Oversight of Oranga Tamariki System and Children and Young People’s Commission Bill

Members, we now come to Part 2. The question is that Part 2 stand part.

The consultation with care-experienced children and young people that has led to this bill started in 2018 during the development of the Beattie report. The Beattie report drew on the voices of children and young people, including from the Modernising Child, Youth and Family Expert Panel report and 22 hui held with Māori, including those with care experience. These voices and those of the tamariki and rangatahi, advocates, and others who have participated in the development process or submitted on the bill have been clear in their call for comprehensive, independent monitoring, and a solution to the current confusing and cumbersome complaints process. We have listened to those voices.

Part 2 of this bill establishes the independent monitor to monitor outcomes for children and young people receiving services through the Oranga Tamariki system and ensures that they have strengthened complaints and investigations processes through the Ombudsman. As with Part 1, I want to take the time to talk to why the clauses in Part 2 of the bill are drafted the way they are and respond to the particular issues that have been raised.

Establishing the monitor and its objectives in clauses 12 and 13—clause 12 establishes the independent monitor. It also explicitly provides that it will be independent of Oranga Tamariki. I want to take a moment to discuss that independence here. The monitoring function in respect of the Oranga Tamariki system is not new to the bill. A version of the proposed monitor currently sits in the Ministry of Social Development, with a significantly reduced function. We have heard voices calling for greater independence of the monitor proposed in this bill. I can understand why this is a real concern for the tamariki and rangatahi in the system and their advocates who may lack trust in Government systems that have not operated as well as they should have for them. That is why we have actually made the monitor more independent through the changes in the bill. The monitor will be a statutory officer with a legal duty to act independently, housed in a departmental agency that shares its back-office functions with the Education Review Office so it can focus resources on monitoring the Oranga Tamariki system.

This explicit independence requirement, which is set out in clause 13 of the bill, is strengthened at numerous places throughout Part 2. This is particularly the case in clause 16, which specifies that the monitor must act independently when developing the tools for and carrying out its monitoring function, and stops Government from directing the monitor to stop doing or preventing the monitor from doing anything it considers necessary to perform its functions. The legal duties this places on the monitor and the Government don’t just make the monitor more independent; they make it clear the monitor would be acting unlawfully if it does not act independently, and the Government would be breaking the law if it interfered in the monitor’s affairs.

An example of how this might work in practice is with regards to the reviews that the monitor undertakes under clauses 24 and 25. These provisions are clear that the monitor is able to inquire into anything it chooses in the Oranga Tamariki system. Although Ministers may ask them to look into additional matters, they cannot ask them to stop any work they are doing, even if it impacts on the delivery of the reviews that the Ministers have requested.

The objectives of the monitor are set out in clause 13—to carry out objective, impartial, and evidence-based monitoring, and provide advice about the Oranga Tamariki system and its interface with other systems. I know that there have been questions raised with regards to why one of the monitor’s key functions is to support public trust and confidence in the system. This is not about the Government trying to get the monitor to make the Government look good. The monitor’s advice will support the Government to make better decisions with regards to policy and practice in the Oranga Tamariki system. But it will also provide the advocate, the Children and Young People’s Commission, with the information that it needs to hold the Government to account.

We want more transparency and accountability in the system—not less transparency and accountability in the system—so that our tamariki and rangatahi and their families and whānau have confidence to engage with and get the support they need.

I also want to note the change proposed by Jan Logie in her Supplementary Order Paper (SOP) on this clause, which would add a requirement that the monitor acts independently when fulfilling its objectives under clause 13. While I don’t disagree with the intent of the suggestion, it’s not necessary. The role of the monitor means it will fulfil its objectives by engaging in monitoring and developing the tools and approaches to do this. Because it is required to do these things independently, it will always be acting independently when it is working to fulfil its obligations.

I want to move on now to clauses 17, 18, and 19, which provide more detail as to how the monitor will work with Māori. We know—all of us know—that Māori are disproportionately represented in the Oranga Tamariki system. That is why aspects of the bill, including the Treaty provisions, were co-designed with Te Kāhui, and the proposals now reflected in the bill were tested in 22 hui across the country.

