OT bill won’t protect kids
Ihave heard Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern say time and again that she wants Aotearoa New
Zealand to be the best place in the world for our tamariki to grow up. I want that too – especially for those who are in state care.
I am a survivor of abuse in state care, with 12 years of lived experience under an oppressive, traumatising, and isolating ‘‘care’’ and ‘‘protection’’ system. I, and the community I represent, am deeply disheartened by the way the Oranga Tamariki Oversight Bill was designed in isolation from those who most need it to work.
As National Youth Council chairperson Karah Mackie has said: ‘‘If you do not bring the affected communities on the journey with you from the beginning, you will not make any meaningful change or progress.’’
The Government is taking an enormous step backwards with its approach to the Oversight of Oranga Tamariki System and Children and Young People’s Commission Bill.
Proposed changes put the ‘‘independent’’ Children’s Monitor within a government department, seriously weaken the powers of the children’s commissioner and put complaints through the adult-centric Ombudsman office. More of our mokopuna in care will suffer from all forms of abuse in silence if this bill passes.
Late last year we looked at this already-drafted bill through the lens of lived experience. We imagined what it would mean for people like us who are still in the system and it left us distressed. We faced our own trauma and took the courage to share our concerns at the select committee, believing this country values democracy.
Instead, we learned the Government had predetermined the bill would pass, no matter how many academics, Ma¯ ori, frontline workers and those with lived experience opposed it. Of 403 submissions, only 8 were in favour.
The prime minister said in her recent Harvard commencement address: ‘‘Democracy can be fragile. This imperfect but precious way that we organise ourselves, that has been created to give equal voice to the weak and to the strong, that is designed to help drive consensus – it is fragile.’’
We would argue in this case that democracy is not fragile, it is broken.
This bill is a warning shot to those who stand up to the state when it comes to the wellbeing and best interests of children. In our written submission opposing this bill, one of our rangatahi said, ‘‘I asked myself, ‘Would this bill benefit my experience of the system and my loved ones’ experiences today?’ And essentially I don’t think it would.’’
Our society needs strong oversight of Oranga Tamariki – the complaints, monitoring and advocacy functions working effectively will benefit all children and young people. But it is the pepı¯, tamariki and youth in care who suffer most when they don’t work. Pepı¯ and tamariki in the system can’t always speak up for themselves; who better to stand up for them than us, those who have lived their reality.
But none of our recommendations have been listened to. While we all have different care experiences, and opinions in our community, there is one thing we always agree on – how can we ensure our lived experience can inform those who govern the system to make it so much better than what we had? How can someone sitting at a desk in Wellington develop such an important bill without taking these insights onboard?
This bill puts our society on track to repeat the atrocities being exposed now at the Royal Commission into Abuse in State Care. This is a once-in-a-generation opportunity to get it right, and this bill gets it so wrong.