SpeechHARETE HIPANGO (National): Kia ora Madam Chair. I acknowledge the Minister in the committee this evening and also the acting chief executive of Oranga Tamariki. Before I address the committee further I'd like to pay respect and acknowledgments to Neville Baker a kaumātua of Te Atiawa and Taranaki who died just a few days ago. I make mention of Neville. His tangi was today out at Waiwhetū Marae and Neville was quite a significant participant in the report Pūao-te-ata-tū which is well-known over the last three decades. I have a copy of it here. At the time Neville Baker was the head of community affairs in the Department of Māori Affairs and I was a young woman working in the Department of Māori Affairs at the time that this report was penned. This report is fundamentally the precursor to a number of reports and reviews that have been written as a result of Oranga Tamariki and Child Youth and Family Services—the ministries' taxing responsibilities that they have in terms of the child welfare State agency in Aotearoa New Zealand. I take heed of what the Minister has said when he addressed the committee by saying that Oranga Tamariki has not covered themselves in glory. I think it's significant to acknowledge the onerous task that social workers have within this State welfare agency and that because of the nature of the framework and how it's set up in the legislation they have those challenges that are there. So I'm going to come back to the debate on the Estimates where the Minister has talked about his ministerial advisory group and the recommendations that have come out of the report Te Kahu Aroha. The Minister has made a commitment for devolving responsibility for child welfare care and protection to communities Māori the Minister says. I say Māori and non-Māori our communities—our people at flax-roots and grassroots. I was back home in Whanganui on the weekend when I always connect with my people—our people on the ground—and I mention particularly Tim Metcalfe who has been working in the family violence sector for decades in one of Whanganui community's welfare agencies Jigsaw. So I connected with Tim and I'll be spending more time with him but we have our Māori communities as well who I stay engaged with. I know Child Youth and Family Services having worked as a lawyer within the institution. I know the legislation and the proposals and the recommendations—some 79 of them—that come out of Te Kahu Aroha but also the recommendations that come out of the Office of the Children's Commissioner the Office of the Ombudsmen Whānau Ora and also the Waitangi Tribunal. It is repeating what is in that foundational document of Pūao-te-ata-tū. It was published in 1988 and it was written in 1986 and so I acknowledge Neville Baker for his contribution not just in that field but throughout a lifetime of service to our communities. Minister my question to you is you talk about the commitment that you as the Minister in leading a change in the framework in the organisation of Oranga Tamariki. I turn to the commitment in the Estimates and it's acknowledged that there's $1.47 billion and 90 percent of that which is $1.354 billion is over four expense category outputs. Two of those category outputs: one is prevention and early support with $404 million and the other is statutory intervention and transition with $917 million. Minister you say that there's a commitment for the devolution of child welfare to our communities. How could that be given priority when the majority of that funding I've talked about—statutory intervention and transition with $917 million—is twice that of prevention and early support? What I'm saying to you Minister is that the fiscal commitment does not match the rhetoric and I would invite the Minister to reconsider the approach that's given there particularly in partnering with our communities.