Clauses 17 and 18 ensure that this engagement will be continued by the monitor, once it is up and running, by requiring it to appoint a Māori Advisory Group to support meaningful and effective engagement with Māori, and work with them in the development of its priorities, work programmes, and monitoring approaches.

The monitor’s relationship with Māori won’t be limited to one group. Clause 19 requires it to build relationships with hapū, iwi, and Māori organisations and engage in shared mahi regarding how to improve oversight of the Oranga Tamariki system.

I know that Jan Logie has submitted a Supplementary Order Paper seeking a range of changes to the bill with regards to our Treaty obligations and the relationships of the entities with Māori. I want to be clear that although the Public Service Act doesn’t allow shared decision-making arrangements for departmental agencies, these provisions provide a strong framework for a close relationship between Māori and the monitor. They are also sufficiently flexible to allow for situations where some distance is necessary and appropriate, such as where a Māori organisation is potentially subject to monitoring.

Clause 19 holds the monitor accountable to working in this way by requiring it to demonstrate publicly on an internet site how it has given regard to the views of the Māori Advisory Group.

“Reports and reviews”, clauses 21 to 31—the monitor is currently required to do at least one report every three years to the responsible Ministers on the national care standards. It has already completed four since we established it in 2019, but it is clear that there is more work to do.

Clauses 21 to 23 of the bill expand the monitor’s role to require additional reports at least once every three years on the state of the Oranga Tamariki system; each year on compliance with the national care standards regulations; and each year on the performance of the Oranga Tamariki system in respect of outcomes being achieved for Māori children and young people and their whānau.

This increased scrutiny of the system will create greater accountability and transparency, but we have heard concerns from tamariki, rangatahi, and their advocates that the reporting and review requirements in the bill do not create enough accountability for the agencies that work in the system. I want to give them comfort that this is not the case. I’ve already discussed the monitor’s independent reviews and the fact that although Ministers can ask to look into a matter, they cannot interfere in the monitor’s work.

When the monitor completes its reviews: I know the select committee recommended that the agencies that are subject to reports have up to 60 working days to respond. However, we are reducing the response time frames to 20 working days for clause 22 and 23 reports; and 35 working days for cause 21, 24, and 25 reports.

Children and young people need to see that agencies are responding quickly to issues raised by the monitor and identifying how and when they will be addressed. As well as providing the reports to the relevant chief executives and requiring them to provide a quick response, we have ensured that the findings in the reports and these responses are as public and transparent as possible. Not only must the monitor publish all its reports, Mr Chair—

CHAIRPERSON (Greg O’Connor): Carry on, Minister Sepuloni.

Thank you very much, Mr Chair. As well as providing the reports to the relevant chief executives and requiring them to provide a quick response, we have ensured that the findings in the reports and these responses are as public and transparent as possible. Not only must the monitor publish all its reports and agencies’ responses to them online under clause 30, the bill also requires the Minister responsible for the Oranga Tamariki Act to present a copy of the reports to the House as soon as practicable after receiving it.

I also want to address the concerns Karen Chhour has raised in her Supplementary Order Paper (SOP) regarding these clauses. The member wants to add reports that the monitor has initiated into clause 27, which requires the monitor to share its report with a list of people including the responsible Ministers, chief executives, and the Ombudsman and commission. This makes sense. It is important that the monitor’s findings are seen and responded to by all the relevant parties. That is why this change has already been implemented through the Government SOP. So I just acknowledge that there was alignment there.

The member also wants to add the chief executive of Oranga Tamariki into this list. Again, we agree with the intent, but this requirement is already in the bill because clause 27(c) requires the monitor to share the report with the chief executive of any agency that is the subject of the report, and in practice this will always include Oranga Tamariki.

Powers of entry—I’m now going to move on to clauses 30 to 35, which govern the monitor’s ability to enter premises to undertake its monitoring functions. The monitor’s role is to support agencies in the system to work towards continuous service improvement by identifying areas of high performance and areas for improvement through impartial and evidence-based monitoring. In doing this, it will be necessary for the monitor to take the information provided to it by agencies and validate it by visiting communities, connecting, and listening to those that have a role to play in the Oranga Tamariki system, including whānau, hapū, iwi, caregivers, providers, and professionals. Most importantly, the monitor will engage directly with children and young people.

