Henderson EmilyDr EMILY HENDERSON (Labour—Whangārei): Kia ora Mr Speaker. First I want to recognise the appalling loss of a beloved child at the hands of one who was entrusted to look after him—a loss that can never be repaired for his whānau. But the appalling reality is that Malachi's loss is not unprecedented in New Zealand. Drawing on figures from 2009 to 2018 the Family Violence Death Review Committee—and how appalling that we need a committee with that name—estimates that about 70 children are killed by family and caregivers every year in New Zealand; a child killed on average every five weeks. We have a shameful record of child abuse stretching back generation after generation.The Ombudsman's report on the opportunities to protect Malachi that were lost by Oranga Tamariki is deeply deeply upsetting. The fuller recitation of the facts by Jan Logie should be enough to bring each of us to our feet and to tears—multiple failings across a range of agencies who passed the buck again and again. As an ex-practitioner it is also deeply deeply familiar. I did not—thank God—work on cases in which children were killed but over my time in practice I have worked on multiple cases in which we fought to get Oranga Tamariki to accept that children in its care were at risk of or were being abused to get police and multiple lawyers for children and Family Court judges to take whānau concerns seriously to take the words of children themselves seriously. A senior UK academic I know well once remarked that if you want to get away with a crime assault a pre-schooler because no one believes them and everyone prioritises the accused's rights over the child's rights.Now some social workers some police some lawyers are excellent but my definition of an excellent practitioner" in the past has been one who was prepared to stand up against the system not one who operates within what we have had. What we have too often faced is people who prioritise the system over the child and the whānau who shut their ears to criticism of their decision making or their preferred caregivers. Like most ex - Family Court practitioners I have seen social workers double down to protect and support their preferred placement. I have also had the dubious privilege as a practitioner of living through a number of reviews reports and re-brandings of Oranga Tamariki most notably in the recent past under the Opposition—the rebranding exercise that saw it renamed Oranga Tamariki with the nice orange logos. So I get the scepticism with which our reform programme has been met.As I sat through the submissions process for the Oranga Tamariki oversight bill I heard that scepticism reflected back to me again and again in the anguish and the pain of professionals and whānau with too much experience of failed reform. I have also never forgotten a comment on the death of Victoria Climbié in the UK where social workers' failings were "of the usual variety". The reviewer commented however that the constant flogging of social workers breeds a defensive culture which lends itself to the sort of closedminded doubling down that has put many of our children at risk over the years. Defensiveness breeds a shell of closedminded self-protective arrogance. Arrogance breeds the inability to listen and respond to reality and so we perpetuate systemic neglect and abuse.But we are not offering a defence on this side of the House. The Government accepts fully that Oranga Tamariki has been broken and broken for a long long time. Minister Davis asked his reviewers for the brutal truth and when it came and when it was brutal he accepted it absolutely. We are committed to radical change. We are committed finally to working with whānau. Will we get it right every time? No. But to those who say as did Ms Logie as did Ms Hipango in the oversight hearings that we should be waiting for yet another review or a study no. We cannot afford to wait for the perfect model and in fact I doubt any Government could produce a perfect model. The same Family Violence Death Review Committee that produced those damning figures pointed to the need for a fundamental shift in the Government's approach—that we need to stop treating ourselves as the saviours and start working with community. That is what we are doing. That is Minister Davis' vision. Get on board and we can do something about children like Malachi."