ACT's response to the resignation of Oranga Tamariki CE Graine Moss is spot on. Karen Chhour is part-Maori and grew up in fostercare so has firsthand experience of CYF intervention:
“Oranga Tamariki (OT) will remain ungovernable and continue to fail children unless it’s allowed to focus on the one thing it was established to do, ensure the wellbeing of children,” says ACT’s Social Development and Children spokesperson Karen Chhour.
“Until OT’s mandate and rules are tidied up it is unlikely anybody of high quality will put themselves forward to run the organisation.
“Well intentioned as it might have been, making the chief executive of the agency focus on the principles of the Treaty of Waitangi when responding to the needs of Maori children does not always result in the right outcomes for those children.
“Oranga Tamariki’s governing principles and its Act should be colour-blind, utterly child-centric and open to whatever solution will ensure a child’s wellbeing.
“Looking at decisions through the lens of s7AA imposes unworkably competing duties on the chief executive.
“Ethnicity and culture should not be a determining factor in deciding what is in the best interests of our children.
“Shortly ACT will be proposing a Member’s Bill that addresses these issues.
“The Government should drop the politically correct façade that’s holding the agency back and address s7AA itself.”
You can read more about OT's responsibilities under Section 7AA here.
4 comments:
ACT are bang on here.
There is no doubt in my mind that this woman has been shafted by the Labour Maori Caucus and Cabinet Ministers.
And probably a fat payout to go quietly. She did what she was hired to do and the actions for which she has been crucified were mostly taken by Maori social workers and managers. She is the scapegoat. Nothing to do with the treaty of Waitangi, everything to do with a breakdown in family values - in families actually! All setting up a separate Maori department will do is double the cost.
Indeed she did implement legislation passed as a response to the horribly high rate of child deaths from maltreatment. If a mother had previously had a child removed then so would a subsequent new birth until she was deemed a safe mother. That level of intervention is what the country wanted. That it happened to involve more Maori than non-Maori has nothing to do with racism.
After 4 years of Donald Trump, the world watches as America awakes to a new dawn.
Meanwhile, here in New Zealand the enlightened ones give the fox the key to the henhouse and wait for the eggs to hatch.
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