Chhour KarenKAREN CHHOUR (ACT): Thank you Mr Speaker. I'd just like to thank everybody for the conversations we've had tonight. Some have been respectful and some have actually been quite offensive—when I've had two Labour MPs accusing me of division separation and even one using the words race-baiting." Now the reason I brought this to Parliament is through personal experience as a Māori child in care. I know what it's like to be a Māori child in care when things go wrong and as far as going back into history into the 1980s I can tell you that I was part of that 1980s experiment and it didn't work. It failed me and I survived in spite of the experiment not because of it. I was told as a young person that all I needed to do was embrace my whakapapa embrace my culture and it would make everything OK. I didn't get treated for my trauma; I didn't get treated for my needs. I just got told "If you accept your culture and the people around you this will make it all better." I was sent back into an environment that petrified me that was awful and where I spent every day wondering whether I was going to wake up the next day. I spent two years in a home that I should not have been in based on this kind of rhetoric and there are many kids that I have seen this happen to in my community too. Now culture is important. Culture is great and I have embraced it as I've got older. But putting children back into environments based on "Family is the best place for them to be no matter what" is actually dangerous and I have seen the effect that it has had on children. Now there are family members that can be worked with and I think that this should happen so that they do have the skills and the ability to have these children back. But young people need to be heard when they say that they don't feel safe and they want to be put somewhere where they feel safe and children are ending up in homes—temporary homes—because we cannot find whānau hapū or iwi for them to go to. We're not giving them the stability they need because we're waiting to find somebody that is willing to take them. Surely our young people at the end of the day deserve stability love and care above everything and that's what I'm bringing to this House. I'm not race-baiting. I'm not being separatist and to be told that is actually very insulting. I think we need to get past those attacks because they're lazy and they don't actually address what we were debating. I really appreciate it that National has taken the time to say let's have the people have their say at a select committee stage because that's where this needs to go and there may be a compromise. There may be a way that we can make this bill work and have the people have their say. Let young people have some self-determination over their lives too because surely the Treaty does not just work for whānau hapū iwi and parents. It's also there for the children because children deserve to have self-determination over their future and their lives too. If they are living in a traumatic environment that's not good for them and that isn't in the best interests of them surely it is the responsibility of the Government organisations that are meant to be protecting all our children to step in and make sure that they are safe because too many children are falling through the cracks because we're so busy worrying about all these idealistic issues rather than what's in the best interest of our kids. Whilst it's best intended—and I understand that and I have said that—there are so many unintended consequences from looking at children as an identity first and not a child. We need to be looking after the child's needs—what they need—and we're not doing that well. Oranga Tamariki is failing badly for all our children not just Māori children and I'll tell you what: Māori children are not that different to any other child. They want to feel loved they want to feel safe and they want to know that tomorrow is going to be a good day and that is what I was intending with this bill. Thank you Mr Speaker."