunity for us to really get on top of this abuse and create a society where all of our children are safe, happy, healthy, and well—indeed, create the conditions for love to blossom rather than being determined in a court. We would understand the intersection between domestic violence and child abuse, and build that into this legislation, because there is complete overlap and this legislation misses that entirely, which, again, puts children at risk of being unnecessarily, inappropriately uplifted and separated from the parents who care for them.

It is a pleasure to rise on behalf of New Zealand First to speak on this legislation. Right from the start, we will not be supporting this, as we have not throughout the process. I do not think that anyone can really disagree, in this House, that this is one of the most important pieces of legislation that will be going through this House this year, if not this term. It is a very difficult subject, a very difficult area—very complex—and it is a huge ask for any Government to try to tackle that and to try to correct things. I think that—and it has been said in this House multiple times—every single person in this House, every single party in this House, wants to make things better. It is our collective responsibility to ensure that that is the case.

I want to pick up on something that the Minister for Social Development said, and has been saying throughout this whole process, about trying to avoid adult agendas. It was highlighted, and has been highlighted, especially through the Committee of the whole House stage, that there are many points of view, both from parties’ points of view about what the right answer is and the way that the legislation should be written and also individual points of view. What I saw today when I was standing outside with the delivery of that petition was the centre and, really, the heart of why we are doing what we are doing, why we are going through this process, and the changes that have to be made, that need to be made. Really, what it highlighted for me, hearing all of those harrowing stories from men and women who have been in State care and have been abused, is that my personal perspective rates a zero on the perspective of theirs, and of the people who have lived through this, on what this legislation means to them and how important it is not only for them—and they said it on the steps today—but for future generations, for their children, and for their grandchildren as well. That has really hammered home the importance for us to get it right in here.

I said yesterday when I was speaking in the Committee of the whole House that it is vitally important, especially in this legislation, to ensure that it is 100 percent clear what the priorities are for this legislation. It is a large piece of legislation, there are a lot of things in it, but the No. 1 concern for every party that has been brought up was the “family first” clause and issue, and the lack of clarity that the legislation actually provides for people. It has been highlighted because the Minister and the National Government stand up and they look at the exact same piece of legislation and have an entirely different point of view from the Labour Party, from the Māori Party, from the Green Party, and from the New Zealand First Party. It is entirely different. That is the main issue that we need to try to avoid. Unfortunately, we believe that the Minister actually had it right the first time—the priority was clear, and she has repeated it in this House as well. In these third readings she stood up and said that no one can deny that the priority is the safety—the care and protection of the children.

But—and then there is always a but or a proviso—that is where the ambiguity comes in. The translation of what she says to what is written in legislation does not occur. She says that the “family first” priority is written clearly, but there is ambiguity in this House when discussing it. I asked yesterday in the House—and I believe that everyone agreed, including the Minister, that there was ambiguity. The Minister said that she was going to come back and address it, and she has not. The fact is that nothing has changed in the legislation. We have identified a huge problem through this process about the lack of clarity in the legislation, no matter which opinion or angle or consideration you want to have—whether you think that “family first” clause or ideal should be the priority, whether you think that the care and protection should be a priority, or whether you think it should be both. It is just not clear in the legislation. That is the problem that New Zealand First has with this.

I would genuinely like to ask any member of the National Government who is going to stand up: for a second, put aside the bullet points that you have been given, put aside all of the notes that have been passed to you by the Minister, and stand up with the legislation and point out where it states that the No. 1 priority is clear and it is this. It does not exist. If we understand that at this late stage of this process, then it is inevitable that there are going to be future issues. It is absolutely inevitable. The worry is, for us, and, I think, for this whole House, including the National Government, is that things will not change. We know now that things are not changing. We are still seeing the exact same things that have been happening for a very, very long time. That is what ties in to the need for an inquiry. Just like it has been highlighted before, how can we move forward and correct the mistakes that we have been making if we cannot identify what those mistakes were in the first place?

The second issue that just does not get discussed in here, and that New Zealand First has an issue with, is the youth justice aspect. It was briefly mentioned that it is a good thing that 17-year-olds are included, but that is probably the end of the discussion for everyone else in this House. The problem that we have got with that is that, really, it is just ideology and rhetoric. The opinion of people who stand up in this House and say that 17-year-olds should be included in the youth justice system is not based on evidence and is not based on fact.

💬 Hon Members: Yes, it is.

