Urgent Debates — Department of Child Youth and Family Services 
Urgent Debates — Department of Child Youth and Family Services 
[Volume:613;Page:9637] 
Urgent Debates 
Department of Child Youth and Family Services 
Mr SPEAKER 
: I have received applications under Standing Order 376 from Katherine Rich and Dr Muriel Newman to debate the release of the Government’s baseline review of the Department of Child Youth and Family Services. This is a particular case of recent occurrence involving ministerial responsibility and I consider that it does require the immediate attention of the House. I therefore accept the applications. As Katherine Rich was the first member to lodge an application with me I call upon her to move accordingly. 
KATHERINE RICH (National) 
: 
 I move  
That the House take note of a matter of urgent public importance 
. After 4 years of a Labour Government the Department of Child Youth and Family Services is in crisis mode. That is something that the National Party has been saying for the last 2 years. After years of denying Opposition concerns the Government has accepted that and it has recently been confirmed in the Treasury baseline review. It is quite clear that social workers are overworked morale is at an all-time low caseloads are growing at an alarming rate notifications are rising well above predicted levels and a waiting list of children has not been cleared. The unallocated case list which 2 years ago Judge Mick Brown said should be reduced to zero within 6 months has been— 
Mr SPEAKER 
: I am sorry to interrupt the honourable member and this will not come off her time. I know that select committees are meeting. Members will leave the Chamber quietly if they have to go to those meetings. I want to hear the member concerned. 
KATHERINE RICH 
: During the last 4 years we have seen review after report after blueprint after review after task force and basically all the reports state the same thing. They state that the Department of Child Youth and Family Services is underfunded that there is low morale and that social workers find it difficult to undertake quality social work in what are extremely difficult situations. 
I say God help the children of New Zealand because at the moment we cannot guarantee that the department can do so. I had believed that when a notification was made to the department every notification and every call would be logged. What we have seen in the last couple of weeks is that a 21-minute call from Ron Burrows somehow or another could slip through the cracks. When a distraught father rang to talk about things that would concern most New Zealand parents—things like safety concerns for a 6-year-old girl who was soiling herself and wetting her pants because she was distraught about the situation she was in—I would have thought that those sorts of things would be important enough to warrant an official notification. We saw that one fall through the cracks and we look forward to seeing the review of that. When Phil Goff appeared before a select committee and said that there could be a situation whereby a child was kicked out of a whole range of schools but his or her behaviour was not deemed significant enough for the intervention of the Department of Child Youth and Family Services something is wrong. Obviously the threshold for intervention is far too high. 
Some incredibly alarming comments have been made in that review of a sort that I have not read in reviews previously. They were comments like “the entire CYF system is unbalanced and unstable”. The children of New Zealand deserve a department that can predictably look after them in times of need. It is clear that the Government’s handling of Child Youth and Family Services has been incompetent at best. Let us remember that 2 years ago a report from Judge Mick Brown stated exactly the same things that were included in the baseline review. I tell that Minister that there were 57 recommendations in his report not 53 as she told the House today. The last time I checked only a mere handful had been implemented so it is quite obvious the Government is in a bit of a panic to get through the others. 
Judge Mick Brown’s report too highlighted problems with regard to the overwork of social workers and problems with the risk assessment processes and the unallocated case list. One of his key recommendations was that the unallocated case list which is basically a list of children waiting to see a social worker be reduced within 6 months to zero. That does not mean that all incidents would be dealt with immediately. It just means that once the risk is assessed they would be dealt with within 1 day 3 days 1 month etc. The Government has not done that. Sure at the time the Government signed up to the recommendation as being one that it would implement but the recommendation was diluted down was put into the blueprint and the specific nature of that particular recommendation was suddenly and conveniently forgotten. The last time I checked 1780 children were waiting to have their case assessed by a social worker. 