The bill strengthens the current powers of entry for monitoring and ensures that the monitor has the ability to visit residences and other locations of interest to do this work. But as the monitor is not investigating specific breaches of any legislation, does not monitor individual children, and does not carry out an enforcement function, it is not appropriate for the monitor to have a without notice power of entry to carry out monitoring. To require otherwise would represent a significant intrusion on the public’s right to be secure against unreasonable search or seizure enshrined in the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act. An unlimited power of entry would likely exacerbate tension or emotional harm to children and young people. It is unsettling for children and young people to have strangers entering their places of residence unannounced, especially when they are expected to interact with those strangers and answer their questions.

To the extent the Ombudsman and Children’s Commissioner are discharging Optional Protocol to the Convention against Torture (OPCAT) functions under the Crimes of Torture Act 1989 as designated national prevention mechanisms, they have a without notice power of entry to do so. OPCAT monitoring is focused on human rights breaches and takes place in places of detention to check on the treatment and conditions of detainees. This differs from monitoring under the bill as OPCAT is focused on individual residences rather than at a system level. Where there is a serious and imminent risk to children and young people’s safety, the police have the necessary powers to act and take the appropriate action. It would not be appropriate for the monitor to take action in these circumstances, especially if there is distress amongst residents.

This clause sets out new duties that apply to an Ombudsman where they are dealing with complaints and investigations, including a duty to ensure they operate in a culturally competent way, that their processes are visible and accessible to children, and that investigations processes incorporate a tikanga Māori approach.

There has been some concern that the Ombudsman is not the appropriate organisation to resolve complaints. However, the Ombudsman already has oversight of complaints about the Oranga Tamariki system. What we are doing is expanding the scope to care and custody providers for which the Ombudsman can resolve complaints, requiring complaints processes to be visible and accessible, and ensuring the Ombudsman has the necessary powers to resolve complaints in a timely manner. The bill places a strong onus on the Ombudsman to ensure children’s participation is considered. This is done through the principles in clause 5 of the bill.

Thank you, Mr Chair. I just want to pick up within Part 2 some points around this notion of independence. The Minister’s covered that from her perspective in terms of the value of independence. We can acknowledge that lack of interference might seem on the face of it a good thing—I’m not here to argue against that—but I do just want to test the Minister on how she would explain the balancing exercise whereby independence in some sense is the reverse of accountability. So if we look, for example, at new clause 16A, “Duty to act independently”—as proposed within the Government Supplementary Order Paper (SOP) that relates at the moment to Part 2. So there at the second part of that, we see that “A Minister of the Crown must not direct the Monitor to stop carrying out an activity, or prevent the Monitor from carrying out an activity, that the Monitor considers is necessary to enable them to perform or exercise their functions, duties, or powers under this Act.” So it seems to me—and I’d be grateful if the Minister can explain; perhaps I’ve misunderstood—that if there’s not ministerial accountability and if in fact that’s precisely precluded from the operation of the monitor and we don’t have an oversight in a ministerial sense, then to what extent can we say that we have a system that’s accountable ultimately in a political way? So it’s a genuine question, just how those two things can be reconciled, and it might be that it’s somewhere else within the bill. I’d be happy to be pointed to that if there’s some sort of safety mechanism there.

But on a similar note, I note that within clause 12, which is about the establishment of the independent monitor of the Oranga Tamariki system, we’ve got a note that it must be independent of the ministry. So the monitor and the ministry—they sound quite similar and that’s unfortunate at this time of night as I stumble my way through the contribution. But, again, I’m looking at those different functions intended to be separate, and to some extent, that may be healthy. Others on this side of the House will probably have a more informed view than me on that because they’ve attended the select committee hearing and so forth, but it seems to me, again, there’s a trade-off between accountability versus independence, and particularly accountability to a Minister as opposed to a ministry if we want the relevant Minister from time to time, whoever that may be, to be able to exercise oversight and perhaps steer the Government agency—and at the end of the day it is a Government agency—in the right direction for its activities.

