Williams PotoPOTO WILLIAMS (Labour—Christchurch East): The first thing I want to do is actually commend those dedicated women and men who have worked with our children in the previous format of Child Youth and Family and who will go on to work with our kids in the new organisation Oranga Tamariki. I do want to commend them because I believe that even now despite the fact we are debating this bill and the Government is talking about ensuring much higher rates of practice and better practice I do not believe that the Government will resource Oranga Tamariki to anywhere near the level that we expect to make any significant change for the outcomes of those children who come into State care. I want to acknowledge celebrate and commend those workers because they do a very difficult job under some very difficult conditions.My connection with what was Child Youth and Family and working with the legislation as it was was as a community rep on the child protection review panel for the Waitakere site of Child Youth and Family. I am going to reference a lot of what I say today in those terms because I do not believe that we under this legislation will make significant change in some of the key areas that I believe we do need to.In our minority report we make reference to the fact that we are removing the whānau first" concept from our practice with our young children. Why is that significant? Why is that significant? It is because in my view and my experience on that review panel if you are a young woman Māori who is pregnant you are twice—maybe three times—more likely to have Child Youth and Family involvement before your baby is even born. If you are a parent who is involved in a family violence situation and you are Māori you are seven times probably more likely to be required to take out a protection order or to have services forced upon you or imposed upon you because you are Māori.Working in Child Youth and Family is working in an environment that is actually an institution of racism biased against Māori and there is a lot of evidence that supports that. When we are looking at the language that this bill uses to ensure that it references work with Māori it is actually pure tokenism because our languages—Te Reo Māori Te Reo Kuki Airini which is probably the parent language to Te Reo Māori—are conceptual languages and the language that we use in legislation that supports our kids is actually conceptual language.Recently I spoke with a group of Cook Islands business people about the issue of climate change—and I am straying a little bit—and in that I talked about what happens to your whakapapa when you no longer have the whenua to connect that to. After I spoke a Cook Islands leader came to me and said: "When you spoke about whakapapa the concept of whakapapa to me is the preparation for the future. When you speak to a Pākehā person about whakapapa they have a different concept of what that means but in my Reo whakapapa means preparation for the future." So when we use the word in legislation in this legislation what we are saying is we are wanting to ensure that we prepare our children well for the future and have we actually done that?Oranga Tamariki at the head of operations has a CEO who is of Irish descent and a senior social worker who is Welsh. The senior social worker came here because of the work that Child Youth and Family was doing around family group conferences—came here to learn how we did it better. And now this person is in charge of ensuring that our children—61 percent of the children who are involved in the service are Māori and this person and the head of operations do actually not have a basic understanding of the concepts that they will be working with. I have a huge problem with that. Given we are trying to move the outcomes for our children into a positive space we have people who do not have a basic understanding of those Māori concepts.There was a lack of consultation with those workers who understand the issue best—not just social workers but Māori social workers those social workers who work with and are part of the hapū the whānau the iwi. For me that is also another major problem. If you are wanting to ensure that you are going to develop the best practice for your tamariki you talk to the experts. You talk to the experts and you ensure that their voice is heard.Labour has a problem with how we place our children into the care of those who are not even the same nationality or ethnicity and I want to share a story with you of a couple of friends of mine who out of the goodness of their heart wanted to become carers for children who have had a difficult start and come into State care. They put their names forward they went through the police check process they were waiting for some training they were waiting for a whole lot of work to happen. They were about 2 or 3 months into a process that was going to take several months when they were not offered but actually given a young child to care for.This young child was problematic because of their age and the types of issues that had happened to this young child. It became very problematic for them to continue with this young boy's care. But the experience of this young boy in his young life having had several placements was this huge disconnection—a huge disconnection. He was never connected to any real family and he was problematic because he was always expecting to be moved on. That fed his behaviour. It became increasingly difficult for them to continue to have him because he impacted on their own children.But my point about that is that we invest an awful lot into these children and into the placements when we are not actually looking at how we support the family to keep them in the first place. When the issues actually occur in the first place the families should be supported. I know you are shaking your head but we are more likely to uplift children than we are to actually provide the resource for that family to keep that child safe.Jono Naylor: That's why we're changing the legislation.POTO WILLIAMS: The legislation will not work. When you take the "whānau first" concept out of the legislation what are you saying? That is the point of the legislation so you take the basic concept out? That is crackers. And this is what I am saying: you support the family to keep the children and that will actually resolve a lot of the issues because whakapapa is about preparing for the future but it is also about ensuring that you remain connected to your history. When you destroy that when you disrupt that you cause problems into the future for that child.Jono Naylor: No one wants to destroy it. Read the bill.POTO WILLIAMS: You cause problems for that child. Words are words Mr Naylor. Words are words; they are not actions. We have had problems for decades about this. So if the Government is so sure that it has got this right then return the principle of "whānau first". Return the principle—put it back in there—because that says up front that you are committed as a Government to ensure that whānau and supporting whānau is the most important aspect of care for a child.So we will not be supporting this legislation and we think that you have missed a huge opportunity as a Government to get this right. Thank you."