One of the things Judge Mick Brown said was that when a case was on the books things could escalate over time and we have certainly seen that prove to be correct. Members should just remember the names Saliel Aplin and Olympia Jetson. Those girls were known to the department. In fact one of the girls had written in her textbook that she was concerned that her stepfather could potentially do her harm. What did the department do? It sent out a letter that we believe was intercepted by Bruce Howse. Again and again the names change but the facts are basically the same. They are facts of incompetence and of a department that is struggling and under-resourced. 
It is quite clear that some of the things that have been brought up about Child Youth and Family Services would not be tolerated if we were talking about individual parents. Let us imagine that an individual parent did not know how many kids were in his or her care. Let us think about a situation where we asked an individual parent whether his or her child was enrolled in a school and that parent said that he or she was not sure. Basically that is the situation Child Youth and Family Services is in. I am absolutely gobsmacked to read that the department does not know how many kids are in its care how many kids are on its books and whether those kids are enrolled in a school. I say that school enrolments should be fundamental. They should be one of the basics that are ticked off by every single social worker. The department should know basics like that. 
I look back at Labour’s 1999 election policy concerning Child Youth and Family Services. I see it stated Labour was going to “ensure that all State agencies kept accurate statistics relating to their services for families and that this information would be publicly available”. Well there is something pretty fundamental about whether children are in school. There is something pretty fundamental about knowing how many kids are in one’s care. The failure to know that is simply not good enough. But Labour has tried a number of tricks. What it does is to change the Minister and conveniently it gets the chief executive to resign during the week that a damning report is expected on Child Youth and Family Services’ handling of the Bruce Howse case. Yes the Government has given Jackie Pivac the sandbag treatment and it has left no bruises but the situation she was put in is quite clear. A chief executive cannot work in a situation where the Minister fails to express confidence in her work where credibility is at risk and where she has three other Government departments babysitting her work. It is no wonder Jackie Pivac decided that the writing was on the wall and it was better for her to resign. But what a week it was to resign in. I wonder how useful our financial review process at the Social Services Committee is going to be when we look down to the end of the table and see not one person whom we can hold accountable for what has been going on in Child Youth and Family Services over the last year. Everybody will be able to pass the buck and say he or she is sorry but he or she is not able to answer that question. It is just all too convenient that Jackie Pivac takes off for a holiday in what is quite an important week for Child Youth and Family Services. 
In terms of denying Opposition protestations it is interesting how quiet members are on the Government side of the Chamber. I think they know that we are bringing up a lot of pertinent points and they have no answer to them. After 4 long years Child Youth and Family Services is actually in a worse position than it was 4 years ago; 4 years ago the unallocated case list was not as bad as it is now. It is interesting to hear the Minister blame National’s underfunding of 4 years ago for that. I think that is just a lame excuse at best after that period of time particularly when the Prime Minister has said that the issue is not about money but is about leadership and about running a department. I say to members on the Government side of the House that they can try to distract attention and can call together new reviews new blueprints and new committees. Let us remind them of the child abuse committee that Steve Maharey drew together. It was supposed to be a high-profile committee. I cannot find any evidence that it actually met to discuss a very important issue. All the written questions that I asked about it were delightfully fudged. 
It will be interesting to see the results from the reviews as they come out this week particularly in the case of Saliel Aplin and Olympia Jetson. The member over there on the Government benches can yawn. I say that all the yawning in the world will not bring back those two girls to this world. They were betrayed by Child Youth and Family Services. I think they deserve greater respect given that we are talking about issues of such great importance than just a casual yawn and a quick retort from members on the Government side of the Chamber. There are a whole lot of names tattooed on the brains of many members here—Craig Manukau Delcelia Witika “Lillybing” James Whakaruru—and no amount of yap from the Government side of the Chamber will bring back any of those children. 
It is important to talk about some solutions. Quite clearly we need to see better leadership from that department. It can commission all the reports it likes but if they are not implemented all that they will do is to gather dust on a shelf somewhere and postpone what really are some important decisions to be made in that department. No amount of funding and no amount of postponing the inevitable will make things any different for children in this country. They deserve better than that. Children cannot vote so perhaps that is why members on the Government side of the House are not quite so interested in them. But if children are in need are vulnerable and are being abused they deserve a department they can rely on. Parents also deserve to have a department that when they ring up they know will take their views and their concerns seriously. When a 21-minute call can go unheard unlogged and not acted upon it makes all parents in New Zealand feel concerned about Child Youth and Family Services. It makes all people—all parents neighbours grandparents and citizens of New Zealand—worry about the service that is there to protect our nation’s most vulnerable. 