I’ll just put that out there, and I think you’ve encouraged us, Mr Chair, to ask a series of questions within our contributions so that the Minister can have a chance to reflect on those and sort of take them one by one, maybe, or refer to officials for advice and so forth. But the other questions I had mostly were clustered around the heading “Code of Ethics”. So again within Part 2, clause 20, we read that “The Monitor must have a code of ethics relating to engagement”, but there doesn’t seem to be anything in here about what the consequence is if the code of ethics is to be breached. It’s enough, according to this clause, clause 20, simply that there is a code of ethics. It doesn’t actually say that the monitor is bound by them. The monitor must publish the code of ethics, having developed it. It must consult certain persons. The code of ethics must include certain things, and the purpose of the code of ethics is set out, but it doesn’t actually say that the monitor’s going to be bound. And that seems to me actually a bit of a shortfall in the legislation, unless, again, the Minister can assure the House—excuse me, the committee of the whole House—and indeed the country that this has been taken care of.

And also what we don’t have is any consequence if the code of ethics is breached. And we know, because we understand the point about independence, that it’s not going to be the Minister calling to account the monitor; it’s not going to be the ministry either, because we’ve heard that and discussed that. So it seems to me that there’s a danger of a Clayton’s code of ethics such that it’s not actually going to be enforceable in any way; it’s not required to be. And in practical terms, if no one is to be able to hold the monitor accountable for compliance with these ethical standards, then it seems to me not much point in being there. So I look forward to the Minister’s comments on that and with your indulgence, Mr Chair, in further contributions I certainly have other questions that I would like to have the Minister answer in this part.

There will still be an accountable Minister, with regards to the Independent Children’s Monitor. The Minister’s responsibility will be to make sure that the monitor fulfils its obligations with respect to the legislation. Also, if we’re referring to the code of ethics, the code of ethics will be secondary legislation, and that will be outlined very clearly there.

I also want to mention that the Minister for Oranga Tamariki, when we’re talking about the independence and how this relationship will work, will be accountable for response to the Independent Children’s Monitor’s reports.

The Minister in, again, a statement this evening stated, “meaningful and effective engagement”—meaningful and effective engagement. So I invite the Government benches to consider that, because it’s not about dispensing with something that conveniently is going to be rushed through. Our children are really important, so I’m going to bring it back to Part 2 under this bill, and for the benefit of the public who are listening in, Part 2 is a number of clauses, which are clauses 12 to 42. So there’s a significant number of Supplementary Order Papers, which are proposed amendments for consideration by this Government. But judging by Part 1, or the assessment from that, this is a done deal, and no matter what debate we put to the committee of the whole House for the Government to consider meaningful and effective engagement, it would seem that this is a foregone conclusion.

But from my perspective, the National Party’s perspective, I’m here to remind the Government that this bill is meant to be focused on the welfare, the best interests, the wellbeing of children, and that there is a specific child-centric lens to this.

So, on that note, I turn to my Supplementary Order Paper 230, which is addressing clause 16 under the bill. The proposal is to replace clause 16(2)(b), which says that “The Monitor must ensure that their tools and monitoring approaches—operate in a way that recognises the importance of children’s and young people’s families, whānau, hapū, iwi, and communities and their culture;”, with, “The Monitor must ensure that their tools and monitoring approaches—operate in a way that recognises … children and young people and their families, whānau, hapū, iwi, and communities …”, a significant point of difference. It is specifically ensuring and inserting, under this proposed amendment, the focus of the monitor to ensure that tools and monitoring approaches focus on the children and young people with their families, not disregarding children and young people, and having the priority on the families, whānau, hapū, and other entities.

So invite the Government, when the Minister has said in the Chamber this evening that a child-centric approach has been taken, to put politics aside, focus on what is in the welfare best interests of children, centre the interest and the focus on them, and this Supplementary Order Paper 230, with that proposal for an amendment to clause 16, does exactly that. So Minister, invite consideration for that, put politics aside, put our children’s interests to the fore.

