Sepuloni CarmelHon CARMEL SEPULONI (Minister for Social Development and Employment): As we resume the debate on Part 2 today I wish to respond to some of the points that were raised at the end of the debate last night given I didn't have an opportunity to do so. There were a few matters raised by the National Party and the Green Party that I'd like to respond to this evening. Louise Upston expressed concern that the monitor isn't independent enough that perhaps in her mind it was sitting too close to the centre of power and that its work would be subject to what she called political considerations. As I've previously made clear the monitor will be a statutory officer with a duty in legislation to act independently. It will have the ability to initiate reviews of its own accord and although Ministers will be able to ask the monitor to look into an issue they cannot direct it not to. Once the monitor completes its reports the agencies they relate to must respond and respond quickly because our Supplementary Order Paper (SOP) 209 will substantially shorten the time frame they have to explain how they will address these matters of concern for our tamariki and rangatahi. The reports and responses must then be published by the monitor online and the reports tabled in the House. So the monitor will be free to investigate whichever systemic issues it sees fit and the recommendations and the responses of the agencies to which they relate will be published without any changes by Ministers or anyone else for all to see. Despite this Jan Logie expressed her concern that having a monitor reporting on Government agencies she felt was like a junior chief executive critiquing a very powerful one in the same Public Service. I want to make it clear that the decision about where the monitor sits is actually not in the bill. It was a matter for Cabinet and that matter was determined by Cabinet. I also want to make clear that the monitor is a statutory officer. It will be operationally autonomous from other departments including the Education Review Office in relation to its monitoring role as well as acting as a trusted adviser to the Children and Young People's Commission the Government and the public. I wanted to also just share that the concept is not new within Government. The Government Statistician has their duties and independence outlined in legislation fulfilling a trusted role in the provision of data to both Government and the public. The monitor is also a critical role in the Oranga Tamariki system and one that is of great importance to the wellbeing of our tamariki and rangatahi. I want to note again that our SOP has reduced the time agencies have to respond to reports by the monitor to increase the accountability of these agencies and the teeth of the monitor. The National Party had some conflicting views on independence. Unlike his colleagues in the Green Party the member Christopher Penk expressed concerns that the monitor would be too independent. But I think perhaps the conflicting point made by National members actually goes to show that we may have struck the right balance on the independence of the monitor in this bill. Christopher Penk also worried about the requirement that the monitor produce a state of the Oranga Tamariki system report every three years which he was concerned was too long to wait. I'm pleased to advise Mr Penk that that is just a minimum requirement for that particular report. But I did talk about the other reports that would be required much more regularly than that particular one. The monitor—again I will just share—can also carry out additional reviews on anything relating to the delivery of services or support through the Oranga Tamariki system as set out in clause 25. And if a matter requires urgent attention the Minister and chief executive can also request they carry out a review—clause 24. I thought it would be worth reminding the committee that the Independent Children's Monitor has actually already published four reports on its website including its first full report on agency compliance with all the national care standards and related matters and regulations earlier this year. Before there was progress reported last night on this debate Jan Logie discussed a report from public policy analysts which she brought up to support an argument that she had regarding her thoughts that we didn't need to separate the monitoring and advocacy functions in the Oranga Tamariki system and her concern that the different parts of the systems could inform and learn from each other and prevent—and Jan Logie had numerous points throughout the debate in relation to the separation of the monitoring and advocacy. I just want to point out that the redress report that has been received from the royal commission actually stated that they supported the separation of those functions to ensure that the monitoring could be done in a robust way. That is why the bill clearly sets out and separates the functions of each entity in the system to make it as simple as possible also for our tamariki and rangatahi and avoid the trade-offs between advocacy and monitoring that may happen if they are performed by the same entity. This separation does not mean that no one will be working together or learning from each other; in fact our SOP further clarifies in clause 9 our expectation that the entities work more closely together than ever before. The bill also—and this is in relation to questions that were raised—provides for information to be shared between the commission the monitor and the ombudsman if the sharing of information would minimise the burden on individuals and agencies" or "the sharing of information would assist [the commission] the Monitor or an Ombudsman in the performance of each of their functions duties and powers." And absolutely children and rangatahi are at the heart of that entire system."