I suspect we will hear a whole raft of excuses. The Minister had better not dare to say that it is National’s fault because after 4 long years that does not wash any more. Nobody believes that. Nobody outside this House believes that. When people get into Government and aim to change some of the processes and operations after a certain amount of time blaming the faults on someone else just does not work any more. We look forward to hearing the excuses from members on the Government side of the Chamber. I have to say though that I think the financial review process will probably be a waste of time because the Government has conveniently put a whole range of people down at the bottom end of the table who will be totally unable to answer our select committee’s questions. The Government tries to change the faces and tries to change the Ministers but ultimately the problem is the fault of the Government. It should come out and explain its 4 years of inaction. 
Hon RUTH DYSON (Associate Minister for Social Development and Employment (CYF)) 
: 
 It is a bit rich for that member to come into this House and say that the National Party has no responsibility for the situation in the Department of Child Youth and Family Services. In talking about neglect and abuse I tell the House that in October 1999 when the Labour-led Government took over responsibility for the Children Young Persons and Their Families Agency that organisation had been through seven restructurings and five changes of name. It was described by one of their outgoing chief executives Griff Page as the most demoralised organisation he had ever seen. So for that member to come into the House and say: “We care so much about children; it would never have happened in our days.” is frankly gobsmacking and beggars belief. It is just incomprehensible. 
National when in Government totally starved services for children and young persons of resources. Its funding in the 1990s completely failed to accommodate growing workloads. It underfunded the agency continually slashed over $30 million of its budget for the 1990 to 1993 term and then wondered why it was so dysfunctional in the way it delivered its services. In 1999 the agency became a stand-alone department—just prior to the change of Government. It was a rush job by Roger Sowry and his colleagues to create a stand-alone department with the community funding organisation and with less funding and infrastructural support than it had had in the past. We knew that the department was fragile at that time but until we became the Government we did not know that not only had National underfunded thrown two departments together with less money and said: “Hope you make it buddies; we are out of here.”—which is what it did—it also had a significant amount of child youth and family funding as time-limited funding. 
What did Roger Sowry as Minister think would happen to the needs of children young people and their families in New Zealand? Did he think they would all magically disappear and there would be no future needs? Why was there time-limited funding for a department that had a statutory responsibility for the care and protection of our young people and families? What has Roger Sowry got to say to this House in response to that question? Absolutely nothing! There is no response at all from the former Minister who should come to this House and explain why he did that to a department with the statutory responsibility that in my view is more important than any other—that is the care and protection of our children. 
We were left with an organisation that was underfunded that did not have the infrastructural support or management systems it needed and that had been operating for only a few months. That is why significantly more resourcing was put into that department. It got the money that our Government considered was needed to do the job that we as Government and the public expected it to be able to do. In Budget after Budget the department has had significant amounts of more money. In fact it had the most significant increase in funding it had ever received in the entire history of that department—whether as an agency or an entity within the Department of Social Welfare—but it kept having to come back for more. 
When Steve Maharey was Minister he asked Judge Mick Brown to undertake a review of the care and protection system which is a critical part of the work. It is very appropriate that that review was called for and then the recommendations were put into place. That made a significant difference in the way the department was able to operate in the most critical area of care and protection. 
For example Mick Brown’s recommendations improved the relationship with the community’s social services sector. The department does not perform the functions it is required to on its own. It is vital that it has a strong relationship with the community’s social services sector and that improved immeasurably because of the actions taken as a result of the Mick Brown report. That report stressed how important it was to improve the front-line capacity of the Department of Child Youth and Family Services. That information informed bids to fund record increases in front-line numbers—record increases in the number of people actually doing the work within the department—and to ensure that quality social workers were both recruited and then retained. 