The meaningful engagement questions that the member was asking about were actually out of scope with regards to this part of the bill. I am being specific to the parts in the bill. That’s what we’re here to do tonight, and that’s what the committee of the whole House stage is about.

The point that the member raised about whānau and Supplementary Order Paper 230 (SOP) that the member wants to put up, there’s actually already an SOP that covers that, and that’s by the member Jan Logie. Also, clause 5 ensures that the monitor does consider this.

Thank you very much, Mr Chair. I’m grateful to have a further call, mostly because the Minister didn’t provide what I thought was a very satisfactory answer to the committee of the whole House. I pointed out that the duty to act independently in clause 16A says that the Minister of the Crown can’t direct the monitor to stop carrying out an activity. And the Minister said, “Well, don’t worry, because the Minister’s still responsible for making sure that the monitor carries out their duties in accordance with the legislation.” Well, that’s utterly at odds with what it says here. They can’t stop them carrying out an activity. And the only test within this clause is that the monitor considers it necessary to enable them to perform or exercise their functions. So if the monitor, however wrongheadedly, thinks that it’s OK to do a certain thing even though that’s not consistent with the legislation, the Minister would have us believe that because it’s not consistent with the legislation, the Minister can intervene. But in fact the very words within clause 16A—the new ones that she wants to insert via the Supplementary Order Paper (SOP)—don’t allow that. So that’s the first thing.

The second thing is that in relation to clause 19—and it’s to do with the arrangements with hapū, iwi, and Māori organisations—we hear about the development of arrangements with hapū, iwi, and Māori organisations for the purposes of providing opportunities, etc. and sharing information under this Act, and then we see in subclause (2) that nothing in that is to limit or affect any legislation that applies to the sharing of information. So can the Minister explain the relationship of that provision to the Privacy Act—to the provisions in the Privacy Act, the information privacy principles that talk about, for example, data needing to be used only for the purpose for which it’s collected? Does that override this or not? Because this bill, and more particularly the SOP, at clause 19 within Part 2, says that nothing in that particular clause is going to affect legislation that applies to the sharing of information—the Privacy Act, of course, chief among them.

And then my final point is in relation to reports and reviews. I see that the monitor must prepare at least once every three years a state of the Oranga Tamariki system report. And three years seems an awful long time to wait for a report on a new regime in a highly contentious public policy area. I’ve acknowledged openly I’m not the most knowledgeable in this House on the particular matters, but I think when it comes to procedure and process and accountability, and again with that point about independence, meaning that it’s all the more important that a report be provided for the public to be able to pore over—and heaven forbid Opposition politicians have a go at being able to hold this Government agency to account, along with the fourth estate and so on. And yet we may have to wait up to three years before the first such report is needing to be produced, and that seems to me to be far too little accountability.

Firstly, I just want to revisit the point that I thought we’d covered, but I’m happy to go back to it with regards to independence. Interestingly, that member is probably the only one on that side of the House and every other political party that’s questioning whether it’s too independent. Every other party, including his own party, is pointing out lack of independence. However, the point is that the Minister can’t stop the monitor doing what is set out in legislation. The Minister can ensure the monitor is doing what they were required to do in legislation. And if they did act outside of that or they didn’t fulfil their obligations, then they would be acting unlawfully, and so the Minister would certainly have some influence there, as the Minister responsible for the monitor.

The member asked around the Privacy Act. It is certainly consistent with the Privacy Act. In some ways, what I’ve been advised is that clause 48 of this part is even more strict than what would potentially be required from the Privacy Act, and that was done deliberately because of the fact that we are specifically talking about children and young people in this instance. Also, just going back to the code of ethics question, there is a legal requirement regarding the code of ethics: a requirement on the monitor to comply with the code, firstly, when exercising power of entry; secondly, when collecting information from children; and, thirdly, when accessing children from caregivers. So those things are taken into consideration.

