Ardern Jacinda: Vulnerable Children Bill — In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeArdern Jacinda: Vulnerable Children Bill — In Committee[Sitting date: 14 May 2014. Volume:698;Page:17878. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]JACINDA ARDERN (Labour): It is my pleasure to resume the debate on the Vulnerable Children Bill. When the Committee rose last night we had moved on to I understand Part 3 of the bill. We have skipped from Part 1 to Part 3. I think it is important to at least acknowledge why that is. Part 2 which was the substantial part of the bill consisted of the child harm prevention orders. Just to recap I have a little bit of a visual aid here. You can see that this middle section of the bill was quite substantial. This was all the child harm prevention orders. That part of the bill was quite a significant step in our criminal justice system in the sense that it allowed for an order to be made for an individual to not work for instance or to not be in contact with children for up to 10 years without any conviction or sentencing having occurred. It was an order on balance of probabilities that could be ordered as set down by a court. It was a significant step to be able to do that without there first being any conviction for that individual.The Minister for Social Development decided whilst this bill was still before the Social Services Committee to remove that element of the bill. There was not a lot of explanation given. The Minister explained that one of the reasons why she had removed that provision—which we ultimately agree with—was a small reference to the fact that the Government was looking at a sex offender registry. If there are any other issues that the Minister would like to give as an explanation for the removal of that from the bill Iwould really appreciate the Minister using the Committee stage to do that because there was very little explanation about the removal of those provisions even though as I have said we were very sceptical. We said that we would support the bill going to the select committee in order to allow that bit to be debated but we remained sceptical even after the select committee process. We are not disagreeing with the decision; we would just like a little more context from the Minister given that it was such a significant part of her bill.As I highlighted last night we do support this bill Part 3 in particular. This is an omnibus bill and it has a range of measures that are all a part of the Children’s Action Plan. I want to traverse in particular three parts of Part 3 that are particularly notable. Some I will leave because there are many bits and pieces in this bill.The first is a provision around subsequent children. Currently within Child Youth and Family if there are care and protection issues within a family and if multiple children are removed from a family and if a subsequent child is born into that family the onus is still ultimately on Child Youth and Family to demonstrate that there are concerns for the safety of that child in order for that child to be removed. The bill essentially removes that onus and instead the onus is on the biological parents to demonstrate that they have the ability and have made the changes necessary to care for that child. I think that reversing the burden of proof is probably the right way to go. We have seen a substantial number of cases where subsequent children have been subjected to the same care and protection issues that their siblings have but they almost go through a trial period themselves before any action is taken. It is a very sad state of affairs to have to put in that provision but it is a necessary one.We do need to make sure that there are adequate protections in place because again it is an incredibly significant thing for the State to remove a child. So we want to make sure that we have got the oversight over Child Youth and Family that is required to ensure that robust decisions are made particularly when we have had issues with social worker practice and whether there is enough supervision for our social workers. They are under significant stress and there is high turnover.One of the things that we have argued for for instance is having a separate complaints body for Child Youth and Family in the same way that the police currently have the Independent Police Conduct Authority. That would give people faith in the system. They would know that if a decision is made that they ultimately believe is wrong there is a separate organisation they can go to in order to have it investigated adequately. When we are making changes as significant as this I think that adding in some of those processes to ensure that people have that extra level of comfort is very important indeed and we continue to advocate that that happen for Child Youth and Family as we have done in the past.I want to come now to the special guardians provisions. I think it is important to look at these provisions in context. The Minister some years ago now recognised that there was a desire amongst foster carers for greater certainty in their relationships with the children they were looking after. I would think that that would have been a useful time to review our adoption laws which are antiquated and not used because of the fact that they are not fit for purpose. But instead a decision was made to explore the notion of Home for Life and I think it had good motives—I absolutely do. It ultimately allowed greater certainty for those foster families. But unfortunately at the time foster carers moved into Home for Life situations it did remove a lot of the extra support for those families. I do not mean just monetary support; for most families that is not the concern they have. It is the support when there are behavioural issues. It is the support particularly when parents end up going through the court system as many do on anongoing basis to battle for the right to act as the primary caregiver for that child and to make decisions for the benefit of that child.My concern is that when Home for Life was set up this was actually the time when we probably needed the special guardians provision so that we could meet people’s expectation that if they are part of a Home for Life they are the primary caregiver and they get to make decisions and they will not be constantly hauled through the courts by biological parents who have ultimately proven that they no longer show the level of the responsibility required to be able to make all the decisions in that child’s life any more.My concern in terms of special guardianship orders—which are meant to give greater weight to a caregiver over a set of biological parents who have basically proven they are not fit to parent—is that one still has to go through quite a rigorous process to get to that place. The order of course must be made through the court but if you look at the provisions for instance around the point at which the court makes the orders it states that the court may give a special guardianship order only if the court is satisfied that under section 110(2)(b) in clause 117 “the person has exercised all available mechanisms available under the Care of Children Act 2004 to resolve disputes with any parent or other guardian of the child or young person …”. It also states specifically in relation to the child that they must show as section 1104(a) states that “the child’s or young person’s welfare is being threatened or seriously disturbed as a result” of an ongoing dispute perhaps between the caregiver and the biological parents. So the threshold is very very high.We need to keep in mind that some of these foster carers often have to battle biological parents who might for instance have a drug and alcohol issue and they have done something serious enough to have their children removed. They are going through the courts over issues such as extra visitation rights whether the caregivers need to move for work or taking the children on holiday and I have even heard parents raise issues with the caregivers just taking the children in their care to church. All of this can trigger having to go through the court to battle a parent who again as I have said ultimately has had their children removed from them.So yes there is definitely a need for these provisions in this bill. My question is whether we are going to lose too many solid long-term foster carers on the way to getting to that point because of the threshold. I have certainly a number of cases—as the Minister will have—where foster caregivers have simply been exhausted by the system and felt unsupported in the process of simply trying to provide a stable home for the children in their care. What that would probably mean is that we would have to lower the thresholds for these provisions or simply maybe it is time that we looked overall at the balance of rights between parents who have had their children removed and their caregivers particularly the long-term caregivers.That is a big call to make. But if we are trying to build a system that is ultimately focused on the needs of the child and the welfare of the child then perhaps that warrants a review on that balance of rights keeping in mind of course that we know that we constantly battle the long-term effects of children who are removed from their families and are constantly trying to strike a balance between those very very difficult issues. But those are the statements on that particular provision that I wanted to make and I will come back to further points later.