The unallocated case numbers were a focus of that report were a focus of the previous Minister and were significantly reduced. I retain my commitment to that ongoing work. Children received faster service and community liaison social workers were funded thus improving the network with foster carers and others who work in our communities to support the care and protection of our children. 
In anyone’s language and informed view of the department the quality of its work significantly improved in the time from when the Labour-led Government took over at the end of 1999 to now when those recommendations from the Mick Brown report have been put into place. Social worker numbers were increased to their highest level ever and social workers received a pay increase as part of a major recruitment and retention package. They finally got an entirely new computer system based on casework needs and realities rather than the antiquated rubbish that had been passed on to them by Roger Sowry and the National Government of the time. 
That Government had expected social workers with increasing caseloads to operate with reduced numbers of workers no infrastructural support fewer resources than they had ever had and not even a computer system that responded by looking at their casework needs. That was what the party opposite when it was in Government expected of that department. The baseline reviews and events since have made some obvious recommendations. That is where we as members of a responsible party have to look. 
The Department of Child Youth and Family Services has acted on the themes from Mick Brown’s report such as the fact that the department has to work with communities and not be apart from them. Initiatives like the Stronger Community Action Funds in everyday communities have enabled the department and communities to work together to build stronger families where children are kept safe. That is a critical message that this House and the public of New Zealand need to hear. The best place for children to be kept safe is with their families. In order to ensure that that can happen we have to work constructively together to build strong families who can give our children safe lives. 
The department’s chief executive who announced her resignation from that position yesterday has led a number of those significant improvements particularly that of relationship-building with the sector. More funding was provided for programmes like Social Workers in Schools which has been a resounding success around the country. The call for so long has been that teachers are able to observe children in a way that very few others of us have the opportunity to do. They understand when children are unhappy distressed angry or not functioning to the best of their abilities and they know when something is wrong with either the children or their relationships with their families. But teachers are not trained nor do they have time to make the interventions that are necessary in order to help those children. The Social Workers in Schools programme has filled that gap—a gap that was known but ignored for over 9 years by the National-led Government but that this Government moved very rapidly to address. 
That is why I am very happy to look at the investment and achievement of the department in the last 4 years under a Labour-led Government compared with 9 years of literal abuse and neglect under that Opposition party when it was in Government. The baseline review was called for and agreed to by Steve Maharey when he was Minister and supported by Michael Cullen as Minister of Finance because it was clear that the department had had 3 years to settle as a stand-alone department that it had had time to get itself organised and that anything we discovered from the review would not be mistaken for teething problems which are inevitable in a new organisation. So after 2 full financial years and at the start of the third year they said that it was the right time to have a baseline first-principles review. 
Are we confident that the department understands its functions and responsibilities and does it have the structure and resources to be able to deliver those responsibilities in a way that is satisfactory to this Government? The response from that baseline review team whom I want to commend for the highly professional collaborative and supportive way that they worked made it clear to us that urgent action needed to be taken and that is exactly what we took. I also commend the way my colleagues Michael Cullen Steve Maharey and Trevor Mallard have worked with me in a collaborative and supportive way because we all agree that the work of the Department of Child Youth and Family Services is too important for us to underfund and treat with the same neglect as has been the case under the previous administration. 
So we took the decision not only to have the baseline review but also to give it the consideration that it needed and then to act on its recommendations. The department has enjoyed the collaboration of the other three ministries—the State Services Commission Treasury and the Ministry of Social Development. Frankly I find it offensive to have the sort of criticism aimed at that review team as has been made by the current spokesperson on social welfare for the National Party Katherine Rich. It is totally unfair to undermine in the way she did the quality and the huge amount of energy and effort that went into the review. 