It absolutely is not. I have stood up in this House multiple times and read out the evidence that has been provided, which people use when they want to say that there is proof that 17-year-olds should be included in the youth justice system, and it is contradictory. It is absolutely contradictory. What I challenge everybody in the Opposition who do want 17-year-olds to be included in the youth justice system to do is stand up and state what flaws there are in the youth justice system. Acknowledge that there are flaws in the youth justice system. Right now, we have got an 80 to 90 percent reoffending rate in the Youth Court. The main reason why that occurs is that those young offenders do not get into the court system until they have offended and offended and offended and offended. It is written and acknowledged that the Youth Court is for highly recidivist individuals or high-level offenders. Is there any wonder why there is an 80 to 90 percent reoffending rate? They have offended 10 or 12 or 15 times before they get to the Youth Court. This Government’s aim and intent in putting 17-year-olds into that court system is to target the highly recidivist, high-level offending 17-year-olds. It wants to stop them from reoffending, but it is putting them back into a failing system. It is a failing system.

We heard from Jacinda Ardern yesterday, complaining that there are not enough resources because of holding young people in remand in prisons in the youth justice system—lack of resources. Then, in the next sentence, she wants to extend the youth justice system with the same lack of resources. I am not saying that the problem with the youth justice system is not resources, because it is. What I am saying is that that is only a small part of it. The whole system does not stop young people from getting to the courts in the first place and does not stop them from offending and getting put into the residence in the first place. That is why half of our adult prison population had previously been through the youth justice system—that is a fact. Including 17-year-olds in that will not solve the issue.

We cannot support this legislation. We probably would have if the 17-year-olds issue in the youth justice system was sorted and if clarity was given in the legislation that stated what the priority was.

💬 Dr Parmjeet Parmar: Mr Speaker.

💬 Maureen Pugh: Mr Speaker.

Dr Parmjeet Parmar, after a bit of debate—very good to see so many members keen.

I am taking this call to support the Children, Young Persons, and Their Families (Oranga Tamariki) Legislation Bill in its third reading. I have to say that I am really proud to support this bill, and I am really proud of the work of our Minister for Vulnerable Children, the Hon Anne Tolley, in this space. The Youth Advisory Panel that was set up to advise the Ministers said several things, but one thing I want to highlight here is that it said that the need for support does not stop just because someone has turned 17. I know that every individual is different. Some 17-year-olds might be OK, and be very independent, but there will be some who will need support until the age of 21, and others will need support until the age of 25.

So I believe that this part of the legislation is the most far-reaching reform of the Children, Young Persons, and Their Families Act 1989, as we are increasing the age of care from 17 to 21, and increasing the age for transition, support, and advice. That will be available to these young people until the age of 25. Until the age of 21 they can come back and be with their caretaker, and until the age of 25 they can be dependent for any advice that they need. This is going to be a very effective way of helping these young people get into independence.

I remember the Minister Anne Tolley saying that children who are being raised in their own families—when they leave their parents’ home it does not mean they are completely cut off. They can come back to their parents’ home when they need to. They can call them for support and advice. So why should these children who are in State care be seen differently? This help and advice should be available to them until the age of 25.

With this approach of a child-focused operating model that we have, which this legislation is to support, including children in decision making is another very important component of this bill. Yes, I know that the Youth Advisory Panel was consulted, and I know that the expert panel consulted young people, but ongoing consultation and allowing the participation of young people is important. It is wrong for someone to think that young people cannot think for themselves and that only older people can make decisions for these young people.

The other thing the Youth Advisory Panel said was that there were things happening to them. They did not know why these things were happening to them. No one was telling them what was happening to them, and everybody around them expected them to behave in a normal manner, without providing them with any tools to cope with their fast-changing circumstances. So it is important to allow these young people to have a say. They should be listened to.

I am really surprised to see that the Labour Party and the other Opposition parties are not supporting this bill, which is to reduce the number of young people in State care becoming dependent on benefit, having some contact with the justice system, going through a community sentence, going through a custodial sentence, and not being able to achieve NCEA level 2. But I am really proud to support this legislation because we want to do well for these young people who come to the State for care and protection. I support this bill and commend this bill to the House. Thank you.

This is the third reading of the Children, Young Persons, and Their Families (Oranga Tamariki) Legislation Bill and the Vulnerable Children Amendment Bill. We are opposing this legislation, and my colleague Jan Logie has been outstanding in outlining our Green Party positions on many of the aspects of the legislation that concern us.

