Bond RiaRIA BOND (NZ First): I am privileged this evening to rise on behalf of New Zealand First and my colleague Darroch Ball to speak to the first reading of the Children Young Persons and Their Families (Advocacy Workforce and Age Settings) Amendment Bill. The bill's objective as stated is to help achieve a child-centred system by—extending State responsibility for the care and protection of vulnerable young persons; ensuring that vulnerable children and young persons are able to express their views and have them considered as part of decision making in individual cases and in the departmental services and policy; enabling enhanced access to appropriate specialist skills and expertise to respond to the needs of vulnerable children and young persons." New Zealand First supports the idea of children's voices being heard—absolutely—but what we are nervous about is how this is going to happen within a framework of philanthropic funding. We support the idea of including other professionals. However New Zealand First insists that professionals no matter who they are are given additional skills to deal with vulnerable children in care and protection. What New Zealand First is worried about is whether this bill is going to open the door to inviting outside—perhaps international—entities to come into New Zealand and provide contractual services to our vulnerable children and young persons. This we will not accept hence our position to send this bill to a robust select committee process so that those concerns can be alleviated or diminished such is the risk that this will open a door for the privatisation of our social services for our vulnerable children and young persons. Just this morning I sat before Minister Tolley in the Social Services Committee. I listened to the justifications and rationale that sit behind where this National Government has spent taxpayer money tackling the poor record of how the State has parented our most vulnerable children. The Minister says that we must have a cultural shift in our thinking throughout society if we are to ever get it right. When we look at which model will best service the needs of our most vulnerable children and young persons the Minister states that a suite of bills including this bill and many others to follow will let the voice of a child come first. To put children at the forefront to let the child tell us what they need is for adults and Governments past and beyond to understand what our vulnerable children need under State services. I am going to break this bill down into three main areas: age settings advocacy and workplace settings. Regarding age settings this bill proposes to extend the provisions of the statutory care and protection system to persons aged 17 to 25 years. Currently it is 17 and then you are out. I have actually seen how detrimental this is to children. Just recently I was privileged to attend the L'Oréal foster care programme workshop and what it did was it gave these children the opportunity to dare to believe—to actually believe—that they can bust out of the stigma that society and people have placed them under. What these children learnt over the course of the weekend was that they can stand up and that they can be given a certain strategy and support to help them achieve and to be the best that they can be in their future. I was really quite astounded by the concern from some of the children. Once their State service care ended at their age they were actually quite anxious about what and where they would go to next because still—still—in some cases their families were not appropriate to go back to and often these children are left to fend for themselves. So New Zealand First agrees that this extension of care to include the up to 25-year-olds is paramount to helping these individuals journey into society with a more successful platform that includes the security of knowing as they move from high school to tertiary education and then on to the workforce that they will receive the real and actual support services needed for them to belong and move within our society a society that does not take away the aspirations and dreams that every individual in this country deserves to have. It is a tragedy and a blight on this and previous Governments that at the age of 17 children with such complex needs were simply dumped out on the street. This lack of engagement and understanding right down to key care arrangements has been occurring for over 30 years and it must stop. We are pleased to note the extension of care from 17 years to 25 years. With regard to advocacy the bill proposes to embed "the views of children and young persons at an individual and a systemic level by strengthening obligations in the Children Young Persons and Their Families Act 1989 (the CYPF Act) to support the participation of children and young persons:". This bill supports "the establishment of independent advocacy services with a particular focus on children and young persons in care through a new duty imposed on the chief executive of the department administering the Act:". The Minister explained today that a chief executive will be put in charge who will set up multi-professional advice services and that that individual chief executive will then choose those service providers. This will include social workers district health boards the police psychiatrists psychologists educators and many more who will get the chance to design this foolproof system that is meant to last a lifetime and where the voice of children will again be heard. So in other words after today's select committee discussion it has been fleshed out that this Government may pour millions of tax dollars into all sorts of pilot programmes and hope like heck that by some miracle the various pilot programmes work and it will then roll them out nationally. This is based on blind faith if I may say so and if we think that is OK then that is wrong. How can the Minister effectively ensure that the change made is a change made for good for the betterment of children and young persons in this country? New Zealand First absolutely supports putting the voice of the child at the forefront of these decisions and for once we are grateful for Paula Rebstock for educating the National Government on this very basic premise which should have always been there. Finally with regard to work settings this bill aims to enable "a broader range of professionals to perform a wider set of functions under the CYPF Act to help identify and meet the needs of vulnerable children and young persons." From reading the regulatory impact statement we have been provided with an analysis of options for new workforce settings that enable professionals to perform a broader set of functions within the new operating model. It also considers the related objectives of providing appropriate flexibility for the agency to deliver services via strategic partners and of supporting the chief executive of the children's agency as the single point of accountability for vulnerable children and young people. If this Government truly believed in putting the voice of vulnerable children first then this Government would also recognise the potential of the Children's Commissioner to play an absolutely vital role working inside the advocacy space. Yet despite the rhetoric and despite what we call the lip service this Government has dished out to Dr Russell Wills and his team of two and a half staff at the Office of the Children's Commissioner this Government has failed miserably to adequately resource what should have been the jewel in the crown. It is noted that "The preferred option [by the Ministry of Social Development] is to amend the CYPF Act to vest the functions currently residing with social workers instead in the Chief Executive." Here is where the legislation becomes unstuck: "that the Chief Executive would only be able to delegate functions to people who have the interpersonal skills training and experience to be suitably qualified to perform those functions; that if delegating outside the State sector the Chief Executive be required by the legislation to have contractual requirements in place to support the appropriate exercise of the delegation and to enable the person with delegated authority to be held to account; that the legislation require those exercising delegated authority to have regard to any guidance issued by the Chief Executive; that the Chief Executive be required to maintain a publicly accessible register of delegations to assure transparency and clarity for the sector and for the public."Sitting suspended from 6 p.m. to 7.30 p.m.RIA BOND: I was actually nearly at my conclusion before the dinner break so I would like to finish with a summary of the fact that New Zealand First supports this bill to the select committee where I know my colleague Darroch Ball will work very hard to ensure it is scrutinised in its whole entirety and brought back to the House to carry the voice of children as it is intended to do. New Zealand First will however review its position upon the findings of the select committee process. Thank you."