Thank you, Mr Chair. I’d just like to take a moment to thank the Minister for considering my Supplementary Order Paper (SOP) 188 in regards to getting reports sent to the proper people. There was just one part that you spoke to, where the Minister was talking about the chief executive of Oranga Tamariki unit not being necessary for proposed clause 27(c)(ca) to be included. I just wanted to give a little bit of reasoning behind why I had requested that. Nothing I do when it comes to this bill is “just because”. There’s a reason behind it and I’m trying to be reasonable with the Supplementary Order Papers that I’m putting up to try and make a difference to this bill.

So the reason I specifically named “the chief executive of Oranga Tamariki” is we’ve already seen a failure happen where the chief executive was not informed of a review that was done, of their own initiative, of the sexual violence programme. They did a report around something that was going on within Oranga Tamariki in a programme. That programme was failing and that programme was shut down. No one informed the chief executive, even though there was probably something in there that said maybe he should have been informed. So this was just my way of making well and truly sure that the correct people are being informed when a report is presented. So that was my reasoning behind adding that in.

I’d also like to have a talk about my SOP 195, around clause 34. There has been a little bit of talk about entry with notice and without notice when it comes to Oranga Tamariki facilities. I understand the Minister’s argument—we don’t want to upset children, people coming in and out without notice—but this is actually something that young people and advocates and the Children’s Commissioner talked about. It is about allowing a child who may be trying to reach out because they’re in danger or something’s not quite right, or they feel that their safety is at risk, being able to reach out to their advocate and have their advocate come in their time of need. And if you have to give notice and the organisation has the ability to say “No, you can’t enter.”, these children feel like their lifeline has disappeared. And that’s just the perception. It’s a bit like when I worked in retail—you know, the CEO is going to come the next day. They give you notice, you clean up the shop, you make sure everything’s fine and dandy before the boss comes in. The boss comes in, doesn’t see any problems, and the problems still exist but they’ve just been hidden because that notice has been given. I really feel like that lifeline is something that these young people have called for within the select committee process and after.

Thank you, Mr Chair. It would be good to get some feedback from the Minister on the engagement she’s had with the sector, particularly around concerns that have been more recently raised about the matter of independence.

This, of course, is Part 2 of the Minister’s Supplementary Order Paper (SOP). I do hope that we get to traverse and discuss and debate every one of the SOPs from the Minister, given the importance of this legislation.

So, on the matter of independence: one of the groups that I’m assuming the Minister has been engaging with very recently is Jonathon Boston around the item of independence and the concern about whether or not a Government department—a Government agency—can truly be deemed to be independent and whether or not in the independent monitor’s duties, in the duty to act independently, and why it is the Minister is confident that this independent monitor truly can be independent of any political considerations and that it is not sitting too close to the centre of power.

So I want to know, from the Minister, what engagement she’s had more recently with stakeholders—including Jonathan Boston—on the item of independence. Because, at the end of the day, unless it’s truly independent, there is a risk that it becomes a political puppet—which none of us want. We need to ensure there is true independence, and there’s been sufficient issues of late for it to be concerning.

So my question is a repeat of the question I asked before: for a list of the stakeholders that the Minister’s engaged with since the select committee reported the bill back and specifically around discussions with Jonathan Boston around independence and what additional steps the Minister has taken to ensure that independence is real, particularly in clause 16A(2).

Mr Chair, sorry—I’m a bit delayed there.

There were a few different things raised, so I’ll just go back to the ACT member, who raised some questions around power of entry. I just want to clarify to the committee that there’s no diminishing of power here. We’re not taking anything away that existed previously. What we still have is the Children and Young People’s Commission will still have responsibility for OPCAT—that’s the Optional Protocol to the Convention Against Torture, one of our conventions that we’ve signed up to. The Children and Young People’s Commission will still maintain that. That gives them a higher level of power of entry than what the monitor would have.

I understand the point that the member was making with regards to her concern that if a young person was urgently in trouble and called their advocate, the advocate wouldn’t be able to necessarily go there without notice. If that young person was in serious trouble, then my expectation would be that the advocate would be ringing the enforcement services to go and take that up, because that level of urgency would require support from the police or others, and there are others that have those powers. So I want to just remind the committee that we’re not removing a power that existed before, and certainly the same powers are in place with regards to the Children and Young People’s Commission and OPCAT.