My particular focus, from the very start, has been on this misnomer that the well-being of children can be separate from the well-being of families—any children, actually. But the fact that over 60 percent of the tamariki in Child, Youth and Family’s care are Māori makes this incredibly important. As many of our colleagues have spoken about today, we were out on the steps of Parliament, face to face, hūpē to hūpē, tangi to tangi, with a lot of the people who have come through this system, abused and harmed, and it has not just stopped with them. Their wairua has been affected, their children have been affected, and their grandchildren have been affected. And this was at the hands of the State.

This issue of wanting to ensure that all of our tamariki are taken care of is right in front of us—right in front of us today, and every day. It would have been nice to see any member of the Government come out and be face to face, hūpē to hūpē, with the men and the women who told their stories of being abused at the hands of the State when they were children. I want to endorse what my colleague—I think it was Carmel Sepuloni—was referring to. They were once those children, and their words as adults are as important to us today as they should have been back then.

The priority to ensure the “whānau first” placement for tamariki Māori has been removed from this bill and it has not been put back. It has not been put back, despite what the Minister says when she tries to talk about that priority for “whānau first” placement being put back in there. It has not. The sort of language that it has been replaced with is weak, watery words, like “should” and “where practicable”. That is not strong enough, and because that is not strong enough, it continues to uphold a damaging narrative—the very narrative that harmed those people out on the steps of Parliament today—that said that (1) the State knows better where you should be placed as a Māori child, and (2) we will not provide the support for your whānau to feel strong or even the foster families who took you on. The support was not provided.

So the fact that the Minister stands up and espouses a “children first” priority is actually incredibly hard to take, sitting here in the House. Children as a first priority, and she could not even come to meet those very children. She has refused to apologise to those very children. This is relevant, because she then sits here and says that this legislation is about tamariki first, and that that requires removing them from whānau Māori, when what we want is to make sure that everybody understands that most whānau Māori are safe, and we can always find one. We just have to support the process better. We have to support the process for all whāngai processes and foster parent processes to be stronger. There is always safe whānau Māori, and if we have not found them, that is on us.

The intrinsic value of whakapapa to tamariki Māori is essential to their well-being. So that has, from the very start, been my main contribution to my role as Māori development spokesperson, as to the Green Party opposition of this legislation. It saddens me that we continue to pass this legislation while knowing full well that our families need more support. We will continue to oppose this legislation, and we will continue to work hard to provide the real support that families actually need. Thank you.

Tēnā koe e Te Mana Whakawā. You know, this is a third reading, and when it first came into this House, I had one goal—one goal and that was it—and that was to improve the lives of our children. I actually sat down and tried to figure out how to write a “love at home” bill. I was thinking: how do we create that? How do we do the reverse of penalising people who get it wrong, but encourage people to get it right? I thought about that for a while. It took a while. We are still thinking about that.

What we do is we write legislation with the worst possible scenario in mind, and try to protect against it, which means we are always penalising dumb stuff that happens, rather than encouraging better stuff to happen. We think that by making the penalties stronger or harder, that will somehow incentivise people to do better. Has that worked? No, it has not. So now we are faced with a bill that everybody wants to work. Everybody wants to get this right. It is widely talked about that this is a largely Māori issue—disproportionately so—and it is.

After Moko was killed, Alan Duff came out and said the problem with Māori is they have got that warrior gene and they scrap too much—something like that; I am paraphrasing. Sorry, Alan Duff. But, after him, Professor Anne Salmond came out and she said: “Well, let’s have a look, shall we, at what is the traditional way of bringing up children in Māori cultural custom.” She said: “I’m not going to try and debate with you; I’m going to give you the letters of the settlers who came to this country and let them tell you from their journals and their own letters.” One of them said: “No sooner had the child been weaned from the breast of its mother that it was taught to twine its arms around the neck of its father, and there they stayed all the day long, and their fathers catered to their every need.” If they dared to come to the table of a great, important hui, or the paepae, if they asked a question, they were afforded just as much respect in the answering of that question as if they were a chief themselves.

Hurting our children—physically, mentally, sexually—is not our way. It is not our cultural custom. If we were able to create a piece of legislation that ensured we always kept our children safe, then that is exactly what we would be wanting to do. We do not believe that this does it. We want it to, and we want to help, but it is not cognisant of the issues that have plagued us. Those issues were borne out today on the steps of Parliament, by Papa Stanley, who stood up and said that for 69 years he had been waiting to address the issue of abuse. He found himself in State care because the family who adopted him no longer wanted him at 18 months and put him back into State care. Did he come from an abusive home? Did he come from somewhere where he was being sexually abused or belittled? No.

