Rich Katherine: Children's Commissioner Bill — Third Reading 
Rich Katherine: Children's Commissioner Bill — Third Reading 
[Volume:613;Page:10114] 
KATHERINE RICH (National) 
: 
 I am pleased to stand on behalf of the National Party to speak on the third reading of this bill. It is a bill that we support but in saying that it is a bill that we still have some reservations about. On balance we think it is a bill that it is important to support because of the work that is done by the Commissioner for Children. It is extremely important work as we have seen with a couple of major reports that have been released by the Commissioner for Children over the last couple of years. 
I have to say though it is a shame that the Government has watered down the bill in terms of its original intention. When Labour first decided it was going to make changes to the Office of the Commissioner for Children in 1999 it had a very clear policy to make the Commissioner for Children independent. I will read from Labour’s 1999 election policy for the benefit of listeners at home. One of the objectives was to “make the Commissioner for Children an Officer of Parliament to ensure complete independence”. We have not seen that. The Government has backed away from Labour’s election policy of ensuring complete independence for the Commissioner for Children. It has backed away from allowing the commissioner to have full independence. I think that is one thing we should be very concerned about because if the commissioner is to be a strong advocate for New Zealand children he or she has to be very independent. The commissioner cannot be in a position where the Government can manipulate the message or manipulate the work of that office. 
That is why this side of the House was extremely disconcerted by some last-minute changes that were made to this bill. Some last-minute changes saw the Government increase the amount of control that it has over the commissioner’s office. One thing that very much worried this side of the House was the idea that the Minister could firstly control the output of the Commissioner for Children and secondly direct some of the work that is being done as well. Imagine if that had happened with the work that has just been completed that looked into the report on the investigation into the deaths of Saliel Aplin and Olympia Jetson. Here we have seen how important it is to have an independent office go in do the research and come out with an independent evaluation of what went right but more important in this instance what went wrong. 
It is of great concern that today we saw the Associate Minister for Social Development and Employment (CYF) Ruth Dyson just totally dismiss some of the key recommendations made by the Commissioner for Children in her report. One of the key recommendations was that there be a review of the roopu team. The roopu team was the group that looked after Maori cases in the Masterton office. Unfortunately we found out through this report that that team in particular had a caseload that was 36 percent higher than that of the general team in that office. That is not good enough. We saw in this report that at a key time that office lost staff. The staff felt they were under-resourced and understaffed and unable to do their job. That is why on this side of the House we have argued that those social workers although they are the ones being hung out to dry by this Government were very much on a hiding to nothing given the work pressures in front of them. If mistakes had not been made on those girls’ cases frankly I imagine another Masterton family would have had their children plastered all over a Commissioner for Children’s report. 
The Commissioner for Children can often say things that are unpopular and can often say things that the Government wants to dismiss as not being part of its policy. Today I think we have seen the beginning of what unfortunately might be a difficult time for the Commissioner for Children. I read out to the Minister today a comment made by Trish Grant who works in the Office of the Commissioner for Children. She was talking about some of the concerns she had about some recommendations that had been dismissed outright by the Department of Child Youth and Family Services—in particular the recommendation that the roopu teams be reviewed but also the recommendation that some of the key factors that contributed to some of the social workers making mistakes be evaluated and understood. She said: “I note that they haven’t been given the attention that they should have by the department or in fact the Minister I would suggest.” Clearly she is indicating some dismay at the way the Minister and the department have dismissed some of the key recommendations or have not really taken the time to evaluate those recommendations before deciding they would not be implemented. 
Ruth Dyson said today: “Well that’s just her view. That’s just Trish Grant’s view.” But that is one of the things I think is important to understand. The Commissioner for Children should and must give an independent evaluation of how he or she sees a situation. But the Government should not dismiss outright some of the comments the commissioner makes without fully evaluating some of the concerns. Some of the concerns that were raised were very real ones and they are concerns that the commissioner has raised with the Government in other reports. Up until this point most of the concerns have been taken into account. 
I asked Steve Maharey last year how many of the recommendations from the James Whakaruru report had been implemented. Still to this day all those recommendations have not been implemented. So I am wondering whether this Commissioner for Children’s report will be another one to gather dust. The Commissioner for Children can be a strong advocate only if people listen to his or her reports as they are published. That is why we should do all we can to preserve the strength of that particular role and make sure that that role is as independent as possible. 
That is why some of the changes that were made at the eleventh hour by this Government are quite unacceptable. They do more to dilute the role of the Commissioner for Children as opposed to strengthen it and we gave some pretty strong speeches about that in previous debates. But as I have said on balance it is important to support this bill. At least the direction is right. At least the bill is trying to make the Commissioner for Children a stronger advocate than he or she can be right now. It is important that the Commissioner for Children has the opportunity to give evidence and collect certain amounts of information which previously the office has not been doing. 
It is fascinating I think to see how diluted the Labour Party policy on this issue has been. It is here in black and white—although the Minister says it was not Labour Party policy—that it was the objective of Labour to “make the Commissioner for Children an Officer of Parliament to ensure complete independence”. Well we will not see that election promise come true. This was the one opportunity to keep that election promise. Labour has presented a diluted-down version of what was the original intention. 
This is a very important bill in terms of maintaining the independence of the Commissioner for Children. I would like to think that some of the concerns we have will not come true but it seems to me that the intention is to curb very much some of the comments made by the Commissioner for Children. As we are seeing increasingly the commissioner is starting to criticise some of the Government’s policy. One needs look only as far as some of the commissioner’s comments about the Government’s slow implementation of the Agenda for Children which was the result of a lot of conferencing and speaking. We have actually seen very little develop from that. That is why some of the children’s advocacy groups are getting increasingly agitated and frustrated at the lack of progress that is being made. 
It is important to salute the work that was done by Roger McClay and the work presently being done by Dr Cindy Kiro and her team and in particular Trish Grant the author of what I think is a very thorough report that really deserves to be read by the whole House and not just those members with an interest in social services.