Sowry Roger: Commissioner for Children Bill — Second Reading 
Sowry Roger: Commissioner for Children Bill — Second Reading 
[Volume:613;Page:9817] 
Hon ROGER SOWRY (National) 
: 
 I want to make a couple of comments on this bill. I start by saying that the National Party supports the Commissioner for Children Bill. We support the office of the Commissioner for Children and I as a previous Minister of the Department of Child Youth and Family Services was pleased to work with two former Commissioners for Children—the late Laurie O’Reilly who brought to the office his considerable legal experience and did an outstanding job in developing advocacy services for children and the recently retired commissioner the Hon Roger McClay. 
Roger McClay brought both parliamentary and ministerial experience and his education background to the office and became a very strong advocate for the independence of the role. He achieved a considerable amount not the least of which was a substantial amount of funding for the office which I know he was particularly pleased with. Many of the aspects of this bill pick up on the work that was done by Roger McClay. I think in particular of the consultation with children that is included in the bill. That is something that Roger McClay was particularly keen to see developed and it is good to see that that is now required in the bill. National certainly supports that. 
A large part of the bill spells out the way in which the commissioner will be appointed and that is a step in the right direction but I regret that the bill has not gone further and required that there be multi-party consultation and consideration around the appointment of the commissioner. It is my view that the Commissioner for Children needs to be somebody who has the respect of all sides in Parliament. Previous commissioners have enjoyed that and it is fair to say that they have had to earn it which is right but we should be moving to a position whereby the appointment to the commissioner position is done more on a multi-party basis. The role is too important to be seen as one that does not enjoy the confidence of all parties in the House. The bill goes some of the way in that respect. It states that the vacancy should be advertised and I note that the position of the current commissioner was advertised even though the bill is not yet law. It was good that the Minister at least followed what will be the law when he went through the process of appointing the current commissioner. 
I want to say to the Minister Steve Maharey that it is an absolute disgrace that a bill that was introduced to the House on 29 August 2001 and that has had only 2 hours of submissions has taken until 6 November 2003 to be passed. It is not as if anyone will vote against it. Everyone supports it yet it has taken that Minister over 2 years to get it to the second reading stage. That is hopeless and it is a tragedy given that that Minister really has not had his eye on the Department of Child Youth and Family Services which the Commissioner for Children’s office is set up to monitor. 
We have a bill that will strengthen that office. The office’s role is to monitor the Department of Child Youth and Family Services but that department is almost more dysfunctional than the kids it is meant to be looking after and the Minister has done nothing. A report was done by Mick Brown but Steve Maharey ignored the vast majority of its recommendations. He did not do anything to make sure that the department was strengthened but sat on his hands rather than get this bill through Parliament. Steve Maharey has overseen tragedies in children’s lives that mean quite frankly that he should be resigning. For the life of me I cannot understand why the chief executive of the Department of Child Youth and Family Services Jackie Pivac has been required to fall on her sword while the Minister Steve Maharey wanders around preening himself and pretending that none of it happened on his watch. 
This is a Minister who has not introduced one new Social Workers in Schools programme. He has not introduced one new Family Start programme. Those are all programmes that were designed to take pressure off the Department of Child Youth and Family Services and when operating they do. In Porirua City in Rotorua in Hamilton those programmes work stunningly well. This Government has huge surpluses but it has not introduced one new programme in that area. It has done nothing to take the pressure off the entry points for the Department of Child Youth and Family Services and now the Minister takes over 2 years to get to the second reading stage of a small bill that will strengthen the monitoring procedures of the agency—the office of the Commissioner for Children—that looks over the Department of Child Youth and Family Services. 
Steve Maharey has been a total failure as a Minister. That is why he lost the portfolio of Department of Child Youth and Family Services. He should be apologising. He should be tendering his resignation because there has been horrendous misconduct against young children in this country. The department that has had the responsibility for overseeing the care of those children has not done it. If the Minister stood in front of the mirror and looked at his own actions rather than at the cut of his suit and his haircut we might get someone who along with the Commissioner for Childrenis prepared to stand up and protect children.