I met another man out there today who said he was taken home one day by the police because he was wagging school. He was 8 years old. There was no one home, because they were at work, and he was taken straight to a boys’ home and never went back. I have my own family members who were taken into care by the public health nurse to give their mother respite—6 of them, the youngest of whom was a baby; the eldest of which was 11. They never went home, ever—not ever. When they had no room for them in foster care, after being shipped around, after being abused and running away, they put the eldest girl—at that time 14—into Arohata Women’s Prison. That was a while ago, but I heard about the young boy: 8 years old, in a Wiri boys’ home because there was nowhere else for him to go. This legislation does not change that possibility from happening, and we just want to help make it stronger. Kia ora.

I stand in support of the Children, Young Persons, and Their Families (Oranga Tamariki) Legislation Bill today, in its third and final reading. I do acknowledge the Hon Anne Tolley for her passion and her absolute commitment to do the very best for our most vulnerable young people. It is indeed a privilege to be speaking in support of this bill as it nears the end of its parliamentary process.

In one way, this is a very positive step, but, on the other hand, I take my colleague Marama Fox’s point that it is a sad day when we actually need this type of legislation. In an ideal world, ideally, we would not hurt each other—people would not hurt each other—but, sadly, they continue to do so. So what these reforms set out to do is to break that cycle of violence and neglect within families and empower families and young people to find a better way. We are all looking forward to the transformational change that this bill will deliver—that it ensures the long-term positive outcomes for our most vulnerable children and young people; positive long-term outcomes that our young people deserve. This is nothing less than they deserve, and our support systems are now reconfiguring to ensure that our most vulnerable children and young people, and their families, are supported to give them the best chance that a child-centred State care and protection system can provide. I have great pleasure in commending this bill to the House.

Michael Wood—5-minute call.

About a month ago I ran a public meeting in my constituency about the issue of crime. We got on to a discussion with people in the audience about the growth of the methamphetamine industry and the serious social consequences that stem from that. A woman in the audience stood up to speak to this issue. She was a Māori woman, probably in her 40s, who later in life has decided to, at considerable sacrifice and cost, train to be a social worker. She saw a need in the community and is trying to meet that.

What she relayed in her heartfelt comments to that public meeting was the way in which failings in our system of State care over the years—in particular, the uplifting of Māori children and the uprooting of them from their whānau and their hapū and their community—had caused irredeemable damage to those young people, particularly the young men. She related that it had left them without a sense of identity, and had often led to situations of abuse and disconnection, to the point where those young men were easy prey to the gangs—the gangs that have gone on to form such a pernicious part of the criminal underworld in our society. Her story was incredibly powerful and has shaped my thinking in respect of this legislation. She told us what we have got wrong. No one is saying that what we have got at the moment is perfect, and I must say that at this point.

I contrasted that with one of the very best—very short—submissions I read as part of preparing for this legislation. It was from a woman called Ana Morrison, and I just want to read directly out of it because it speaks to what we can do when we get it right. She says: “Our whanau has a personal experience of where the current system nearly failed for our mokopuna. In our case it was the CYF case worker having a personal knowledge of whakapapa (they were from the same hapu as our whanau) and them complying with the strong legislative requirement”—that is, in the current Act—“to look to the wider (very extended) whanau and hapu for placement options—that prevented our nephew being lost to the system.”, as the young men I just spoke about in the other example were. “He now has been adopted by his Great Aunt and has the life he is entitled to—he is connected with his wider whanau, participates in iwi activities, attends a rumaki unit (learning te reo and tikanga), knows his whakapapa, has cousins of similar age that he now has contact and strong relationships with and is a thriving happy Māori boy with a bright future, and most importantly … has not had to experience life as a ward of the State …”.

Those are the contrasts, and what I know is that every member of this House wants that outcome. I know that. I do not think there is any member who comes to this House wanting anything other than that. So it is with more a sense of sorrow than anger that the Labour Party says that we have to stand and oppose this legislation today because of what it does in respect of reducing the obligations that we have for appropriate whānau and hapū placement. Then there are the Minister’s comments throughout the course of the difference stages of debate. We have heard her at different times say “No, no, no—it’s still in there.” Well, I am afraid that when we are dealing with a situation in which 60 percent of the children who are uplifted are Māori, we should be listening to the Māori voice in this debate. When we have people like Prue Kapua from the Māori Women’s Welfare League stating very clearly that this legislation “is really focused around one or two things which, if we boil it down, [is] a safe, loving and stable family,”—good—“and early intervention”—good—“for which you really read early removal, so people don’t have a number of placements,”.

