Ma¯ori kids’ situation worsening

Never doubt the power of images. It was a documentary produced by Newsroom, fronted by veteran investigative journalist Melanie Reid, that brought problems in Oranga Tamariki to wider attention.

The video, which covered the uplift of a newborn baby from a hospital in Hastings, appeared nearly two years ago and sparked a national discussion, inflected with despair and disbelief, that led to an urgent inquiry by the Waitangi Tribunal. At a stretch, you could say it had a similar impact in New Zealand to the George Floyd video in the US.

The Waitangi Tribunal’s hearings in 2020 included a remarkable admission from Oranga Tamariki boss Grainne Moss that structural racism at every level of the child welfare agency has made life worse for Ma¯ ori children.

Moss also acknowledged that the Crown had not fully implemented recommendations made by the important report Pu¯ ao-te-Ata-Tu¯ , concerning a Ma¯ ori perspective on what was then the Department of Social Welfare, released way back in 1988.

Moss has since resigned. That report had identified structural racism as a major issue within Social Welfare. But Pu¯ ao-teAta-Tu¯ withered on the vine, the Waitangi Tribunal says.

The Waitangi Tribunal’s report, released this week, reiterates that Ma¯ ori children are not just overrepresented within Oranga Tamariki, but that overrepresentation is worsening. Between 2000 and 2018, the number of Ma¯ ori aged 16 and under in state care rose from one in every 125 to one in every 64. They are five times more likely than other children to be in state care.

The tribunal locates the source of the disparity in the alienation and dispossession that flowed out of colonialism, and the failure to honour the Treaty of Waitangi and guarantee tino rangatiratanga, as promised by the Treaty.

This is deep history, comparable to arguments that trace the contemporary Black Lives Matter movement in the US back more than 400 years, to the introduction of slavery in 1619. Too often we fail to see bigger pictures and focus on the immediately topical. Sometimes it helps to think in centuries rather than years or decades.

What happens now? The Waitangi Tribunal has recommended that a Ma¯ ori Transition Authority be created to reform state care and protection of Ma¯ ori, returning to Ma¯ ori ‘‘the Treaty promise of rangatiratanga’’.

This does not mean the wholesale abolition of Oranga Tamariki, or ‘‘separatism’’ as some will inevitably dub it, but realising the Treaty’s promise that two peoples can and should coexist harmoniously.

And while the Waitangi Tribunal does not have the power to force change on the Government, the recently announced independent Ma¯ ori Health Authority could show a way forward. Ma¯ ori, the report says, should be allowed to reclaim their space.

The Waitangi Tribunal also had another, much easier recommendation. This was a ‘‘simple recommendation’’ in relation to Newsroom’s famous uplift video. The tribunal asks that ‘‘all ministers who carry the responsibility to decide what happens next, first make time to watch the Newsroom documentary of the attempted uplift in Hastings in May 2019 (if they have not already done so).

‘‘We say this because we believe this short documentary makes a case for substantial reform in ways more eloquent and direct than we can convey in words.’’

There is a barb in those lines. Both Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern and former children’s minister Tracey Martin stressed that they had not watched the video, several weeks after it had gone online, despite it being just 45 minutes long.

[the report] withered on the vine, the Waitangi Tribunal says.