Kanongata'a Anahila; O'Connor GregANAHILA KANONGATA'A (Labour): Thank you e te Mana Whakawā. It's an honour and a privilege to make a contribution on the Oranga Tamariki (Repeal of Section 7AA) Amendment Bill. I'd like to acknowledge the member Karen Chhour for bringing this bill into the House and giving us an opportunity to contribute. I just want to remind everybody that section 7AA is about the duties of the chief executive in relation to the Treaty of Waitangi. For all of us in this House our identity runs through our body—our DNA. It pumps every second. It is important. We name our children after our ancestors. Most of us we talk about our food and when we recall the memories of our ancestors it strengthens us. I have spoken many times before about my experiences in Child Youth and Family. I entered Child Youth and Family in 1987 working in the mailroom. It was called the Department of Social Welfare. That was the year Pūao-te-ata-tū: The Report of the Ministerial Advisory Committee on a Māori Perspective for the Department of Social Welfare was released by the Hon Ann Hercus. Why I say that is that 1925 was the year of the first Child Welfare Act. From 1925 until Pūao-te-ata-tū in 1986 the law was colour-blind—it was colour-blind. It only came from one perspective which was to treat every child like a Pākehā child. In 1955 the Adoption Act was changed. It was changed to enable non-Māori to adopt Māori children so it has been 68 years since that has been colour-blind. I want to talk about 1989 when I was a clerk. I was a clerk in 1989 when there were changing names for the Department of Social Welfare. Then came the Children Young Persons and Their Families Act. So the Act became the Children Young Persons and Their Families Act and it provided family group conferences and it then started to acknowledge the Māori child in their whakapapa in their place in the whanaungatanga and acknowledged the responsibilities of their hapū and of their iwi to these tamariki. In 1992 the Department of Social Welfare where I was still a clerk went into five different business units—five different business units. But in 1999 it came back and it was then called the Department of Child Youth and Family Services. That's the first time the word Child" was in the title of an organisation. Throughout those years it wasn't until 2014 that the section under—we've heard about it. We've heard about it in the House about the Hon Anne Tolley. I was working as a senior adviser in Oranga Tamariki here in Wellington on the service design team. When we're talking about this we started off with a white paper. We got all the children's voices—all of the children throughout the whole country—and they told us how important it is and that their whakapapa is so important to them. The whakapapa is so important—the children their families and everybody else spoke about it. I talk about this because this is talking about Māori children. This is talking about the State's responsibility to Māori children. If we had started on the right track and if section 7AA was in it back in 1925 we would not be here talking about this. I talk about my past roles in Child Youth and Family as a social worker as a manager and as a senior adviser because it's about practice. I've seen bad practice. I've seen bad bad practice where social workers—there was a neighbour that the child called "Auntie" and the social worker treated that next-door neighbour as whānau and placed them there as a whānau placement. All that time they had no connection. So I know what it is about bad practice. Section 7AA acknowledges the Māori child as someone belonging to a collective and the responsibility of the collective to this child and the responsibility of this country. Section 7AA is exactly what it is: it sets out the duties of the chief executive to responsibilities to Māori in terms of the Treaty of Waitangi. I do not support this bill. DEPUTY SPEAKER: Karen Chhour—five minutes in reply."