Upston LouiseHon LOUISE UPSTON (National—Taupō): Thank you Mr Speaker. Dr Liz Craig the member who just resumed her seat referred to the fact that this is a small bill but I would argue with that side of the House that it is a very important and significant change that the Government is proposing and that National opposes. I want to return the House's attention to a debate that took place in this Chamber a week ago today and that was an urgent debate because the Ombudsman had returned a report on the events that resulted in the death the murder of a five-year-old boy—Malachi—when Oranga Tamariki failed to do in his words the bare minimum". What we are debating today is actually the risk of serious harm and death to a child and so it is absolutely critical that this House takes this issue seriously because on the surface of it it doesn't sound like it's too much of a big deal. But what we are talking about here is a piece of legislation that is proposing the partial repeal here today with the Oranga Tamariki Amendment Bill of what was the result of months and years of work around vulnerable children that the previous Government undertook and by and large that the Government under Tracey Martin as the Minister for Children continued. If you think about a child that is born into a family where a child has previously been permanently removed from the parents' care—permanently removed—it's quite a high threshold; it's quite a high threshold. So this bill is a debate about risk and on this side of the House in the National Party we see that where there is an identifiable risk that another child born into that household will be harmed we're not willing to risk it—we're not willing to risk it. That's not to say that those parents can't work hard to have that child in their care and I absolutely think that work should be done really intensively and I agree with the Minister for Children that it should be done by community organisations that are closest to the whānau involved. But the question here is about automatically taking that child into care and protection. Care and protection—those are the key words in this debate and unfortunately as the ACT member Karen Chhour who spoke earlier in this debate has identified very clearly this piece of legislation without the consultation at the same time that a very controversial piece of legislation was out for consultation and that was the oversight of the Oranga Tamariki system. So we've got multiple things going on at once. We had a bill around the oversight of Oranga Tamariki which was opposed vehemently and strongly by every party in this Parliament except Labour. Just about every social service organisation that is involved in the care and protection of children opposed it and they opposed the removal of independent oversight with the removal of the Children's Commissioner being that single point of complaint and advocacy and being a fierce champion for children. Then this piece of legislation comes along and it looks as if it's a little tweak—just a little tweak. Well remember the point of this: this is about a child who was vulnerable—as my colleague Chris Penk said every child is vulnerable—but who then was born into a family where another child a previous child had been seriously harmed or murdered. So the Government wants to leave that threshold at murdered. Well no it should be about serious harm and the risk to those subsequent children in that household. Otherwise we as a Parliament are willing to say that the life of another child will be lost to us and in New Zealand that's one in every five weeks a New Zealand child dies of child abuse. So this side of the House is actually not willing to take that risk because our interest is in the care and protection of the children. I accept having met with and spoken with many many families who have had children taken into care that it's incredibly traumatic and I accept that the process of working their way back to having their children returned to them is challenging and distressing. I get it—I absolutely get it. But in this debate the question the challenge or the issue must be on what is in the best interests of the child. The child must be paramount in this debate and that's why there was so much work done in the previous National Government around vulnerable children. So to start unwinding bits of it doesn't make sense. The Government says that legislation is not delivering as intended and I would argue this: it's because that side of the House and Minister Davis who said it in that urgent debate last week—they're pleased that the number of children being uplifted is reducing. I don't think that's the right measure. I think the right measure is fewer children being harmed—not just murdered; harmed—because a child that is harmed if that behaviour of those parents escalates is a child that might be another one of the one in every five weeks—another Malachi—that dies when this Parliament had the opportunity to ensure legislative protection for a vulnerable child. So yep it might be a small piece of legislation—it's not a very big bill. There weren't a lot of submitters but many of the submitters opposed it. Many more of the submitters oppose the changes the Government is making to the oversight of Oranga Tamariki. Now I accept that Oranga Tamariki have been undergoing an enormous change over many many years. That started with the previous National Government it had been picked up by the Labour - New Zealand First Government and it is now continuing under Labour. I accept that it's a challenging organisation and that there are challenges they are facing now and as the days go forward but business-as-usual for Oranga Tamariki is the care and protection of children. So National isn't willing to allow children where there is a clearly identifiable and known risk to remain in the care of their parents when their parents have seriously harmed and assaulted. Karen gave the example of a child who wasn't murdered but was permanently disabled because of a violent assault by a parent or caregiver. On this side of the House we're actually not willing to take that risk and I'm proud to say that the National Party puts the interests of children first. That's not to say that we don't understand the challenge where the onus is on the child being removed and the trauma that comes with that—we're fully accepting that that exists. But there are some instances where the rights of the child must come first and when we have a Prime Minister who says that New Zealand should be the best place in the world to be a child let that be a country where their safety and where their care and protection come first. That's why National opposes this legislation to reverse the onus for the care and protection of a subsequent child. We want to make sure that every Kiwi child despite the challenges of their parents and their parents' circumstances—no child should be put in that position where they are knowingly at risk of harm in their own home environment. The measure should be that fewer New Zealand children are harmed not fewer children are being taken into care."