Ngaro AlfredHon ALFRED NGARO (National): We had a speech from Andrew Little that was quite interesting because he had a bit of gravel in his voice. He had this undertone. He almost sounded like Chris Stapleton who's a country blues singer singing Tennessee Whiskey". He thought that if he could give it that growl if he could give it that bit of gravel somehow it would have prominence to it and people would believe it because he thought that power in his words would make a difference. We heard the slogan saying "It's a great day today." We can celebrate all the good things that the Government's been doing but one thing that's really important is that all of those words need to be held to account.Today we had the Rutherford College kapa haka group come up here and I was honoured to be able to take them around Parliament. This is one of the questions that the students were asking me. They said to me "Mr Ngaro what's the most important thing in your role here in Parliament as a member of Parliament?" I said to them "It's the power of your words." You see I said to them that for all of the things that we say inside this House there's Hansard that records those words. When you are in Government or even as an MP in your local electorate you then have the power of your words. When you declare a statement or you're saying "This is a vision this is what we're going to do and this is what we want to achieve." your words are held to account. You can give a bit of gravel you can give it a bit of undertone and it can sound you know sort of sexy and cool but at the end of the day it's all held to account. That's what's important.I want to hold to account this Government because one of the promises that it has made is around children in care—the welfare of children the issues around poverty that impose upon children and the harm and the well-being of children which has become critically important to this Government as it has declared. I want to read out here that in this House on 11 April the Hon Tracey Martin said—these are the words that she said when I asked her a question—"we have a large body of work under way which includes continuing our social worker recruitment … developing new ways to recruit kin carers by working in partnership with iwi and our Pasifika community … 24/7 caregiver support and inquiry line … improving inductions for caregivers increasing the number of safe and loving places". Those were the words that were proudly declared in this House by the Hon Tracey Martin. I have a lot of respect for her. Her intent is right but like all things all intent is held to account in regards to what you achieve.So why is it with these words that were declared quite openly both before the election and while in Government that we're hearing a different tone from our community? Let's think about what that tone is. Nothing reflects it better than down in Otago where Roxburgh's Stand children's camps were delivering services for traumatised children—children who are the most vulnerable. And the Minister has declared there are about 6000—in fact 6100—children that are currently in care. When the community came together this is what they said: for all the talk that this Government talked about—"When we are the Government children's welfare will be the priority."—here's the reflection of the truth here's the walk of that talk: Roxburgh children's camp closed. And here's what the children said: "We've missed out in the general lolly scramble unlike the America's Cup and other lucky people." In other words for all the talk that's not the walk that's coming.In the declaration by the Minister in regards to kin carers why are we having Kate Hawkesby declaring this: "There are carers that are quitting in big numbers."? In fact there is a huge decline and the reason for that is—from the caregivers themselves they say this—the system is broken. Here's from one of the caregivers: "I just got tired worn down and broken because it wasn't really the children; it was the system that broke me—the system—because there's no help there." When your words declare that you want to fix a system that's broken when you haven't given the support—in fact I want to quote here from the national care standards for Oranga Tamariki that were set and this is from the Cabinet paper. Here's what it declares on page 26 here's what's come out through the Cabinet and they all agree with this: "to provide caregivers with support or assistance to access support including where a caregiver requests this ensuring training is available for caregivers." Why is it that our caregivers are stating for themselves that they are struggling?I want to finish off with this quote that's come from another caregiver who's saying that they want to provide the best service and care for our children. And here's what they say: "Regular contact checking with us and seeing our emotions would be great but we don't see it. It's literally like the movie Hunt for the Wilderpeople. I laughed when I saw it. They drive up they dump the child they stay for about five minutes and then they leave and that's the last we ever hear from them."Your words are important. The community will hold us to account. It's great to be able to see that we're holding them to account for the things that we see aren't happening in our community."