Logie Jan; Rurawhe AdrianJAN LOGIE (Green): Thank you Mr Speaker. I move That the House take note of a matter of urgent public importance.Malachi was five years old when he was murdered. Malachi experienced repeated beatings including being held under bath water burnt in a shower and twice thrown against a wall. Then he was murdered. There is nothing we can do about that now and nothing I'm going to say or focus on is meant to remove responsibility from Michaela Barriball. She needs to live with the consequences of her brutal actions. The reason we're having this discussion in the House today is not just or even primarily because of Michaela Barriball's actions; it is because there were opportunities for Oranga Tamariki (OT) and other statutory children's agencies to intervene to protect Malachi—opportunities and legal obligations that they comprehensively failed to take.The Green Party the family and the public need to understand how this happened and even more than that we need confidence that the Minister and the agencies have a plan that is specific and comprehensive enough to prevent this and other injustices and tragedies from happening again. I realise there is a commitment to reform Oranga Tamariki and the Minister actively asked for the role to be able to drive that change. I also realise that with such horrifically high rates of child abuse and deep structural racism and ableism and a degrading of social work practice by unsafe caseloads and tick-box processes within our child protection systems transformation won't happen overnight. I get it. But alongside many others I currently lack confidence in Oranga Tamariki and connected to that the Minister to be able to deliver on transformation and do their part to protect our children through that process.Today I want to start by going through what I understand happened from the Ombudsman's report public reporting and talking to Malachi's uncle. The first failure and event in this chain was that Malachi's mum was arrested and despite drug paraphernalia being present in the house when she was arrested Malachi was left at the house with people not even really known to him. When Malachi's mum was sent to prison and despite family conversations discussing Malachi's staying with family he was sent to stay with Michaela Barriball who was related to his mum's co-offender. No safety check was done. If it had been done they would have found a history of child abuse. No thought was given to whether the relationship of Michaela to the co-offender might create an opportunity for Malachi to be used as blackmail or punishment. The cousin made an initial report to the police but was told that it was a civil matter because there was a case in the Family Court and she should go to Oranga Tamariki.On 22 June the family lodged a report of concern with OT identifying actual and potential harm medical neglect and suspected physical abuse. On 28 June the family sent through a photo of suspected facial bruising. This was put on file on 6 July and evidence of this type legally requires a report to the police. This was not done. OT decided in the wake of that that no action was required. At no point did anyone from that agency talk to Malachi. The family put in a complaint regarding that decision. OT decided there was no need for a peer review of that decision and the social worker who made the initial decision was involved in that decision. There are reports that at some stage Malachi's mum's probation officer made a report of concern. Computer records show Malachi's file was opened at that time but there is no record of a report of concern. Malachi's day-care centre noticed his injuries in the months before his death and photographed the bruises and black eye but never alerted authorities. They've had their licence revoked as a consequence.Malachi was pulled out of day care by Michaela. The family contacted two Ministers' offices and were told there was nothing they could do as there was a case in front of the Family Court. An Opposition MP's office was contacted and requests for support were made but no help was given. Michaela text her partner on several occasions that she was going to kill Malachi. There was a hearing scheduled for the Family Court on 29 October but no welfare checks were made prior to that and Michaela cancelled that court hearing. Then Malachi was admitted to hospital on 1 November with significant injuries. Michaela the woman convicted of his murder sat by his bed in the hospital and it was only the day after that that Oranga Tamariki contacted the cousin to tell her he was in hospital and there were concerns he would not survive. They did that after the district health board had activated the family violence child protection protocol to notify Oranga Tamariki. That same day the family knew the uncle called Oranga Tamariki to ask how to make a complaint and he recalls being told there was no complaints process and he could speak directly to the duty social worker. On 8 November the uncle and cousin made a complaint to the Ombudsman in their words to stop the paper shuffling" because that is how they experienced the system as they tried to protect and keep Malachi alive. And on 12 November Malachi died.I want to be very clear in this House and to the public that Malachi's uncle and cousin did exactly what we want everyone to do. They stood up for that five-year-old boy and they kept standing up in the face of incredibly distressing inaction from everyone they spoke to. And when I spoke to Malachi's uncle he asked what else they could have done. Like they thought about going in and taking him but they feared that they would be arrested for kidnapping if they did that. And that was a real fear. This goes to the heart of the tension when we want people to make complaints