Newman Muriel: Urgent Debates — Department of Child Youth and Family Services 
Newman Muriel: Urgent Debates — Department of Child Youth and Family Services 
[Volume:613;Page:9645] 
Dr MURIEL NEWMAN (ACT) 
: 
 On radio this morning Judge Mick Brown was talking about the Department of Child Youth and Family Services and he said quite clearly that there have been no changes in the 3 years since he did his report on the department—no changes. The Labour Government is responsible for the deepening crisis in child welfare. It cannot blame anyone else because it is responsible. The baseline review is the most damning review in parliamentary history as I understand it. It highlights Labour’s failure to run a child welfare agency that can adequately deal with New Zealand’s most vulnerable children. The report is an absolute disgrace. 
I want to put on record what the findings were. The department was unstable. There was deep and systemic failure. There was a lack of sound data. The department did not even know how many children were in its care. There was a failure to follow court orders. Children were in care far longer than they needed to be. Their time in care had gone up from 163 days in 1999 to 433 days on average now—over 1 year and 2 months in care. 
Then the review went on to ask the social workers what they thought and they said they were stretched too thinly to do quality work. They could not do effective interventions and that was why there were higher notification rates with 50 percent of the children coming before the department being children it had already dealt with. In other words its interventions were not working. The social workers said the Government had an obsession with risk aversion to the extent where they could not carry out professional social work practice. So here is a Government more concerned about keeping the department out of the headlines than about what really mattered to the children in its care. As a result there has been an exceptionally high turnover of social workers. We understand that some 75 percent probably more like 90 percent of front-line social workers have very little experience and that morale is at an all-time low. 
I say to members who have heard what I have just said about the report’s findings: who would have thought this would be happening under a Labour Government? It is an absolute disgrace. 
I want to talk about what happened during the process of the report. Steve Maharey the Minister who was in charge of the department was very vocal when in Opposition about the department and he promised to build a strong fully funded service when he was the Minister. But he failed totally. He failed the people of New Zealand he failed the families at risk he failed the staff and he failed the chief executive because he failed to provide a service that could adequately cope with the child abuse problems that New Zealand faces. He failed to deliver to this country an agency that could adequately deal with our most vulnerable children. 
So what happened? Well after the election when Labour realised through its polling that it was failing in the area of child welfare it decided it was time to have a review. A review bought it time. It took the heat off the Government. In May of this year when the findings of the review were finally made known to the Prime Minister she suddenly realised she needed to get rid of her Minister out of the hot seat because otherwise we would be calling today for his resignation. So she asked that Minister Steve Maharey to step aside. She said he was too overloaded. The new Minister Ruth Dyson said: “He wasn’t able to devote the time needed to the department which is why he decided to move on.” Can members imagine that! The Minister of the Department of Child Youth and Family Services did not have the time to devote to the department. What sort of failure is that? He should resign all his welfare portfolios. He has performed disgracefully for this department and for New Zealand. 
But what then happened of course was a really cunning strategy. A new Minister was put in and when the report finally came out last month the chief executive had to stand there on her own unsupported by her new Minister and take the blame. I say that is a disgrace. At the end of the day when one is in Parliament one has to take the blame; the Ministers and the Government have to take the blame not the people who work in the departments not the bureaucracy. It was really gerrymandering to get rid of the chief executive. We have heard that before. The last time Maharey was involved he actually changed the whole public service— 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson) 
: The member cannot use a single name. It is almost like a nickname. She must use the full name portfolio or title. 
Dr MURIEL NEWMAN 
: The last time Mr Maharey was involved he manipulated the whole Government service to get rid of Christine Rankin so this is just par for the course. 
 We go further and look at the process of this review being presented to the public. I was approached a few weeks ago and asked whether I as deputy chair of the Social Services Committee would agree to delaying the financial review of the Department of Child Youth and Family Services and to having it at the same time as the baseline review was released. I refused because all the financial reviews are on a timetable. As a result instead of coming out next month the baseline review came out last month ahead of the financial review because the Government clearly did not want the select committee to be able to investigate and review the work of the Department of Child Youth and Family Services as it stood. It needed to be able to say: “Hang on. We’ve done a review. Here are all the changes.” It was a cunning plan by the Labour Government to avoid accountability. Further it knew that the chief executive would be pressured into resigning which would give the Government an ideal opportunity to say: “Well we can’t hold anyone to blame. There’s no chief executive. We haven’t even got an experienced Minister. Therefore we’re blameless.” That is appalling. The Labour Government should be responsible for the failure of this department. The workers there do their best undoubtedly but they are without proper leadership and without proper support. In that difficult difficult area they are bound to fail and that is precisely what has happened. 
We now have the bizarre situation where instead of having one Minister responsible for the department the Government has put four Ministers in charge. I am expecting that when we ask a question in the House relating to the department the Treasurer will stand up and answer it or the Minister of State Services Mr Mallard. The Government has now spread all accountability amongst four Ministers. When one looks at the future operation of the department one finds in fact that there now is a family support service to wrap around those same families who need help but it is not run by the department; it is run by the Ministry of Social Development. That means that whenever we ask about practice issues the department will be able to say: “It wasn’t us. It was them.” So from now on all lines of accountability will be blurred and this is from a Government that was elected to power on the promise of being open transparent and accountable. Well I say this Labour Government has delivered exactly the opposite. 
In looking forward one has to say that the Labour Government is absolutely devoid of ideas on how to address the crisis in terms of child abuse. All it is concerned about is the ambulance at the bottom of the cliff. It should be looking at putting a fence at the top of the cliff. I ask the Government why it has not followed on with the model of the Starship Children’s Hospital in Auckland which has a one-stop-shop community-based agency with the police social workers and education workers working together. That is the model of the future for New Zealand—a regional and community - based agency that is built up from the bottom. 
Secondly why does the Government not look at opening up the Family Court? If that had been done so many cases where court orders were not followed by the Department of Child Youth and Family Services would have been out in the public arena a long time ago. The department’s dysfunction in terms of following court orders would have been recognised widely by the public. Something would have been done years ago about this department had the court been open. I call on the Government to open up the Family Court. It has a bill before Parliament that could do it. 
We also need to address long-term welfare dependency because most of those families are involved in long-term welfare dependency. Labour is making the situation worse. Finally for those families who have children but who do not actually want children we should be encouraging open adoption because maybe that would be better for those children.