Fox MaramaMARAMA FOX (Co-Leader—Māori Party): There was one reason I came to Parliament—one reason only—and that was to improve the lot of our children in this country. When I consider the place of specifically our tamariki Māori in New Zealand before coming into this Parliament it was in a state of emergency. Our children suffered under poverty. It is still there it has not been rectified and we must do more to alleviate the hardship for children. I have listened in this House to people stand up and blame each other for why we are in this situation. But do you know what? Left wing right wing—same bird. It is time for a new bird. It is time for an independent voice because an independent voice will tell you that Māori tamariki need to have a specific targeted response to the issues that they are facing. They might be called race-based interventions by some people in this House but actually that is putting a targeted response in the area where it is most needed. We have a ministry called the Ministry for Vulnerable Children Oranga Tamariki. Those two terms are an oxymoron. They actually are combative to each other and if Bishop and Berryman taught us anything surely they taught us that we need to stop talking about ourselves in deficit language. I want to work with the Government to ensure that the new model—an operating model—for the Child Youth and Family reform is done in a way that will enhance and better the placement of our tamariki. But we must be careful—be careful not to repeat the mistakes of the past and not to simply take away children and place them somewhere else and create a whole new stolen generation. If we do not think that identity language and culture are important to the placement of those children we are not listening. Yes we must put the child at the heart of the solution but all that is encompassed in ensuring that that child is supported means they have to know their identity. Those provisions in the current Act were hard-fought for. They were hard debated and our Māori whānau have said that if we alienate our children from the knowledge of who they are the knowledge of who their tribe is and the knowledge of how their people came to be where they are today then we are not helping the situation. We are not setting them up for a brightness of hope for their future. We are further adding to the pain and despair of those children who through no reason of their own have been place in State care and the State has come in and they have another double jeopardy because they have continued to be abused in our State care. We know that; we are trying to fix it. I am asking the Government to be careful. Do not come with DAD"—meaning we decide and then we spend all our time arguing and defending our decision. Come with "EDD"—engage first develop the conversation go out to the people and find out how they can support this process and then make your decisions. There is a group of women in this country who have sent an open letter to the Government and I am not sure whether it has seen it so I am going to quote from it directly. It says: "Over the past months a number of Māori women have worked collaboratively across Aotearoa to raise issues regarding the documents released by the Crown related to restructuring of current Child Youth and Family services … We have advocated strongly against the development of a Ministry that is based upon deficit approaches to tamariki … We have not been alone in such a position which has been advocated by a range of organisations including both the previous and current Commissioner for Children. The recent announcement that the government will remove the requirement to prioritise the placement of tamariki with whānau is alarming to us all. The associated statements of abuse in kin placements is largely reliant on an unpublished report which we believe raises critical issues in regards to how CYFS manages the placement of our tamariki and mokopuna." Even Dame Tariana Turia has said that "these actions are a further act of Institutional Racism and that Iwi Leaders need to actively speak out against these reforms." and I join with that call. We must continue to care for our children and place them in loving and secure homes but do not further harm them by alienating them from their identity. Kia ora."