Logie JanJAN LOGIE (Green): Thank you Madam Speaker. It's a real pleasure to rise on behalf of the Green Party in support of the Oranga Tamariki Amendment Bill and as has been pointed out by other speakers this is doing three key things: one the partially repealing the subsequent child provision repealing redundant information-sharing provisions and then a range of technical corrections to the Act.The majority of my contribution this morning will be on the subsequent child provision aspect of this bill and we are very very very pleased to see this go. I know nobody likes a know-it-all but in this instance I feel compelled to put it on the record that the Green Party is the only party in this House who opposed this legislation on its introduction. One of our key reasons for doing that was a concern about this provision and the shifting of the burden of proof onto whānau. Metiria Turei spoke in the second reading for us articulating—I thought quite perfectly—concerns about the bill and acknowledging that actually it was already difficult for mothers particularly to demonstrate to then Child Youth and Family that they'd had enough intervention that they'd be able to keep their baby and care for them properly and then shifting that burden of proof quite significantly added hurdles for those women and that made that ability to keep family together so much harder and actually created disincentives to change because if you're doing all of the work without any support and you're not getting any hope of being able to reunite your family people give up.The fact is that we also were pointing to her at that time having gone out and spoken to agencies who were working with families who were in this situation who noted that 50 percent of the parents of the families at risk come from State care—50 percent. Interestingly we've seen that played out again and that the State care has failed to provide those parents when they were children with the resources that they needed to have a good and fulfilling life and we still see that.So a conversation about needing to put children first the Greens have several issues with. Children are never isolated; actually the wellbeing of the child we have to understand that in the context of connection and that we should be putting all of our resources into preventing the need for uplift. If anybody has seen The Justice of Bunny King I think it was and the deep frustration of our system and the struggle for families to be reunited because the resources in our system are not there for them to provide that protective system. We get to see the fact that this is punishment of the children and the families and that the drivers of harm at heart are our housing crisis poverty and family violence. We have to be addressing those core drivers if we are to truly say that we are putting our children first.While we've heard from the National Party unfortunately that they won't be supporting this I do need to recall that this has been to the Waitangi Tribunal and the Waitangi Tribunal has called for the immediate it was repeal of this legislation. That was even after the then Minister in 2019 had said it would be repealed because they saw the pernicious impact of this provision in the legislation; not just in the removal of the children under this provision but the impact it was having on social work practice across the organisation of creating a heightened and unrealistic sense of risk and a sense of shifting subtly that onus of proof from the organisation to prove that a family wasn't fit to care to actually the organisation seeking to have the family prove that they were safe which is an incredibly difficult thing to do for many families.We saw that concern confirmed by the Waitangi Tribunal and by the Commissioner for Children who advocated very strongly in the Waitangi Tribunal who described this provision in the legislation as 'pernicious' and 'totally unnecessary piece of legislation' which 'should be repealed tomorrow'." Judge Becroft at that time as the Children's Commissioner considered that the introduction of the legislation had led to a culture shift within Oranga Tamariki that exceeded the actual application of the statute and that it has actively caused harm and concluded that the existence of the second and subsequent child legislation constituted organisational racism. So I really want to ground the Opposition members' contributions in those findings of the court.If we are hearing from anybody that they are putting the wellbeing of children first then I would suggest listening to the Children's Commissioner and the Waitangi Tribunal and their views on the wellbeing. What it takes to put the wellbeing of the child first would be a good first step for their contributions.I also do want to respond to the comments that were made earlier by Minister Jackson about the changes that are happening within Oranga Tamariki and also noting that this law change did need to happen earlier and it's incredibly important to see it happening now. But the Greens' view is that the next steps is that really we need to be seeing that partnership between Māori show up in a strategy for how the organisation will change towards delivering our commitment and duty to honour Te Tiriti o Waitangi and that that work of developing a strategy should also be reflected in work to decide what legislative changes are needed so that there can be a comprehensive plan. There is still concern coming from the community that legislative changes are happening in a piecemeal way and we've got conflicting intentions imbedded in the legislation at the moment which were a result of a very difficult and rigorous process of bringing in that initial legislation. It was very hard fought but you cannot I believe—it still reflects the inconsistencies of the original intent and the battle to improve it and it is not entirely coherent.So we have heard that the Māori advisory group is actually kind of taking that role. But I will again point the Government to the fact that the Waitangi Tribunal recommended a transitional authority independent from the Crown to eliminate the need for State care of Tamariki. Again to speak to Minister Jackson's intervention this is not saying that anybody wants children to stay in unsafe situations; we do not—we absolutely do not. We want intervention to provide them and their family with the best supports to make life safe and if there are concerns then we believe that the people that are going to be the safest are probably those within their extended whānau or community who have a better record of keeping of children safe than the State does. We have to acknowledge that the abuse of children in State care has not improved; our children are still at risk within our State organisations. So when we talk about safety of children we have to acknowledge that reality. I am concerned that at the moment Whānau Ora providers who are on the ground are saying that they do not support the direction of that partnership that the Government is leading out and that is putting people who need to be doing the work in conflict with the organisation and the Government and that undermines the work. We have to come together for our tamariki—ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jenny Salesa): Order! The member's time is up."