Bennett Paula: Vulnerable Children Bill — First ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeBennett Paula: Vulnerable Children Bill — First Reading[Sitting date: 17 September 2013. Volume:693;Page:13382. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Hon PAULA BENNETT (Minister for Social Development): I moveThat the Vulnerable Children Bill be now read a first time. I nominate the Social Services Committee to consider the bill. I am going to speak quickly as there is a lot of detail I would like to get through and I know that that will be a surprise to everyone! This omnibus bill proposes two new Acts: the Vulnerable Children Act and the Child Harm Prevention Orders Act. It amends the Children Young Persons and Their Families Act 1989 and the KiwiSaver Act 2006 and it makes consequential amendments to a number of other Acts. This bill is about protecting vulnerable children and putting that priority ahead of the needs of adults. These changes are bold and by their nature controversial. This work has been driven not just by—The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson): Order! I am sorry to interrupt the honourable member. Would members leaving the Chamber please do so quietly and show some courtesy to the member who is trying to address us.Hon PAULA BENNETT: Thank you Mr Speaker. These changes are bold and by their nature controversial. This work has been driven not just by my own and this Government’s passion to better protect children but also by the determination of the New Zealand public to address this country’s horrific record of child abuse. I hope Opposition parties will at least support this bill going to the select committee so that it can be heard there. I can say hand on heart that I have not played party politics with this work and I believe that it is above politics.Every year Child Youth and Family substantiates 22000 cases of physical sexual and emotional abuse and neglect. We have already introduced significant changes that are making a difference and there is an enormous amount of work under way on the Children’s Action Plan. For me personally the most important work I will ever do as a Minister is contained in the Children’s Action Plan.Firstly the bill aims to make Government agencies jointly accountable to a responsible Minister for producing reviewing and reporting on a vulnerable children’s plan. The measure combined with clear child protection policies—The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson): Order! Courtesy is contagious. I am looking to the members on my right.Hon PAULA BENNETT: —will help to ensure that front-line staff take responsibility for keeping children safe from abuse and neglect. The bill also introduces measures to protect children from adults who may harm them. Finally it addresses how we can better respond to those children who have already been harmed and are in the care of the State. The legislative programme will ensure that changes are enduring.The bill introduces a new requirement for certain chief executives to collectively develop and report on a vulnerable children’s plan. That plan must set out how these agencies will work together towards collectively achieving the Government’s priorities for vulnerable children. Chief executives will have to report annually on that plan and answer to the responsible Minister on whether or on the extent to which each agency has implemented the plan for these children. The plan will be made public. Do not underestimate the power of this unprecedented move. Never before in this country have the chief executives of health education police and justice had this specific accountability for vulnerable children. Now they will alongside the Ministry of Social Development of course. It will significantly change the way they work.These five agencies as well as TePuniKōkiri and the Ministry of Business Innovation and Employment are all well represented on the Vulnerable Children’s Board. That board is an important part in the accountability chain leading from the children’s teams working on the ground up to a ministerial oversight group. To support better identification and reporting of child abuse and neglect this bill requires clear child protection policies to be introduced. Specified Government organisations including district health boards and boards of trustees of State schools integrated State schools and partnership schools must have child protection policies.The bill also requires these agencies providing children’s services as well as those they contract or fund to adopt policies on identifying and reporting child abuse and neglect. Too often individuals and organisations know of abuse but do not take the required action. There will no longer be justifiable excuses.I now turn to screening and vetting of what we call the children’s workforce. Although many organisations have checks in place to ensure that unsuitable people do not work with children there is no consistent approach and there are a number of gaps. The bill will introduce a rigorous approach to vetting and screening with new standardsafety checks of the children’s workforce in New Zealand. This approach will reduce the risk of children being harmed by those who are entrusted to look after them and to work around them. The legislative scope of the standard safety check regime focuses first on paid employees within the Government sector and the services that they fund. Beyond that it provides voluntary guidance for all other organisations to encourage sound