The Opposition should think about the comments that Mick Brown used in his report. In fact members opposite might want to think about the title. Mick Brown called his report  
Care and Protection is About Adult Behaviour 
 because he knew better than anyone that no matter how good the department’s social workers are they cannot be in every New Zealand home 24 hours a day 7 days a week. Ultimately for every New Zealand child to be safe every New Zealand family has to make that its top priority. In fact it should be its only priority—for its children for its neighbours’ children for its community’s children. For all New Zealand children to be safe they have to have strong and safe families. So instead of suggesting as I have heard Dr Newman suggest that the department should be ripped to pieces restructured and privatised we should all support social workers in what will always be a very challenging job. 
I want to support every staff person within the department in the work that those staff do. It is one of the most emotionally demanding and challenging jobs but it is the most important work. Ensuring that our children and young people are safe is the most important responsibility we can give to every public servant and I know that those public servants put more effort and energy into it than any member opposite ever values. It is about time we started appreciating high-quality public service instead of calling for it to be privatised or attacking it. 
Calling for the department to be restructured yet again would be a total disaster. It is time for us—and I hope that this Government has shown the sort of leadership that finally can get a positive response from Opposition parties—to get alongside and behind the department and back it in its work rather than attacking it. We must stop blaming social workers for every ill in New Zealand society. For many children the tireless efforts of social workers are the only real hope they have for peace and security in their lives. In other words I ask the Opposition spokespeople to stop playing petty politics with the Department of Child Youth and Family Services. Its job and the energy and effort of its staff are too important for that. 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson) 
: I call the honourable member Barbara Stewart. 
Dr MURIEL NEWMAN (ACT) 
: 
 I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. I just seek a point of clarification. I know the member rose to her feet but she did not actually call—but I did. Are you not meant to call the member who called? 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson) 
: I thought that she had. I would ask the member to call. 
BARBARA STEWART (NZ First) 
: 
 On behalf of New Zealand First I would like to say that the children of New Zealand need a better deal. They need to be kept safe. The Department of Child Youth and Family Services appears to have been in a constant state of flux in the time that I have been in Parliament. The department is in a state of crisis. We continually hear of mistakes. This is the second review that has now been held and hopefully we may get a bit further than we have in the past. 
A picture has long been emerging of this service as one that totally lacks direction that struggles under the weight of public expectations that suffers serious systemic failures and that cannot retain its workforce. The bottom line is that it does not have the systems in place to meet the increasing demand for its services. The Labour Government cannot blame previous administrations for the department’s performance over the past 4 years as I have heard. After 4 years in Government the Minister for Social Development and Employment Steve Maharey and the multitude of other Ministers who are also associated with this department with varying degrees of responsibility have not demonstrated the political will to address the steadily increasing demand for its services and the department’s ability to meet this demand. There is now a review that clearly illustrates where the department needs to improve its service delivery and a strategy to enable this to occur. 
We know that State intervention has become increasingly necessary in the lives of an increasing number of children and we really need to look at the bottom line. What will the Government—the Labour Government—do to ensure that this does happen? It is a dedicated department staffed by people who are struggling with the resources they have. The recent review points out that there are deep and systemic failures within the department. We hear that constantly and there is no action. The department does need to be efficient in the operational areas and it can be efficient and effective only when it has the resources. It is absolutely appalling to hear that the department which looks after a whole range of children in New Zealand does not know how many of those children attend school on a regular basis. 
Now I know as a parent that one of the first things I make sure my child does is attend school. I would have believed that while a child was under the care of the department that would be one of the key things it focused on as well. When I look at the unallocated caseload—and I hear the number of 1780 unallocated cases—I am very aware that people are now waiting longer and longer for help. I am very concerned now that I hear that telephone logs take so long to come to light and the department cannot even find out whereabouts the telephone call has been made. It is no wonder that the public of New Zealand has completely lost confidence in this department. I feel very sorry for this department as it struggles against the huge expectations of the public and it cannot deliver. Many many parents and grandparents have come to me worried and concerned about their children in the department’s care. 
We know that the department is short on resources. I hope that the new resources that have been allocated to this department do help but I also know that the buck stops with the Government. I am really concerned about what is happening because it is dealing with our future citizens here in New Zealand. It is a fact that staff members are stressed. Staff turnover is high; the numbers are constantly turning over. What that means is that nobody within the department ever has any experience to call upon. How can a new social worker give the same degree of service that an experienced social worker can give? I know that our newer people have heaps and heaps of enthusiasm but sometimes the experience that they need to call on is not there. 