Mr Chair—sorry, this is the issue when two people speak and I’ve got to traverse the two people’s comments, so hopefully I haven’t missed anything from the ACT member.

The National member stood and asked me about whether I’ve spoken to a specific person. That’s not part of Part 2. I’m not going to traverse something that is completely out of scope with the part of this bill when I’ve been very clear it’s so important for this House and for the general public that we—

CHAIRPERSON (Greg O’Connor): I’ll just remind the Minister it is up to the Chair to decide what is out of scope. The Minister can choose not to answer, but the Chair will make the decision as to what is out of scope.

Thank you, Mr Chair. It’s so important that we are speaking to the specifics of the particular part in front of us, and there are, in my mind, no provisions in Part 2 for who the Minister speaks to.

Thank you, Mr Chair. I’d like to speak to this. This is a really important part of this piece of legislation, and probably one of the most controversial parts, and it does hinge around—there are specific provisions, but a large part of concern is around this concept of independence. I acknowledge the Minister saying, “Well, the Monitor sits within MSD at the moment—departmental agency, that’s more independent.” But the real source of tension coming from the community is that there was an understanding from pretty much all of our agencies that this was being set up in the Ministry of Social Development (MSD) to be brought back into the Office of the Children’s Commissioner that would be independent of the Government, and not part of the Public Service. That is where the mistrust and the concern fundamentally lies, and the fact that the reasons for keeping it within the Public Service have been unclear and opaque for most people. The consultation that the Minister mentioned earlier did not involve that concept. I specifically asked Waikato-Tainui if they had been involved in the hui around the country on this bill. They said they’d attended those hui but the consultation and the engagement did not relate to the content of this bill, of this proposal.

I’d love to hear from the Minister to address specifically the points in the report from David King and Jonathon Boston, and to acknowledge that David King is an independent public policy analyst specialising in child and youth wellbeing, mental health, public administration, and constitutional policy; was a senior public servant for 20 years across a wide range of public policy domains—this is not somebody who does not understand legislation or the functioning of Government. And Jonathan Boston has advised the Government on critical child-related legislation just last term—like, people who know the functioning of Government and want the best for our children, I would argue, very strongly, and supportive. They are saying that they do not believe this model of supposed independent monitoring is appropriate, because it removes the possibility of having a virtuous learning cycle where monitoring and complaints and advocacy can inform each other, and creates the possibility of a vicious cycle of those things being separated out, where actually the learnings get lost between the agencies and the requirement for cooperation, actually—and having had something to do with Government agencies trying to work together in the last term of Parliament, I can say that is not a straightforward thing. Our Government agencies do not work easily well together. That is a challenge that I think everybody in this House recognises. Just to put in legislation that they have to cooperate does not mean that that happens consistently or in the way that we would imagine it would.

They also point out that having the departmental agency reporting, effectively, on another Public Service agency is like a junior chief executive (CE) critiquing a very powerful CE in the same Public Service. The chances are that junior CE is going to want a career in our Public Service and that their career progression will depend on their ability to maintain those relationships across the Public Service. Not one of our children’s commissioners, that I’ve been able to find out, has gone from that position into a role in the Public Service, because, actually, that is not seen as an appropriate interflow, because they have independence from the Crown. They are not—and it’s crucial in terms of having an absolutely independent voice for our children, not for the State. And whether we want to say we’re putting it into law, we also know that the last Ombudsman’s report of Oranga Tamariki found that they were in breach of law pretty much constantly, in most of the cases they were reviewing. So to say it’s in law does not mean it automatically happens. And we are in this legislation, it is my very strong view, creating very significant risk for our children of a loss of independence and holding them first.

The time has come for me to report progress.

Progress to be reported.

House resumed.

Mr Speaker, the committee has considered the Oversight of Oranga Tamariki System and Children and Young People’s Commission Bill and reports progress. I move, That the report be adopted.

Motion agreed to.

Report adopted.

The House adjourned at 9.59 p.m.