Ball Darroch: Annual Review Debate — In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeBall Darroch: Annual Review Debate — In Committee[Sitting date: 28 April 2015. Volume:704;Page:2971. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]DARROCH BALL (NZ First):It is a pleasure to rise on behalf of New Zealand First to take this 5-minute call on the service to citizens theme. I think that the title services for citizens is quite apt and let us not forget who the most vulnerable citizens in our society are who need the most help and the most service in their lives and that is our vulnerable children.So I would like to talk about the social development area if I may but before I do I think timing is everything and just today the Productivity Commission released a draft report on the social services. There is an article on the TV3 news website and the title is “Govt social services lacking …”. What the article says is that changes are needed to improve the way the Government provides social services to the most in need New Zealanders. The chairman Murray Sherwin says: “[The] current system isn’t designed to deal with the complex problems facing many vulnerable New Zealanders. Services are designed and commissioned in administrative silos without the full picture of what an individual might need”.What that is saying is that the Government—the way that it deals with social services and the whole process—is out of touch. Government members are making their laws and creating policy and legislation in this Chamber and in their caucus but what is not happening is the interaction with the people and the most vulnerable and how it affects the most vulnerable in our society. That is what the Productivity Commissioner is saying.The commission drafts recommendations and one of the recommendations is to make better use of the data. What we just heard the Minister of Education talking about was Better Public Services targets. Well I would put the question to the Minister: when was the last time those Better Public Services targets were reviewed? When were they independently audited? I can give you the answer. The answer is never. They have never been audited or independently reviewed so how can the public of New Zealand have any faith or confidence in this Government or its social services when the very targets that the Government creates for its ministries and its services to accomplish are never independently audited? What the Minister also said was that that Government is putting the money where its mouth is in regard to accountability. Well I challenge the Minister and I challenge the Government to get all of their Better Public Services standards independently audited and give the public of New Zealand the confidence in their statistics.I would like to focus on the social development area like I said and in particular the Office of the Children’s Commissioner and its report as well as the Social Workers Registration Board report. There are a couple of questions that fall out in regard to the commitment this Government has towards our most vulnerable children. The first one is: what is its priority? What priority does it give to the vulnerable children and what priority does it give to the Office of the Children’s Commissioner so it is able to do its job adequately and properly? The second is: does this Government value the role of the Children’s Commissioner?There are a few things that you can do just off the top of your head to answer that question quite aptly. We have had a few members’ bills that have come through that have not been passed because of that Government. The first was the food in schools bill and that directly affects our vulnerable children. The second is the paid parental leave bill which directly affects our vulnerable children. Instead we have got millions of dollars being spent on a flag referendum. Where are the priorities that this Government is setting for our most vulnerable in our society?New Zealand First of course values our Children’s Commissioner but at the moment the office has got limited resources it has got limited staff and it has got limited funding. This is all coming out of the annual report from the Office of the Children’s Commissioner. But the question is what the expectation is to fulfil one of the most important roles in our society. We have got on the one hand this great expectation from the Government to the Children’s Commissioner to fulfil one of the most important roles in our society but it does not give the resources the funding or the staff to be able to do so. All of the available savings that the commissioner can make have been implemented. There is a pattern of deficit and overspending under significant financial restraints and then you start talking about the cut backs that the Office of the Children’s Commissioner has had to make. What is its current role? What is the current role of the Office of the Children’s Commissioner? It is to provide a social security blanket.