Davidson MaramaMARAMA DAVIDSON (Green): It is an honour to take a call on this legislation the Children Young Persons and Their Families (Oranga Tamariki) Legislation Bill—my first call. I want to pick up both my colleagues Ron Mark and Nanaia Mahuta comments and make it very very clear—and I take the point if we have not. So I will make it very very clear: a big mihi—an ongoing profound and longstanding mihi—to all of the foster parents of the world who have stepped up to take in and care for children who were not born of them. It is one thing to be a parent; it is whole other thing to be a family to children who were not born of you and that is happening to this day. It is not just happening through the Child Youth and Family system. It continues to happen because it is an age-old strategic tool that humans have used since for ever including Māori.Whāngai and the practice of it has been with us as a deliberate purposeful tool for ever. Whāngai has been a customary way of recognising our connection and our whakapapa when perhaps those birthing parents for whatever reason were not able to fully care for that tamariki. Whāngai is a centre point of how we have always operated and continue to to this day. I think any one of us—not just Māori but particularly our Māori—could probably put our hands up when we think about either who else we have had to welcome into our whare who was not particularly of our birthing process or who we have had to ship out from our whare when we have birthed them. We all have this experience. It is a valuable one. We need to support that to happen more. That is what we are saying with this legislation.We need to do everything and put all our effort into doing everything we can to make sure we can access safe whānau Māori which is most of us. Safe whānau Māori is most of us. The narrative and the implications that are ruinous through this legislation is the narrative that implies that putting the interests and well-being of children first is separate from connecting them to their whakapapa Māori. That actually is the narrative which is ruinous to all of Aotearoa and has been implied from the very introduction of this bill. So I will continue to make it clear: all foster parents—all loving safe foster parents—are the heroes of the world and we have Māori whāngai opportunities that we need to be supporting better.That is why the Greens too disagree with the watering down of the whānau first" principle. It implies that connecting and making sure that we exhaust all whānau opportunities is at odds with the well-being of tamariki Māori. As a House of Representatives with the leadership and the power and the resources that we have here in this House we must not be putting up ruinous implications that imply that whānau Māori do not love our tamariki as much as others do.That is what this legislation has done. That is clearly what we have heard in the submissions. We also heard in the submissions—and I talk about one of the comments from one of our rangatira Moana Jackson who said: "Do you mean to tell me that we cannot find one whānau Māori possible for our tamariki Māori?". Now the problem is perhaps as my colleague Nanaia Mahuta has implied that we have not created the pool. We have not created the support. We have not ensured that our system upholds the principle of exhausting everything we possibly can to keep our tamariki connected to their whakapapa Māori.That narrative that implication of whakapapa Māori being at odds with tamariki ora is ruinous. When we speak of the importance of whakapapa we are making an explicit statement about the well-being of tamariki. That is what we are implying. He taonga te mokopuna![The grandchild is a treasured being!]Mokopuna are the reflection of us. That has been the way we have functioned since for ever. Please in this Committee can we not imply that whakapapa is separate to our tamariki Māori well-being? It has been the way we have operated. A whole lot of processes came in and interrupted that—processes that we now have a job to try to help fix but he taonga te mokopuna [the grandchild is a treasured being] has been core. That is why the language in the bill such as "should" "desirable" and "where practicable" is not strong enough. It does not imply that we must exhaust all possibilities. Absolutely we want safe whānau Māori and that is most of us.With the remainder of this call I wanted to focus on clause 93 amending section 238(1) and clause 94 inserting new section 239(2)(2A) which are around youth justice. Of course we welcome extending the youth justice jurisdiction to include 17-year-olds. That should have been a long time coming. The Greens welcome that. But in this big overhaul of the legislation the Minister could not prioritise the best interests of young people who we know we endanger when we put them in prison with adults on remand. So this legislation had the opportunity to ensure that young people on remand could also be prioritised into youth prisons. But in this legislation there is the possibility for young people to still be sent to an adult prison on remand. It is apparently a resource issue. What the heck? We can fix that. [Interruption] Well that is what the excuse apparently is—that it is a resource issue.We know of the harm of young people being on remand but here is another thing: how come the time counted for young people on remand is not taken off their final sentence like it is with adult imprisonment sentences? I would really welcome the Minister's explanation on that. What it is—17-year-olds being held on remand in youth units do not get the time counted off their sentences. So we have the Minister standing up to say that this is completely about prioritising the well-being of young people but those outs in the clauses do not prioritise the well-being of young people.I will end my contribution in this round by reminding us again that it should be incumbent on us to ensure that the practices and applications of the current legislation are working. We heard from submitters that that is more the problem than a legislative overview. The practice and application needs to be fixed and could be done so on the current legislation. Tamariki Māori can and deserve to be with safe whānau Māori and that is the same as prioritising the well-being of tamariki Māori. Thank you."