and we want to keep children safe. Our agencies have to act. And we're not asking for or wanting an overly risk-averse child protection system that doesn't listen to whānau. That is not what I am standing up here asking for. Not listening to whānau was again what went wrong here and I would say in-built biases were also part of that.This is not a different problem from children being taken from their whānau where there were safe places for them to go within the wider whānau; it is the same problem. And in this instance the Ombudsman found that Oranga Tamariki "has acted contrary to its own policies which requires the wellbeing of children and their families to be central to decision making. Oranga Tamariki does not appear to have fulfilled the bare minimum of the process required to ensure Malachi's safety."So it's clear Oranga Tamariki OT failed and all of our child protection agencies failed. And I stick by that description because the abuse of a child and the death of a child cannot be considered anything other than the most profound failing. If we recognise that and hold that close then I hope we've got a chance of learning the lessons that we need to learn to stop this happening.Where was the voice of the child in all the decisions made about him Minister? To have confidence moving forward we have to look at what we've seen before and what has happened since. And I don't understand why it took Oranga Tamariki until February to provide the Ombudsman with the relevant records to assist this investigation. I do not understand why they could not comment on actions at that time despite the fact I've read their justifications—I just don't get it. I don't understand why it took until May—at a time of public interest in Malachi's death—for Oranga Tamariki to announce they would conduct a practice review. I do not understand how the Ministry of Education has managed to conduct a review and remove the licence from a private business and yet Oranga Tamariki—who should be holding the welfare of Malachi and children at their front and centre—have not managed to do that review.I do not understand why the Minister has said the practice review was delayed so much because they were waiting for the Ombudsman's report when OT said they wanted the Ombudsman to delay his report until they'd finished their practice review. Why has it taken six months to do an internal review? I want to know how we could possibly have confidence in the organisation when the Ombudsman has publicly said OT's lack of engagement was curious and very unacceptable. OT—and this is his words—"has failed to give me an open picture of what occurred here and why." He further said that the lack of cooperation was so bad it hindered his job and he would keep a close eye on Oranga Tamariki's own review. So he experienced the agency who was supposed to and is legally charged with the duty of putting the wellbeing of children first as obstructive in his job of providing oversight which we heard the Prime Minister trumpet in this House as "essential" in terms of our child protection system.So how also can the Minister rely so heavily on the future direction plan to assure us that these concerns are in the process of change when the plan had developer Kaimahi Ora's strategy for all supporting staff to enable work-life balance to be completed six months ago and now staff are going on strike to protest over unsafe workloads?I know a staff member who's left that agency when they were involved in that process of transformation because they were putting proposals out and then sitting around twiddling their thumbs because they got no response back and they could no longer deal with sitting in an agency supposedly going through transformation and not having anything to do. At a time where our kids are being abused in care at higher levels than we have seen when a child is murdered as a result of the failure to intervene I just find that incomprehensible and there is nothing that I've heard from the Minister or the staff leading Oranga Tamariki or those agencies that breaks through my sense of déjà vu of another report—another failing—and a "Yes this sucks; we're doing to do better" and nothing changes.I really wonder how the Minister can tell us he's pleased with progress as he did on Newshub Nation when reported abuse of children in care has increased and Treasury has found that Oranga Tamariki lacks a clear organisational strategy and does not have a partnership strategy absolutely central to the process of transformation that's articulated.And as a VOYCE - Whakarongo Mai youth council member has said to me they're saying in response to this situation that there's really deep mamae with all of this and that there are counsellors—care-experienced tāngata—who are willing to put in mahi to ensure things like this don't continue happening.Iwi and hapū from across the motu have shown that they are more than willing to put mahi into this but Oranga Tamariki continues to charge forward—essentially putting the lives of all tamariki in their care at risk; not engaging with them not asking them in their experience about what could be done differently. And they want an assurance that the voice of the child will be central that the care-experienced voice will be central in these changes because they know that's the only way to make it work.I also want to finish on a core point where concern that the Minister characterised transformation—throwing out the agency versus doing what's being done now—and ignored the proposal from the Waitangi Tribunal for a Māori transitional authority which would have devolved responsibility and provided accountability and oversight that could have motivated—stimulated—actual change as well as accountability.SPEAKER: The question is that the motion be agreed to."