Ardern Jacinda: Vulnerable Children Bill — In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeArdern Jacinda: Vulnerable Children Bill — In Committee[Sitting date: 13 May 2014. Volume:698;Page:17811. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]JACINDA ARDERN (Labour): It is a shame that my colleague Rajen Prasad was unable to finish his address but I am very pleased to take another call on Part 1 of theVulnerable Children Bill particularly so we can speak on child protection policies which are a significant part of the bill. But before I go on to that it feels like it would be remiss of me not to respond to the Minister for Social Development’s contribution after my address. If I did not make it absolutely clear in that first part of my address let me do it now. Labour is supporting this bill. We have even said that when this Government is removed in September we will continue with the Government’s Children’s Action Plan. We have acknowledged and seen the work that has gone into the green paper process and the white paper process. All of the input that has come from this sector into this piece of work has been considerable and we are not willing to walk away from that. So for the Minister to try to somehow imply that we have not supported elements of her work is not only misleading but also a politicisation of what otherwise was a reasonable contribution of how our position differs in some areas from this Government’s.Yes we support the Vulnerable Children Bill but do we think it goes far enough? No. We have said that clearly all along and it is a reasonable point to make because child poverty is not to ignore child abuse. But if you ignore child abuse then you are ignoring wider fundamental issues around child well-being. In fact the Government has been at great pains to separate out the issues of child abuse neglect and vulnerability from issues of child poverty. We have consistently argued that all of the research and all of the evidence says that you cannot separate out issues that cannot be separated out. In fact we would never ever in this Chamber—you will never hear one member of this side of the Chamber ever say this—argue that because you are poor you hurt your children. Of course not—that is a despicable implication to make. But nor can any Government that is responsible and looks at the evidence and research ignore the role that poverty plays in vulnerability and that poverty plays in abuse and neglect issues. You cannot separate issues that cannot be separated out. To ignore one is to patently ignore the other.If the Minister wants to get angry about that get angry about it. Get angry about the situation—fair enough. We should all be angry about it. But do not get angry at the Opposition for raising what research and evidence inconveniently has told this Government and what it does not wish to be inconvenienced by. They are the cold hard facts of the matter. But we still support this bill because at least yes the Government is doing something. We would just like to see more. That is what we would like to call being ambitious for children.Speaking directly on child protection policies I am pleased that New Zealand First raised some of the issues around how far those child protection policies should go. What about when it comes to vetting and screening the children’s workforce? It was something rigorously debated by the Social Services Committee. It was a hard point to come to—whether or not for instance we should say “Look the State should look at who is contracted and who is required by Government to provide services as a children’s workforce and then should not go any further than that. Let’s leave it to voluntary organisations to put in place their own policies.” To a certain extent you could argue that but we actually had voluntary organisations that said “No we would feel more comfortable if we were covered as well.” We did ask for some advice on what that would look like if that extension went that far and what kind of burden it would place on those voluntary organisations—would they have the capacity to carry that out? They were vulnerable questions. I never felt entirely satisfied by the answers that we were able to produce through that process.So whilst I can understand why the Government has come to where it has come to in this bill I do think that there is some merit in what New Zealand First has said around applying one narrow element of these provisions and just saying “Let’s make sure thatthe safety checks and vets at least apply to the voluntary children’s workforce where they are engaged frequently in that kind of work.” I think it is fair for them—