Pugh MaureenMAUREEN PUGH (National): Thank you very much Madam Speaker. I too stand in opposition to the Oversight of Oranga Tamariki System Bill and Children and Young People's Commission Bill in their third reading here tonight. And I stand alongside every party and the members of those parties in this House—except for Labour—in opposition to this bill which sadly will become law today because Labour is using its absolute majority to run roughshod over the process of legislative change. It's ignoring the huge majority of submitters who are seriously concerned about the outcomes for our children and that's been articulated very well in the House tonight. Of the hundreds of written submissions the 90 oral submissions that we heard eight submitters were in support of this bill.I say today because I want to ensure it's on the record that the arrogance and the ignorance of the Government to the process and to the people was demonstrated with absolute clarity when the submissions were opened on 22 December and closed on 26 January when most people were wrapping up their year to spend time with family and to enjoy a well-earned break or to go on their holiday jobs. They were not intending to be reading a bill and preparing submissions on such an important issue and there was absolutely no reason for the timing around that. It could have been extended. It could have been pushed out because that would have ensured that those with an interest in this bill were well informed and could pool together for their submission process. But I do give credit to those who did make the time and who did present such passionate pleas to the Government to stop this bill and not proceed with this legislation. But here we are tonight.Now the Government's not famous for its preparation for new policies and if I can allude to the cost of living payment—it's one such example where the Government even against their own expert advice went ahead with that distribution. But in the case of this bill the Government has gone to the absolute other extreme. Now what they've done is they've had the ombudsman's office working on the implementation of this bill for over a year. So the IT system is in place the staff training is in place—and I think that also demonstrates the arrogance of this Government in establishing the form that a bureaucracy will take before the function has been agreed to by the community through the submissions process to this bill.As we've heard from many of the colleagues tonight running parallel to the passage of this bill through Parliament is the royal commission of inquiry into the abuse of children in State care. As the commission itself states—and I quote—This royal commission is bigger broader and has more powers than any other inquiry undertaken in New Zealand. It has the capacity to make recommendations that if implemented will transform the way we care for children young people and vulnerable adults in the future." Now waiting on the recommendations of that inquiry based on the testimony of thousands of survivors is worth the wait.There will be recommendations on the Oranga Tamariki (OT) system and its failings which will guide a new way of doing things and if children were truly at the heart of any policy change the best information would be used to guide that change and the inquiry will provide the absolute best advice. So far in that inquiry nearly 2200 survivors have shared their experience. The inquiry team itself actually says it cannot make any findings reach conclusions or make recommendations without hearing the voices of those who have lived the experience of State or faith-based care. It is the same for this bill and to do justice to those people who have the most invested in the change—our babies our children our young people—this legislation needs to stop. But instead what we found was Minister Sepuloni making last-minute changes to the Government's own bill after the select committee had done its work and that's only because of the overwhelming pressure that was coming from the public and the Opposition.So I make no excuse for being extremely cynical about the Government's and the Minister's last-minute inclusions which are simply words like "the best interests of children and young people" "more explicitly providing for the participation of children and young people" or "more explicitly requiring the Monitor to have child protection responsibilities". Now these very issues were discussed in the select committee and were rejected in changes to the bill by the Government members. Only after the ongoing pressure did the Minister finally intervene and put those words into the bill. So when it comes to this bill putting in last-minute wording to appease public pressure will not translate into better outcomes for children.This bill separates the advocacy and monitoring roles that are currently undertaken by the Office of the Children's Commissioner and one of the main concerns with moving the oversight into ERO—the Education Review Office and does that sound like the greatest fit?—was the independence. That was raised over and over again through the process by submitters. It doesn't matter how you look at it ERO is a Government department and the Minister can say all she likes but a Government department is still subject to ministerial control.For those whose lives are affected they need independence and a strong degree of trust. The Children's Commissioner has that trust and independence and it's been built up over the 32 years that that office has been in place. It's already where children and young people know to go for their advocacy. This was the overwhelming feedback from submitters to the select committee. If as we've heard already tonight there was a problem with the Children's Commissioner's office being able to deal with its workload then simply resource that office better so that it can deal with the workload. It didn't need this wholesale change at this point in time.The Government did make a very big deal and has done tonight in speeches from their members about this need for separation between advocacy and monitoring but there was no evidence presented at all to support that argument. I even recall one submitter suggesting that the bill should be renamed the "Oranga Tamariki System Oversight Bill" because that's actually what it will do. It's going to monitor the systems that are in place but not the outcomes for children. The Government doesn't measure outcomes—and there's reasons for that—because they can't deliver. But in this case it's the lives of our most precious young people who will be affected by the change in this legislation. You can be sure that every NGO and every community group and every person that has lived that care-experienced life will be watching to ensure and hold this Government to account that things don't slide back any further than they already have.I'm going to run out of time for all of my points that I wanted to make but the last point I want to make is around this bill and how it's not actually going to change any of the practices within Oranga Tamariki. It's not going to help unwind the complexities within the OT system—in fact it will make it worse—and it certainly isn't going to help recruit more social workers. It's adding more complexity. But I want to speak directly to Tupua Urlich from VOYCE - Whakarongo Mai: Tupua keep speaking because your voice matters. I'll finish with a quote that I believe sums up this bill which came from a group during the submissions—Mana Wāhine Kōrero: "This is more shuffling of the deckchairs on the Titanic and the Government are the violinists." Thank you."