The Governmentâs reforms of state care watchdogs are a backwards step masquerading as progress, MPs have been told
Survivors of abuse in care have accused the Government of âdeliberately preemptingâ a Royal Commission of inquiry into state care abuse with its planned shakeup of Oranga Tamariki oversight.
Proposals to replace the Childrenâs Commissioner with a board of representatives and place an independent monitor of Oranga Tamariki within the Education Review Office, rather than as a standalone entity, have attracted criticism from both former and current commissioners.
There are also concerns the work is cutting across the work of the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuse in Care, tasked with looking into the historical mistreatment of young people and providing recommendations for reforms by next year.
The Royal Commission Forum, an independent community organisation set up in 2018 to monitor and support the commissionâs work, told MPs it was âdismayedâ by the decision to push ahead with changes before the inquiry was concluded.
Speaking to Parliamentâs social services and community committee, forum member and abuse survivor Keith Wiffin said the state care system needed stronger oversight to avoid children suffering the way he had.
âIt is absolutely essential that thereâs an effective and adequate monitoring service available which is truly independent, which this is not.
âThis is a backward step â it is the wrong approach, and it is masquerading as progress when it is not.â
â[The Governmentâs reforms] seem to me to have been developed for essentially nefarious reasons by officials who are keen to protect the reputation of the agencies themselves.â
â Keith Wiffin
Wiffin said the Royal Commissionâs interim redress report had placed a heavy emphasis on the need for an independent body to be established, given the âabject failureâ of state agencies over multiple decades â but its final report was now being preempted by the Governmentâs proposals.
âIt is mind bogglingly arrogant, for me personally, to see this done without waiting for the recommendations that might come from the Royal Commission of inquiry. It seems to me to have been developed for essentially nefarious reasons by officials who are keen to protect the reputation of the agencies themselves.â
Dr Alison Blaiklock, a public health physician, forum member and survivor of abuse in faith-based care, said she supported the views of others that children and young people had not been properly engaged in the development of the bill, which âweakens the roles and responsibilities of the Childrenâs Commissioner for all children and silences its crucial advocacyâ.
âIt doesnât comply with the stateâs obligations under Te Tiriti o Waitangi, the Convention on the Rights of the Child and international human rights law, and it appears to be a deliberate attempt to preempt the findings of the Royal Commission on abuse in care.â
Other submitters also offered broad criticisms of the Governmentâs plans.
Oranga Tamarikiâs âdestructiveâ worldview
Lady Tureiti Moxon, representing a group of MÄori kahurangi (or dames) who have been critical of Oranga Tamariki, said the proposed oversight arrangements would only consider problems and complaints after they had occurred, and was insufficient given the number of reports into the ministryâs failings.
âWe are talking about continuing to keep them in a system that is foreign to them, that does not include a MÄori worldview, that has a worldview that is quite destructive and ⌠very, very destructive to our families, and has undermined the very core fabric of rangatiratanga but of whakapapa as well.â
Making tweaks to the organisation would not bring about the changes needed, when MÄori needed greater control over the care and protection system.
Jane Searle, chief executive of the Child Matters national trust, said the proposed changes would undermine the work of previous childrenâs commissioners and significantly reduce trust in the system.
The development of a more comprehensive care and protection system should be built on strengthening the current structure of the office of the Childrenâs Commissioner, not dismantling it, Searle said.
She also had concerns about the independence of the childrenâs monitor, noting her trust had changed its name from the Institute of Child Protection Studies because the public had seen it as being too connected to the state.