Logie Jan: Vulnerable Children Bill — Second ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeLogie Jan: Vulnerable Children Bill — Second Reading[Sitting date: 15 April 2014. Volume:698;Page:17279. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]JAN LOGIE (Green): It is with real sadness that the Green Party is opposing the Vulnerable Children Bill. The Green Party and our MPs are absolutely passionate about making New Zealand a great place for our children to grow up in. We want to address the causes of vulnerability and address the well-being of our children. That is why we put child poverty on the political agenda last term. Because we know that poverty is created and can be eliminated by Government policy we continue to call for action at every chance we get.We are very sad that all of the Government’s policy work from the green paper to the White Paper for Vulnerable Children to this bill fails to acknowledge the fact that some families right now are being forced to neglect their children’s needs because they do not have the income to provide for them. This Government’s policies have resulted in parents of children with say skin infections buying medication and not food because they are too scared that the Government-funded agencies that are supposedly there supporting them would report them to Child Youth and Family if they did not make that choice. To allow that situation to continue while bringing to the House this bill which supposedly puts vulnerable children first is not right. We want a Government response that will make a difference and do what is needed.I think though that I at least could still have voted for this bill if it was a matter of just not doing enough but for me at least the clincher against supporting it is my concern that it will actually do harm to some of our children. I have mentioned before in this House New Zealand’s high rates of domestic violence. The police are called out to an incident of domestic violence in this country at least once every 7 minutes and they estimate that that is only about 20 percent of the cases experienced in this country. Thisis a massive problem and one that we do not have a handle on. We may have done a big social marketing campaign but still the police response the court systems the capacity of our support agencies and Child Youth and Family policies are a very long way from being sorted. Yet this bill does nothing to address those problems—the most significant cause of risk to our children.Domestic violence always harms children and in 40 percent to 60 percent of homes where a parent is being abused the children will be maltreated. The reverse is also true: in 40 percent to 60 percent of child maltreatment cases domestic violence will be present. Remember how many families this applies to in New Zealand remember the fact that our systems are failing to adequately respond to this violence and then remember that this bill does nothing to address that. It does not even acknowledge domestic violence. The white paper basically censored domestic violence out of the picture. It is a ridiculous response when you consider that.According to leading US child psychologist Dr RobertGeffner a practitioner and expert on child well-being in cases of domestic violence the first thing we need to do when there is an accusation or concern about child abuse or domestic violence is to properly—according to best practice—assess risk. This does not happen in New Zealand. Then if there is evidence of risk the abuser who is most often the father needs to be separated from the children until he has successfully changed his behaviours attitudes and beliefs. This does not happen in New Zealand and these courses are hard to access. The children should be put into the protective care of the mother or the protective parent who should be given support and counselling. This does not happen in New Zealand. Children should be getting the support and counselling they need automatically. This does not happen in New Zealand.This bill does not address these problems. It does not address the vulnerability and needs of our children and this House can do better.