Sitting date: 2 Apr 2025

ORANGA TAMARIKI (REPEAL OF SECTION 7AA) AMENDMENT BILL

Third Reading

Hon KAREN CHHOUR (Minister for Children): I present a legislative statement on the Oranga Tamariki (Repeal of Section 7AA) Amendment Bill.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Teanau Tuiono): That legislative statement is published under the authority of the House and can be found on the parliamentary website.

Hon KAREN CHHOUR: I move, That the Oranga Tamariki (Repeal of Section 7AA) Amendment Bill be now read a third time.

I'm pleased to lead this bill into its final stage in the House, and I'm proud to reflect on the journey that it has taken to get to its third reading today, but more importantly, to reflect on what this will mean for the most vulnerable children and young people in Aotearoa New Zealand. I'm proud to stand here as Minister for Children, delivering on exactly what I promised when I became the Minister—that is, to ensure that the system we trust as a nation to take good care of vulnerable children and young people is focused on safety and wellbeing above all else. This bill reaffirms the coalition Government's commitment to the care and safety of children in care.

Let me remind you of some of the important context. Section 4A of the Oranga Tamariki Act 1989 requires that the wellbeing and the best interests of the children or young person are the first and paramount consideration in the administration or application of the Act. And yet, I've stood in front of you and in this House multiple times to share stories from caregivers and Oranga Tamariki staff and people who deal with Oranga Tamariki whose experience has highlighted that section 7AA of the Act has been misused and potentially put children in harm's way. Many shared that section 7AA has led to decisions that were not in the best interests of the child in cases where the race of a child was prioritised over their safety and wellbeing. Similar stories were echoed through submissions on the bill.

While section 7AA was well intended, it also resulted in children being put second. We can no longer accept or excuse this. We can no longer deny that section 7AA has led to confusion and conflict in a system that cannot afford to get such a crucial care decision wrong. What happens now? What happens in practice to these young people matters. These children's lives are not lived in theories or in the comfort of academia or privilege. The harm that comes their way is not academic; it is real. That is why I make no apology for repealing section 7AA from the Act to remove any confusion for people on the ground making decisions on a daily basis to keep children and young people safe.

I introduced the Oranga Tamariki (Repeal of Section 7AA) Amendment Bill while I was in Opposition and the Government of the time denied it going through. I then introduced the bill in the House in May 2024 and nominated the Social Services and Community Committee to consider this bill. Once again, I thank the committee for its consideration of the bill. I thank members of the public and the thousands of submitters who put time, effort, and heart into having their say on the bill. I'm especially appreciative of the lived-experience perspective from submitters with a history in care and the protection system. This included those who were in care as children or young people and those who have crucially supported the system as caregivers, strategic partners, social workers, social sector partners, and many others.

By majority, the Social Services and Community Committee recommended to insert provisions related to strategic partnerships between iwi and Māori organisations and Oranga Tamariki, alongside other duties of the Oranga Tamariki chief executive. As I've said throughout the journey of this bill in the House, the work that the 10 strategic partners have done to prevent young people entering care and to improve the outcomes of those already in care cannot be overlooked. I was very clear that I wanted this work to continue. I have read and heard what members of the public have said, and I've heard from the committee, and I listened.

Hon Mark Mitchell: Point of order, Mr Speaker. I apologise to the Minister. I am trying to listen to the speech. This is a Minister delivering a speech on what is a critically important piece of legislation. I cannot hear her, because there are two members of the Māori Party there who are chipping away at her constantly. There are members of the Labour Party—I cannot hear what she's saying.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Teanau Tuiono): Point taken. Interjections must be rare and reasonable, so I would like members to take that into account. I do want to acknowledge the interest in this particular bill as well, but members need to be heard and Ministers need to be heard.

Hon KAREN CHHOUR: Thank you, Mr Speaker. As I said in my second reading speech, I commend the committee's majority recommendation that the strategic partnership provisions remain in the Oranga Tamariki Act. This commitment in legislation, rather than as an operational prerogative, is an important one. However, what I want to make clear is that this bill does not negate the importance of cultural connections for children and young people. I have no issue with looking to whānau, hapū, or iwi as a solution for placements when appropriate, but safety must come first every single time.

I recently received feedback that section 7AA supports decision-makers under the Act to have regard to the cultural connections of Māori children and young persons. Their concern was that this would no longer be available for reference after the repeal. This is not the case. Section 5 of the Act requires anyone who exercises power under the Act to be guided by the concepts of mana tamaiti, whakapapa, and whanaungatanga. The bill does not remove this requirement. What the bill does do, however, is remove confusion between the safety considerations in section 4A and cultural considerations in section 7AA. The bill creates clarity in decision-making so that the safety is indeed the paramount consideration for each and all children and young people.

I would just like to finish off by thanking all those who have supported me through this process and also to all those staff who go out every day to make sure that our children and our young people are safe, loved, and cared for. I want to reiterate the Government's commitment to renew the focus of Oranga Tamariki to be on the safety and wellbeing of children in care arrangements. This bill and the repeal of section 7AA will go a long way to ensuring that. I'm pleased to commend the Oranga Tamariki (Repeal of Section 7AA) Amendment Bill to the House.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Teanau Tuiono): The question is that the motion be agreed to.