I was very disappointed to see that Jackie Pivac has resigned and I hope she is not being made the scapegoat after this last damning review. I feel very concerned about the lack of social workers who are actually going into training. It is extremely concerning that nobody in New Zealand really wants to pick up on this line of work. So obviously something needs to be done about this. What can we see being done about it? Very very little! I would have expected at the very least that there would have been some concerted advertising campaign or something that we could see that tried to ensure that we have the social workers available. 
It is all fine and good to say that our social workers need to be registered. That will improve the level but the bottom line is that we actually need the social workers to be available to be registered. So it is going to be very interesting to follow up on the financial reviews on this particular aspect. The financial reviews themselves will be very interesting. Because of the huge turnover it will be most interesting to see who comes before our select committee at this point in time. 
We know too that closer cooperation is needed between all the Government departments involved in the care and protection of young people. The link between truancy and crime is very obvious and the Department of Child Youth and Family Services does not appear to be the only agency that is working on this. We know that the police youth service agencies are also working on this. So surely the departments could get together to come up with a concerted programme that would work across all people there. 
So all in all New Zealand First members believe that the review is very welcome. We would like to see it actually work because we know that the people of New Zealand have no faith in the department and some of the children they are dealing with are scarred for the rest of their lives with the type of treatment they get and the time they have spent waiting. 
One of the areas that the department will have to focus in on is the number of young P users that are coming into this area. It is important too that when the department gets back on track and is looking at the total review it takes the widest possible view and implements the report. This time around I will be following very closely what happens as a result of the report ensuring that the young children of New Zealand and the department actually provide a far greater degree of accountability for the outcomes that have been identified as being essential in this particular area. New Zealand First believes that the review was damning but it gave the department some really good signposts to work towards and we will be monitoring very closely how they are working towards ensuring that that review is implemented. 
Dr MURIEL NEWMAN (ACT) 
: 
 On radio this morning Judge Mick Brown was talking about the Department of Child Youth and Family Services and he said quite clearly that there have been no changes in the 3 years since he did his report on the department—no changes. The Labour Government is responsible for the deepening crisis in child welfare. It cannot blame anyone else because it is responsible. The baseline review is the most damning review in parliamentary history as I understand it. It highlights Labour’s failure to run a child welfare agency that can adequately deal with New Zealand’s most vulnerable children. The report is an absolute disgrace. 
I want to put on record what the findings were. The department was unstable. There was deep and systemic failure. There was a lack of sound data. The department did not even know how many children were in its care. There was a failure to follow court orders. Children were in care far longer than they needed to be. Their time in care had gone up from 163 days in 1999 to 433 days on average now—over 1 year and 2 months in care. 
Then the review went on to ask the social workers what they thought and they said they were stretched too thinly to do quality work. They could not do effective interventions and that was why there were higher notification rates with 50 percent of the children coming before the department being children it had already dealt with. In other words its interventions were not working. The social workers said the Government had an obsession with risk aversion to the extent where they could not carry out professional social work practice. So here is a Government more concerned about keeping the department out of the headlines than about what really mattered to the children in its care. As a result there has been an exceptionally high turnover of social workers. We understand that some 75 percent probably more like 90 percent of front-line social workers have very little experience and that morale is at an all-time low. 
I say to members who have heard what I have just said about the report’s findings: who would have thought this would be happening under a Labour Government? It is an absolute disgrace. 
I want to talk about what happened during the process of the report. Steve Maharey the Minister who was in charge of the department was very vocal when in Opposition about the department and he promised to build a strong fully funded service when he was the Minister. But he failed totally. He failed the people of New Zealand he failed the families at risk he failed the staff and he failed the chief executive because he failed to provide a service that could adequately cope with the child abuse problems that New Zealand faces. He failed to deliver to this country an agency that could adequately deal with our most vulnerable children. 
