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

Members, we come now to our final debate, clauses 1 and 2, and new clause 2A. I call Harete Hipango.

I apologise, Madam Chair. We are speaking to a proposed motion to divide the bill into two bills—is that where we’re at? Title and commencement?

CHAIRPERSON (Hon Jacqui Dean): Oh, I’m sorry. I was looking at my sheet. Could the member repeat her—is the member taking a point of order?

No, not at all. I was taking a call, thinking that we were addressing the Minister’s Supplementary Order Paper (SOP).

💬 Hon Carmel Sepuloni: No, you were asking what it was. You don’t even know.

CHAIRPERSON (Hon Jacqui Dean): I don’t need the Minister’s help here.

Thank you. I may have misheard. I didn’t want to miss the call and let the opportunity lapse. Are we speaking to SOP 210, which is about the proposed motion to divide the bill into two parts?

CHAIRPERSON (Hon Jacqui Dean): If the member wants to raise a point of order, she says “point of order”.

Title and commencement. Thank you.

CHAIRPERSON (Hon Jacqui Dean): There is clear confusion, and I’m sorry if it’s me that’s been the cause of it, so I will start again. Our final debate is on clauses 1 and 2 and new clause 2A.

Thank you for that clarity on the matter. So in terms of the title, this bill is proposed to be named the Oversight of Oranga Tamariki System and Children and Young People’s Commission Bill. On that note, that is the bill that had been put to the public, to the House, and to the Social Services and Community Committee for consideration. However, there is a proposed motion before the House, so in speaking to the title of the bill, it is pre-empting what that motion will be, and that’s on the premise that this bill has been addressed in five parts, and that those parts have dealt with the three specific oversight entities and mechanisms of the Independent Children’s Monitor, the Office of the Ombudsmen with their complaints investigation role, and the Office of the Children’s Commissioner, soon to be, under this bill, the Children and Young People’s Commission. So the title that has been proposed is that of Oversight of Oranga Tamariki System and Children and Young People’s Commission Bill; I understand that’s not how it will eventuate in time.

Thank you, Madam Chair, and I’d just like to in this contribution speak to the commencement, really, and again, make the point—and if it’s uncomfortable for some in this Chamber to hear and maybe they’re bored with it, I’m OK with that because actually our community is telling us so clearly that this bill should not be going ahead and definitely not at the point of commencement before or in July 2023, just next year, about right when the royal commission’s report is due. So on this commencement date and the continuation of this bill, I want to bring the voices of all of those who have been strongly opposing this again into this Chamber.

We were requested to put this on hold by the Royal Commission Forum, which is made up of survivors, as well as some long-time members of the Labour Party and people with very senior experience within Government and researchers who have spent lives monitoring our child protection service and speaking up on behalf of the children who have been harmed: the Auckland University Aotearoa New Zealand Centre for Indigenous Peoples and the Law; Māori submitters, including the Māori Women’s Welfare League; Waikato-Tainui; all of the dames; VOYCE-Whakarongo Mai, who are set up to be the voice of young people in care right now; Save the Children, the children’s rights advocacy organisation; the Children’s Rights Alliance, which has a role of monitoring our obligations under the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child; Starship hospital; YouthLaw; Pacific Law providers working with children—it’s been overwhelming the call to pause, to go back, and ensure that children are part of shaping this system to ensure that it meets their needs as opposed to institutions’ or Government needs.

At the heart of any system—which has been acknowledged in the papers around this, but in a very weird way—is that for monitoring and complaints to work, you’ve got to trust the people who are doing those roles enough to tell them if something’s going wrong. And when everybody in our community and our young people in care are saying they do not trust the proposed model, how are they going to trust those people enough to go to them to tell them that something is wrong? The potential of harm being silenced because of a continued lack of trust and we have to remember that we are starting from a point of very, very low trust.

The Government’s answer to that is to tell the monitor that it has a duty to improve public trust. That’s not how trust works. Trust works from changing behaviour when you’ve messed up. It doesn’t work from telling people, “You need to trust me.” It needs to work from changing behaviour and listening and building relationship because at the heart of everything is relationship. This bill going through in this way is another severing of relationship, and it’s doomed to fail. Even if it was the right thing to do, it will be doomed to fail because it is again undermining the trust of people with whom we have so much work to do to rebuild trust with. So, so disappointed—just so, so disappointed.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I too would just like to speak to the commencement around this Act, and I too am disappointed that we are carrying on with this and that there is a date when this bill will commence. Over and over again, we’ve heard that youth voices are the most important. Getting youth involved in the decision making around their lives is important. We can’t afford to get this wrong anymore. For too long, we’ve got this wrong. We have too many victims in the past of a broken system and too many in the present of a broken system. And from hearing the voices of the people that work on the ground with these youth, we’re going to end up with too many victims in the future, because we continue to get this wrong. We’re not breaking the cycle of allowing Governments and public servants to make decisions around our youth and around their care instead of actually going to the people who work with these youth on a day-to-day basis and actually listening to what they are saying, because listening and actually doing something from what you’ve heard are two different things.

Actions speak louder than words, and the actions from this Government today, still pushing to put this bill through, show us that they’re just words. They’re meaningless. Our youth feel like they are meaningless again. Victims of abuse in State care feel their voices are meaningless again. We can say, “Your voice matters.” We can say, “We want you to be involved in the decision making that affects you and your future.” But, as I said, actions speak louder than words. How many came forward and said that this will put more youth at risk? More youth will fall through the cracks with this bill. But no, we’re still going to go with Government and public servants know best. How much longer can we allow this to happen? I’m just disappointed that this bill is even going to commence.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I sense that this will be the last stand that I make on this bill before it goes to the third reading. I join in unison in a voice filled with passion with my colleague Jan Logie from the Green Party, my colleague Karen Chhour from the ACT Party, and I from the National Party—all stand in unison alongside the New Zealand public, those who have lived care experience of the State welfare ill-fared system, those who have dedicated lives and service to this sector, importantly, to children and young people of Aotearoa New Zealand. Jan Logie, from the background that my colleague comes from, working in the social justice sector—

CHAIRPERSON (Hon Jacqui Dean): Order! I’m just going to ask the member to focus her comments and contribution on clauses 1, 2, and 2A. Thank you.

Appreciate that, and that comes to the title. Talking about Karen Chhour, if I may, and wrapping this in and blending it to the title—Karen, having come from lived life experience of the State welfare and care system, and I having worked as a lawyer advocating for this sector for most of my professional legal career. This brings me to the title.

Speaking to that, this is called the Oversight of Oranga Tamariki System and Children and Young People’s Commission Bill. I put a proposal to the House that this bill is more than an oversight. It is actually blind—a “Blinded Oranga Tamariki System and Deaf to the Voices and the Views of Children and Young People’s Bill”. That’s the title that I submit, which reflects the sentiment and also the expressions and the submissions that have been put before the select committee

With apologies—order! With apologies to the member. The time has now come for me to report progress.

Progress to be reported.

House resumed.

Mr Speaker, the committee has further 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.

The question is that the report be adopted.

Motion agreed to.

Report adopted.

The bill is set down for further consideration in committee next sitting day. Members, the House stands adjourned until 2 p.m. today.

The House adjourned at 12.56 p.m. (Thursday)