Hon WILLOW-JEAN PRIME (Labour): Tēnā koe e te Māngai o te Whare. This is a travesty. Let the record show tonight—or tomorrow, when this bill ultimately passes— that political ideology has driven this repeal and that vulnerable Māori children will be the ones who pay the price. Let the record show all of our descendants who in this Whare supported the repeal of the provisions to ensure the implementation of the principles of Te Tiriti o Waitangi—let the record show who is supporting that. Let the record show who supports removing the legal obligation, the statutory requirement of the chief executive of Oranga Tamariki to have policies and practices that reduce disparities for tamariki Māori. Let the record show—let the history books show—these tamariki who could be the subject of a future royal commission into abuse in State care, because this is the very sort of thing that the royal commission that we recently had inquired into and reported on.

Here we are in this House tonight, repealing a section of the Oranga Tamariki Act that was put in place to address the very issues that that royal commission has reported on. The Minister said she is proud. Shame on her. This has been her political agenda from the day she arrived in Parliament, and tonight—tomorrow, when it passes—she finally gets her opportunity to pass law that is based on political ideology and no empirical evidence, and she makes no apology. So let our mokopuna know who it was who did this to them—to them, not for them. To them.

Now, the first thing I want to start with is to quote a survivor of abuse in State care. Tupua Urlich spoke about the damage caused to him by being removed from his whānau and culture, saying that "it is going to take generations to undo that harm. So when the Government turns around and fails to acknowledge our rights, it's [like] another stab in the back."

What I will remember is a Minister who was so disrespectful that she would not front before the Waitangi Tribunal to provide our experts with the evidence that supports why this policy is needed in the first place. So disrespectful, so close-minded. She already knew what it was that she wanted to achieve. What I will also remember is a weak and desperate-for-power Prime Minister. The Prime Minister, leader of the National Party, agreed in the coalition agreement to repeal section 7AA, which was something that the last National Government put into law. It means absolutely nothing. Totally disrespectful to his colleagues and colleagues in the previous Government. Anything is up for grabs. Desperate for power. Weak.

What I will also remember are these words from the officials. Now, the Minister, last night in the committee stage, talked about a few cases that she believes provides the evidence to repeal this entire section, which is going to have huge impacts for tamariki Māori, who make up two-thirds of the care and protection system. And you know what they said about the cases that she raised? Oranga Tamariki notes that there is no empirical evidence to support the notion that section 7AA has driven practice decisions that have led to changing in care arrangements. Her own officials telling her there is no empirical evidence to support the cases that she is using to justify this case. Closed-minded, doesn't care, never cared from the beginning.

But what I really want to focus on in this contribution is the fact that everybody in this House—the Minister for Children and everybody that is still in the House tonight—are on notice. We have all been warned in the regulatory impact statement right from the beginning of this debate, and this journey that the Minister talks about, that there is a risk that this will do real harm to tamariki Māori.

It's not just an academic conversation that the Minister thinks that we are having. This is from experts; this is from people with lived experience; this is from our strategic Māori partners and providers who are at the front line. This is from our health professionals; our social workers; so many submitters, majority of the submitters, who said there will be adverse impact on holistic wellbeing when tamariki and rangatahi Māori are alienated and disconnected from their culture and the issues that they have highlighted—now listen up—it will be an increased risk to physical, mental, psychological, cultural, and social distress due to the shift away from prioritising familial connections, identity, cultural understanding in care placements, practice approaches, and access to appropriate cultural supports.

That disconnection from whakapapa, whānau, identity, language has serious and long-lasting negative impacts on tamariki and rangatahi Māori, including intergenerational trauma. Why would anybody inflict that on a vulnerable Maori child; an innocent Maori tamaiti? Why would anybody agree to that in the House tonight? How can you all sleep at night is my question to you.

As I have said, there is no evidence to support this. This is all political ideology. There was no consultation. This impacts only Māori children—no consultation with Māori, no consultation with strategic partners. Not a single strategic partner supported this repeal. It is a clear breach of Te Tiriti o Waitangi, as identified by officials, as also found by the Waitangi Tribunal, and the reports all say that this will cause harm.

In my final time that I have, the other thing that will always sit with me from this process has been those who took the time to make the submissions on this bill. They poured everything they had into their submissions. As I mentioned at second reading, grown men crying in front of the Social Services and Community Committee because of the impact they know that this will have.

But the other one I wanted to highlight was the māmā who themselves grew up in State care, who have suffered from that disconnection to their culture, who are raising their own children while they are trying to put the pieces of the puzzle together for themselves and raise their next generation and their

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We saw it with survivors of abuse in State care presenting before our committee. They told us the impact that this will have. We saw it from the māmā telling us the impact it's had on them and for their pēpē. And yet here we are tonight. None of that mattered. It's still going to be repealed anyway. Shame on all of you.