practices in safety checking.The bill will specify the minimum checks that must be conducted and further detail will be outlined in regulations and guidelines. A workforce restriction will be based on a list of qualifying offences in order to prevent known child abusers and offenders from having control of or working alone with children. The workforce restriction will apply to the same category of organisations as the requirement to conduct standard safety checks. There are cases where children have been abused because a dangerous individual got close enough to do so sometimes literally by moving into their home. We will not tolerate abusive adults having that freedom and that power over children.New Zealanders are sick of known abusers repeatedly hurting more children. It is time to put those children first. This bill introduces civil orders to be made against those who pose a high risk of abusing or neglecting children in the future. These orders will be called child harm prevention orders and I want to acknowledge the Hon Judith Collins for the work that she and her department did in pulling this together. These orders will apply where a person has been convicted of or found on the balance of probabilities to have committed a qualifying offence. Only three individuals can make an application for a child harm prevention order. They are the chief executives of the Department of Corrections and the Ministry of Social Development and the Commissioner of Police.The High Court or the District Court must be satisfied that the person poses a high risk of causing serious harm to a child or children in the future in order to place these restrictions. The restrictions will be proportionate with the level of risk the person poses. Restrictions may apply to a specific child or home or to loitering in parks and other areas where children may be. The duration of the order will be for the period necessary to provide the required degree of protection to children up to a maximum of 10 years.Because these orders are new we have put new checks in place as well. They will be reviewed once every 12 months by a panel to determine the continuing justification for the order and the terms imposed. The chief executive of the monitoring agency and the person subject to the order can apply for a review at any time and the court must also review the order every 3 years. Child harm prevention orders will better protect children from abusers. Cabinet thought long and hard about these orders cognisant of the trade-off between individual freedoms and preventing potential abuse of children. Unapologetically we have come down on the side of children.To improve the lives of our most vulnerable children who have suffered abuse and neglect this bill includes amendments to the Children Young Persons and their Families Act to clarify section 13(a) “the principle that children and young persons must be protected from harm their rights upheld and their welfare promoted;”. It strengthens family group conferences and court plans so that parental obligations include steps to be taken before a child placed out of the home can be returned to a parent’s care as well as definite decision time frames about a child’s future. It allows external family group conference coordinators to be appointed includes new guardianship provisions to increase stability for children with home-for-life caregivers and includes an obligation on the chief executive of the Ministry of Social Development to provide specific types of financial assistance to the permanent caregiver of a child or young person. It establishes a Family Court review an appeal process for permanentcaregivers who consider that the chief executive of the Ministry of Social Development has wrongly or unreasonably declined financial assistance and it provides more support for those young people aged 15 right through to 20 years.That is very important because we see too many of them going out on their own when they are 17 and it is too young for some and just not right. The financial backing really will help these young people. There is the issue of the safety of subsequent children. There are significant risks to children born into the care of parents who have already had children permanently removed or in whose care children have died due to abuse or neglect.Currently when abusive parents have a subsequent child come to the attention of Child Youth and Family the child’s safety is assessed and then if Child Youth and Family believes that the child is unsafe it takes the case to court to prove it. We will reverse that burden of proof. There is hope that that person can prove they have changed but they will have to show they have taken steps that mean they are no longer unsafe and they actually can look after a child and put that child’s needs first. It is unfortunate but necessary if we are truly to protect those children who are coming along and we know that past behaviour is an indicator of future behaviour and is absolutely important.That was a lot and very quickly. It is an unfortunate reality that these changes are necessary.Iain Lees-Galloway: You’re working too hard.Hon PAULA BENNETT: Something like that. This legislation will make a fundamental difference to protecting the most vulnerable children and allowing them to thrive. We are doing everything we can for New Zealand’s most vulnerable children and these changes complement the work already under way. I move that the Social Services Committee consider the Vulnerable Children Bill.