So what happened? Well after the election when Labour realised through its polling that it was failing in the area of child welfare it decided it was time to have a review. A review bought it time. It took the heat off the Government. In May of this year when the findings of the review were finally made known to the Prime Minister she suddenly realised she needed to get rid of her Minister out of the hot seat because otherwise we would be calling today for his resignation. So she asked that Minister Steve Maharey to step aside. She said he was too overloaded. The new Minister Ruth Dyson said: “He wasn’t able to devote the time needed to the department which is why he decided to move on.” Can members imagine that! The Minister of the Department of Child Youth and Family Services did not have the time to devote to the department. What sort of failure is that? He should resign all his welfare portfolios. He has performed disgracefully for this department and for New Zealand. 
But what then happened of course was a really cunning strategy. A new Minister was put in and when the report finally came out last month the chief executive had to stand there on her own unsupported by her new Minister and take the blame. I say that is a disgrace. At the end of the day when one is in Parliament one has to take the blame; the Ministers and the Government have to take the blame not the people who work in the departments not the bureaucracy. It was really gerrymandering to get rid of the chief executive. We have heard that before. The last time Maharey was involved he actually changed the whole public service— 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson) 
: The member cannot use a single name. It is almost like a nickname. She must use the full name portfolio or title. 
Dr MURIEL NEWMAN 
: The last time Mr Maharey was involved he manipulated the whole Government service to get rid of Christine Rankin so this is just par for the course. 
 We go further and look at the process of this review being presented to the public. I was approached a few weeks ago and asked whether I as deputy chair of the Social Services Committee would agree to delaying the financial review of the Department of Child Youth and Family Services and to having it at the same time as the baseline review was released. I refused because all the financial reviews are on a timetable. As a result instead of coming out next month the baseline review came out last month ahead of the financial review because the Government clearly did not want the select committee to be able to investigate and review the work of the Department of Child Youth and Family Services as it stood. It needed to be able to say: “Hang on. We’ve done a review. Here are all the changes.” It was a cunning plan by the Labour Government to avoid accountability. Further it knew that the chief executive would be pressured into resigning which would give the Government an ideal opportunity to say: “Well we can’t hold anyone to blame. There’s no chief executive. We haven’t even got an experienced Minister. Therefore we’re blameless.” That is appalling. The Labour Government should be responsible for the failure of this department. The workers there do their best undoubtedly but they are without proper leadership and without proper support. In that difficult difficult area they are bound to fail and that is precisely what has happened. 
We now have the bizarre situation where instead of having one Minister responsible for the department the Government has put four Ministers in charge. I am expecting that when we ask a question in the House relating to the department the Treasurer will stand up and answer it or the Minister of State Services Mr Mallard. The Government has now spread all accountability amongst four Ministers. When one looks at the future operation of the department one finds in fact that there now is a family support service to wrap around those same families who need help but it is not run by the department; it is run by the Ministry of Social Development. That means that whenever we ask about practice issues the department will be able to say: “It wasn’t us. It was them.” So from now on all lines of accountability will be blurred and this is from a Government that was elected to power on the promise of being open transparent and accountable. Well I say this Labour Government has delivered exactly the opposite. 
In looking forward one has to say that the Labour Government is absolutely devoid of ideas on how to address the crisis in terms of child abuse. All it is concerned about is the ambulance at the bottom of the cliff. It should be looking at putting a fence at the top of the cliff. I ask the Government why it has not followed on with the model of the Starship Children’s Hospital in Auckland which has a one-stop-shop community-based agency with the police social workers and education workers working together. That is the model of the future for New Zealand—a regional and community - based agency that is built up from the bottom. 
Secondly why does the Government not look at opening up the Family Court? If that had been done so many cases where court orders were not followed by the Department of Child Youth and Family Services would have been out in the public arena a long time ago. The department’s dysfunction in terms of following court orders would have been recognised widely by the public. Something would have been done years ago about this department had the court been open. I call on the Government to open up the Family Court. It has a bill before Parliament that could do it. 