Dr LAWRENCE XU-NAN (Green): I rise on behalf of Te Pāti Kākāriki to strongly oppose this bill because this is a bill that is hard to justify. There is no justification on why this bill needs to be introduced into this House in the first place. We have seen and heard throughout the select committee stage, throughout the committee stage, of the harm that this will cause to our tamariki for generations to come.

But let's look at the bill first. One of the fundamental protection and bottom line that is being removed as a result of the repeal of section 7AA is the reporting requirement by the chief executive of Oranga Tamariki. There is a reason why that responsibility and why that reporting mechanism needs to be there in the first place, because our tamariki, our mokopuna have been hurt in the system. There needs to be some form of accountability. There needs to be some form of transparency.

We have heard from the Minister for Children that those reporting mechanisms will remain. But that is not what we have seen and that is not what we have been told from those on the ground, because one of the fundamental aspects around reporting on disparities will not be reported on because there is now no longer a legal obligation for the chief executive to report on that. That is a problem.

We have heard from the Minister—over and over again—anecdotal evidence, singular evidence, but not empirical evidence. Never once was addressed the countless people from legal experts, from those who have been harmed in the system, from community organisations on the ground who are working with these people, from strategic partners—never was once mentioned their opposition to this bill. Even in the anecdotal evidence that was presented and was reported to us we have heard that those are not even section 7AA cases. They are not relevant to the bill that we are currently even talking about. That is not genuine. We are supposed to be an evidence-based House. When we are talking about bills, they are based on solid empirical evidence and that is not what we have seen as we're going through the reading, as this bill becomes law.

Throughout the committee stage we have questioned, over and over again, what is our Te Tiriti obligation? We've heard the fact that this repeal fundamentally misunderstands the role of tikanga Māori, fundamentally misunderstands the relationship that our tamariki, that our mokopuna have within Te Ao Māori, within the ecosystem of the Māori worldview. Māori, and also tamariki, in this case, all tamariki are considered taonga. In Chinese culture, from my area, we have a similar term; we call our tamariki , which literally translates to "treasure". The idea of tamariki, of our future generation as taonga, as treasure, is a universal concept. We know for a fact that when we are looking at Aotearoa, when we are looking at the system that is presented to us, we know what is good for Māori is good for everyone else. This bill does nothing to reflect that.

We have heard from multiple of our colleagues in this House when questioning the Minister for Children on what is the role of iwi—what is the role of whānau and hapū and iwi in this? There is a fundamental misunderstanding as well around what that strategic partner meant. We heard from our colleagues of the beauty that could come out of that strategic partnership, and we are worried that the repeal of this section will see the diminishment of some of that collaboration and much-needed healing from generations, from centuries of trauma.

We have heard from multiple sources—from legal experts, from the Waitangi Tribunal—that this bill fundamentally breaches Te Tiriti o Waitangi. [Interruption]

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Teanau Tuiono): Can I ask members to not have conversations—apologies to the member. I would like members to not have conversations across the Chamber.

Dr LAWRENCE XU-NAN: Thank you, Mr Speaker. What is our vision for the future of Aotearoa? I would have thought that our vision is to protect our tamariki—our vision, collectively, is to protect our mokopuna. We have heard from the report on abuse in State- and faith-based care, like what the Hon Willow-Jean Prime just mentioned before: grown men breaking down, talking about the experience they had in our care system. One of the things that's fundamentally addressed as part of that is the strained or broken whakapapa and the violence and the ill treatment that we have seen in the system. This is one of the reasons that section 7AA exists in the first place.

We have seen for too long stolen lives and marked souls as a result of our system, and Māori have been disproportionately affected by that system. When are we going to stop sacrificing our mokopuna and our tamariki for a capitalist system that they did not ask for? When we are looking at the system, it has been far too often that we trade the hopes and dreams of our future generation for a quick buck right now. Shame.

Hon Members: Shame!

Dr LAWRENCE XU-NAN: Shame! Why do we need to do that? Why do we need to sacrifice our mokopuna as a result of this?

It is not just the repeal of 7AA. It is the shocking quality and substance of our school lunches. It is the allowance for us to continuously commercialise and privatise our early childhood education system. It is the deprioritisation of Te Tiriti in section 127 of the Education and Training Act. It is the removal of resource teachers' Māori and resource teachers' literature. It is all of these things—underfunding of a kōhanga reo, of a kura in this system. These things do not operate in isolation, and it is one particular party that we've seen over and over and over again that is willing to sacrifice our mokopuna for a quick buck, willing to sacrifice our mokopuna for their capitalist gains, for their monopolisation, for their commercialisation of everything that is supposed to be a public good.

An institution is never a home. A home is within a whānau, hapū, iwi, the belonging of taonga in safe and loving whānau.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Teanau Tuiono): This debate is interrupted and is set down for resumption next sitting day. The House stands adjourned until 2 p.m. tomorrow.

Debate interrupted.

The House adjourned at 9.57 p.m.

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