Sepuloni CarmelJAN LOGIE (Green): Thank you Madam Chair. I'll firstly just respond and thank the Minister for addressing some of the points I made last night. I do find it a bit frustrating to get the response about the concern about the public sector positioning of this—to say that was a decision of Cabinet it's not in this bill—when actually the whole shape of this bill is formulated on the changing of the functions of the Children's Commission—and will be the Children and Young People's Commission—to sit alongside a monitor that sits within Government. That doesn't feel entirely I don't know open. I also want to address the point the Minister made to say that actually to have it within a department and a statutory office is not unique. I recognise that that point was addressed in Improving a System when Young Lives are at Stake written by David King and Jonathan Boston who pointed out that same point that the Government Statistician the Public Service Commissioner and Commissioner of Inland Revenue are also all statutory officers. They go on to say though However the circumstances surrounding these positions are quite different. They are areas where constitutional norms and consensus have built up over time to all but guarantee full independence." Except they go on to say that the Public Service Commissioner could not be viewed in the same way and actually there's a very close relationship in that sense to the Minister.I also want to address the point the Minister made about saying this was a recommendation of the royal commission and just express my real frustration in relation to that when actually the Royal Commission Forum who have been observing those processes wrote to the Government and to every member of the committee asking us to advocate to pause this legislation until the royal commission finally reports and noting that the interim report that the Minister is drawing on to make that comment—they'd only heard like about 20 percent of the evidence. They hadn't even looked at any of the material in the Children's Commission. They were only just identifying research gaps that they needed to try and fill. So to rely on that in terms of justifying this legislation feels very flimsy and problematic to me.I would also like to ask the Minister in terms of the monitor and some of the other critiques that have been raised about this: we hear the Minister saying that there will not be the ability for the Minister to take work from the monitor—I understand that—just to be able to give them work but there's no visible at least budget that goes with that. To me that creates a real potential of actually saying "Here's work here's work here's work." that then means other things they'd planned fall off. Or at the very least it creates a tension for them in terms of their own independent programme.Also the up to three-yearly report on the state of Oranga Tamariki which is similar I would argue to the reports that were done by Russell Wills in terms of the Children's Commission that were hugely influential and important for us as a country my understanding is that the content of that report is going to be defined by regulation. That is political. That is not independent. So I would like to hear the Minister address that point and tell me how independence is actually maintained in that context. I also want to speak to the point where the Minister has previously said that they can't support our Supplementary Order Paper to remove the clause to ensure that the monitor has an objective of supporting public trust and confidence in the Oranga Tamariki system. And I just re-emphasise that for many people for myself but many other people that is a real point of concern. When we discussed this in the select committee we were told that this has been a key objective for the bill since its inception that the bill was borne out of reviews due to reported failings of Oranga Tamariki system and the resultant diminished public trust and confidence so the system needs public trust and confidence in order to function. I ask the Minister: when everyone is saying "Do not do this. We do not trust this proposal." how can she think that is going to build trust and that just telling the organisation that it has to deliver trust will do it?Hon CARMEL SEPULONI (Minister for Social Development and Employment): Speaking to Part 2 of the bill and referring to the functions of the monitor again and the concern that the member has raised about the fact that we have allowed for the Government to be able to ask the monitor to undertake some work I just want to refer to clause 24 that says "The Monitor must carry out a review on any topic within their monitoring function at the request of the Minister responsible for the Monitor. However a request under subsection 1 must not require the Monitor to stop carrying out any one or more of their monitoring activities currently under way or scheduled to begin in order to prioritise a review of the matter to which the request relates." So no request from a Minister can override what is being asked of the monitor through the legislation.Also I want to give some justification to why I actually think that that's really important. I actually think that Government after Government—and I won't even just say this one; I will say previous Governments—have had concerns and have expressed their concerns about the Oranga Tamariki system. And if we've got a monitor in place we want to be able to ask them to actually look into any areas that we think may be of concern or underperforming in some way because I think fundamentally in this House we all believe that we need an oversight system that works for those children.So it is not imposing something that I think is unfair or unreasonable on the monitor. I think that actually collectively we might want independent advice on areas we are genuinely concerned about—and I don't even think that's just us as a Government; I think the previous Government may have wanted the same thing as well.But as I said it can't undercut what is required or override what is required of the monitor through the legislation. The member has asked about budget; that's not something I can speak about with regards to the bill. And the member has asked about—trying to think what else was asked about—I think it was mostly to do with the monitor and the expectations around the monitor.Oh the member did just raise concerns about the royal commission and the report that will be due next year. It's actually kind of related to Part 3—well it's definitely related to Part 3—because we actually put a Supplementary Order Paper up in that part that reduces the time frame for the need to report back on the system with the purpose of really responding to some of the calls out there for us to reduce that period of time. But that is for discussion in Part 3 so I won't continue to traverse that."