The absolute view that has come through submission after submission from considered practitioners in this area—social workers; Andrew Becroft, the Children’s Commissioner; Prue Kapua; and most iwi and hapū groups who have submitted—is that this legislation waters down those obligations, those important obligations, for whānau and hapū placement that Ana Morrison spoke about.

There would be good will enough across this House—and across the community—to work through this issue. There are good things in this legislation that the Labour Party has acknowledged through the different stages of debate, but this question of whānau and hapū placement and the way it has been diminished within this legislation is so fundamental that we simply cannot stand and support this legislation, and that for us is a matter of considerable regret. A Labour Government will come back to this issue. We have got to get it right. But the approach we will take is one to listen. We have to have a little bit of humility within this issue—the capacity and the willingness to listen to those who know this area, to listen to those who submitted so passionately about this issue, and that is what the Labour Government will do after September. Thank you.

Louisa Wall—again, 5 minutes.

Tēnā koe e Te Māngai o Te Whare. It is my pleasure to speak on this third reading of the Children, Young Persons, and Their Families (Oranga Tamariki) Legislation Bill and the Vulnerable Children Amendment Bill.

I would like to take us back to August 2013. In August 2013 the Hon Paula Bennett, who was then the Minister for Social Development, went to the Iwi Leaders Forum. And what did she say? She said to iwi leaders: “You need to take these children and you need to be responsible for them.” That is all. Imagine if that conversation was the beginning of a partnership. Imagine if she had gone to that iwi leaders’ hui and said: “We’ve identified over 3,000 children in our care and protection system who are Māori, and we, the Government, want to partner with you iwi to create a better pathway forward for our children and our families who, for whatever reason, are coming into the care of the State.” That was within a context where we knew that the current system was not effective in intervening early to provide the support that children and families deserve.

The Children’s Commissioner, 2 years later, came out and talked about the ineffective case management system, the care placements breaking down, the difficulty in recruiting and retaining staff, and the casual workforce who are insufficiently trained and supported. But I just now have to wonder what would have happened if there had been a partnership approach to this issue that could have led to an expert panel that comprised 50 percent Māori, who sat together—

💬 Marama Davidson: Imagine that!

Imagine it. You know, I imagine what this legislation could have been, what we could be doing right now, based on that principle of partnership in the Treaty of Waitangi, rather than the Minister going and saying: “Take these kids. They’re your kids. They’re your responsibility. They’re a burden on the State.” Actually, what has driven all of this is statistics like 90 percent of children who were born in 1991 who entered the care and protection system were on a benefit when they reached 21 years of age—25 percent of them were on a benefit with a child. That is what has driven it from the Government’s perspective: actually limiting their fiscal liability.

But imagine if we had gone from a different base, a base of actually caring about the circumstance of the children, and their families, of wanting to work in partnership with iwi, with Māori groups, and actually saying: “Hey, how about we all work together, because it is in all of our interests for our tamariki and our mokopuna not to be on a benefit, with 83 percent of them in prison, with all those negative statistics.” If the drivers over that side actually were about putting children at the centre of a piece of legislation, then we would be in a different place.

But the reality is that you have removed the “whānau first” principle, because what you have distilled from those statistics is that by putting our children in “whānau first”, that is what has resulted in the re-abuse, all the placements that have broken down, all those sorts of things. You have just blamed it solely on that principle, and we cannot look at it in isolation, because what you have done is created the “home for life”.

We acknowledge the work of our 2,000 foster families. They are doing fantastic work, but the priority for all of us, as we have been saying throughout this whole journey, is that because 61 percent of the children in the care and protection system are Māori, we want those children to be placed within their whānau, hapū, and iwi. It is not a radical thought. And the reality is, and Judge Henwood said this, it was the State that picked the wrong alternative whānau to look after those children. It was the State that re-abused those children. But what the State has done again is abdicated its responsibility and has blamed it on the Māori whānau.

So it is a very sad day. We wish we were supporting this legislation, but as we have said consistently, we will not support legislation that fundamentally strips away Māori children’s Māori identity. Kia ora.

I commend the legislation to the House.