Mackey Moana: Crimes Amendment Bill (No 2) — Second Reading 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Mackey Moana: Crimes Amendment Bill (No 2) — Second Reading 
[Sitting date: 13 September 2011. Volume:675;Page:21246. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
MOANA MACKEY (Labour) 
: 
 That was a very disappointing speech from Chester Borrows who is a more reasonable member of the National Government. It really highlighted the deficiencies in this Government’s approach to dealing with child abuse and family violence. I think it is pretty appalling to say that the reason domestic violence legislation has not been progressed is that Labour passed the Electoral Finance Act. 
Mr Borrows did not actually explain why domestic violence legislation has not been progressed in National’s term of Government. He gave a cursory mention of poverty and the connection between child abuse and poverty and then he moved on and ignored any discussion of that issue which is at the core of the problem. Then we got a rant against two of my colleagues on this side of the House Carmel Sepuloni and Su’a William Sio. I respectfully say that Su’a William Sio knows his community in South Auckland a lot better than Mr Borrows knows the community and Carmel Sepuloni knows her community in west Auckland very very well. 
I know from my colleague Su’a William Sio that family violence and child abuse are big problems in South Auckland and need to be addressed. Labour is supporting the Crimes Amendment Bill (No 2) so I do not know why we had to be yelled at. We are supporting this legislation because we want as many tools as we can have to deal with child abuse and family violence. But we will point out the double standard when National members stand up in this House and give these fine speeches about child abuse and family violence and about what we need to do when the Government has cut funding to the very agencies that are working at the coalface to deal with child abuse and family violence. 
It is all very well to pass legislation dealing with the tragic death or injury of a child after the fact—after the crime has taken place. That is fine; people need to be held responsible for what they do or in terms of letting it happen what they do not do. But it does not change the fact that a child has still died or been abused and unless we make that our focus and unless we say that our focus has to be that we do not need laws like this any more because we are dealing with the issue of child abuse so that children are not being put in that situation in the first place then debates like this are pointless. We will go round and round in circles. It is like putting an ambulance at the bottom of the cliff. 
What we in Labour have been talking about is putting children at the core of the policy work that we do. I can tell members that if the Government had done that we would not have seen the cuts in family violence prevention spending that we saw this year. It is unbelievable that Women’s Refuge had its funding cut by more than $700000 a year. It is unbelievable. How can that be justified given the family violence problems we have in this country and given that Women’s Refuge takes the women and children out of those dangerous environments and gives them a safe place to say? 
I want to talk about the Tairawhiti Abuse Intervention Network or TAIN. This is an organisation of social service providers in Gisborne and the East Coast that has come together to deal with the horrible reality that we have an enormous problem with family violence and child abuse in Gisborne. We are one of the worst areas in the country. The network has been doing amazing work and has been working together very well. The network involves a wide range of organisations including Government departments and the police. 
The network is actually starting to get results so imagine its surprise when earlier this year it was told that its funding was not secure and that it will have to apply to keep its child advocates who are doing amazing work around the country and are now gone unless the communities themselves can find the funding to keep them on. The network was told this at the beginning of June and that it had to get its applications in. From 1 July the network did not even know whether its funding would continue and whether it could continue to employ its staff. It was having to jump through ridiculous bureaucratic hoops to keep doing what is has always done very very well because this Government in a desperate attempt to pay for last year’s unaffordable tax cuts—which by the way did not go to the very families we are talking about—decided to trim some money from family violence prevention funding. 
The Tairawhiti Abuse Intervention Network was very disappointed. It did not get all the money it was hoping it would get. Even worse it is now on an annual funding regime whereby it does not know from year to year whether it will have any security of funding or whether it will get funding at all. If the Government really wants to do something about family violence and child abuse why would it do that? That is why the words from the members opposite are so hollow. Speeches in this House will not make a difference when the Government is chopping off at the knees the very organisations that are at the coalface every single day. Those are the people who will actually get some traction when we talk about dealing with family violence and child abuse. 
I want to talk about some of the changes that are happening in the Housing New Zealand Corporation at the moment. These changes will make it even harder for us to get on top of this problem. I have had people come to me; I had one in my office a couple of weeks ago. This woman had taken her 6-year-old daughter out of a gang house. That woman deserves a medal as far as I am concerned. She was born into a gang. Everyone she knows is in the gang. That is just the reality of her life. But she wanted better for her daughter than she had so she moved to a Housing New Zealand Corporation house. Her daughter was doing well in school. Now she had some issues with intimidation from the gang. They would come around and try to scare her because you know they do not like people who walk out and try to leave that situation. This created a situation with her neighbours who were understandably concerned at this activity. They complained to the Housing New Zealand Corporation and she was evicted—she was evicted. 
On what planet is it good for that 6-year-old child whose mother took her out of a gang house to send her back to a gang house because of petty politics from this National Government and its approach to the Housing New Zealand Corporation? I am sick and tired of seeing people come through my office—and I know my colleagues feel the same way—who are victims of the stupid policy that the Housing New Zealand Corporation has. 
The Housing New Zealand Corporation has a one-size-fits-all “we’re going to get the bad buggers out” policy—all that kind of rhetoric—without looking at the individual circumstances of each situation and asking what it means for the child in that situation. What is in the best interests of that child? Is it letting them stay in the Housing New Zealand Corporation house away from a gang environment or is it being able to stand up in Parliament and say: “We’re getting tough on really bad tenants.” and sending that 6-year-old back to a gang house? How is that in the best interests of children and in the best interests of keeping children free of abuse in this country? It is not—it is not at all. 
Then we have the changes that are happening with the current restructuring of the Housing New Zealand Corporation where apparently our social housing provider no longer has any social role at all. Housing New Zealand Corporation staff—tenancy managers—have traditionally done a fantastic job working with tenants developing relationships and connecting them to other social service providers and other Government departments where appropriate. They keep them housed and make sure they can sustain their tenancies which for some tenants is not easy for a range of reasons. 
The reality is that a number of people in Housing New Zealand Corporation properties have high and complex needs and will always require some level of pastoral care and support in order to be able to sustain their tenancies. I know that the Government does not like that reality—I know that it would like to get all these people out of Housing New Zealand Corporation houses—but that is the reality. It is why we have social housing—to protect these people to look after them and to make sure that every child in New Zealand is able to grow up in appropriate affordable safe housing. 
But now this Government says that actually the Housing New Zealand Corporation has no social role whatsoever. Well do members know what? Tenancy managers are often that fresh pair of eyes that walks into a house and sees that something is wrong and that there is a need that has to be addressed. This Government has said that now they should just ignore that—they should just ignore that—because that is the problem of Child Youth and Family or the Ministry of Social Development. 
One of the biggest problems we have in our public sector is the siloing. Everyone is pushing these people from one Government department to another and no one is taking responsibility. Why are we not saying to every Government department that comes into contact with a vulnerable family or a family where there might be some need that there is no wrong door? Why are we not saying that where there is a problem we fix it? Why are we not saying that where a tenancy manager sees a need they deal with it? They do not just say it is no longer their problem. They do not just say that that is the problem of the Ministry of Social Development and they do not have to worry about the things they have seen. 
The changes to the Housing New Zealand Corporation will see our vulnerable children in an even more perilous situation and none of the fine words that we have heard from Government members tonight will do anything to improve their position.