We also need to address long-term welfare dependency because most of those families are involved in long-term welfare dependency. Labour is making the situation worse. Finally for those families who have children but who do not actually want children we should be encouraging open adoption because maybe that would be better for those children. 
SUE BRADFORD (Green) 
: 
 The debate we are having today is very timely and I would like to thank the National Party and ACT members who called for it; also Mr Speaker for allowing it. Review after review has been done of this department and of course yesterday Jackie Pivac resigned. 
First of all I would like to acknowledge the starting point of the Department of Child Youth and Family Services. It was in late 1999 under the National Government not under the current Government. The genesis of the department was very much characteristic of what I think of as the Rankin era under the National Government. For example as soon as the new department was set up a new logo was developed at the cost of $18000. The department had a change of name and even to this day I find that people still do not know its correct name; it is referred to by many different names. On top of that the person who was appointed to lead it appeared as far as I can tell not to have a particularly social work practice background. Ms Brown as she was then had started work in the benefits and pensions section of the Department of Social Welfare and went on to become a senior manager in the Income Support office at Takapuna. She did not really have a substantial background in social work practice. One of the first activities of the new department’s boss in October 1999 was to spend $13000 on sending two managers to a 5-day course in Gulf Harbour—a residential leadership course that cost $6500 a head. It was very similar as some members will recall to the courses at Wairakei that Work and Income staff were sent to. It epitomises the excesses and the lack of focus on what really matters in that late period of the 1990s. 
But of course it is 4½ years since then and the problems have continued after that rather unfortunate start. In March 2001 we had the results of the Brown review. Judge Mick Brown did an excellent job of reviewing the functions and operations of the department. I gather from colleagues today that Judge Brown himself is quite disappointed that so many of his recommendations have not been followed through despite the efforts of many within the department. In some 57 recommendations he pointed out huge deficiencies and gaps not only in the systems of the department but also in social work practice. He said that it was absolutely imperative that the performance and capability of the department be improved to tackle the waiting-list problem and to tackle the issue of children being placed in inappropriate care. He said there was a desperate need for organisational change including better monitoring and better information systems and a need for a lot more focus on staff training and development. For anyone who knew anything about the department that report was not a surprise. It was a much-needed summary of what needed to be changed and Labour said that yes it would do it. 
But the next thing we know is we suddenly discover earlier this year that there is to be a baseline review of the Department of Child Youth and Family Services. The result of that has been even more shocking. As one person has said the report indicates that the “entire CYF system is unbalanced and unstable”. I shall mention some of the conclusions of the baseline review. The review team could not even find out what the department’s sustainable financial baseline should be which is quite a stunning indictment on a large and critical Government department. The department’s problems are deep and systemic. It is very unsure about its priorities. There is mismatched effort—too much time is taken trying to meet quotas rather than there being a focus on the quality of what it is doing. There is a large variation in the quality of service delivery critical gaps in information and large problems with basic information and management systems. The report is really building on what happened with the Brown ministerial review. It is time for a change. 
The cases have continued. Other members have talked about some of them. I think everyone in the country knows about some of the cases. The most recent tragedy of course was that of Coral Burrows and we have had the shocking information that Coral’s father did make a 21-minute call to the department’s call centre. For some reason the person who took the call did not identify that there was a real problem behind the call. As far as we can tell prior to any investigation by the Government the call was left to one side without even any record being made of it. Once again I question the quality of the social workers the kind of experience and background of the people who take these calls. I think there are about 17 social workers working at the call centre. What is their background? As a mother I cannot imagine what it would be like to be on the receiving end of a call like that. All I know is what has been in the media—and most of us are in that position. How would we feel if someone made such a call about a child? Could we imagine not taking action on it? What age are the social workers? Do they have any life experience? Do they have any experience in social work practice itself? Who supervises and supports those social workers? What are the management systems behind them that enable them just to miss a 21-minute call and not think it meant anything? I think we all mourn the loss that that call represented. 
The resignation of Jackie Pivac was an honourable move. I congratulate her on taking this stand yesterday. It is obviously a sad day and after 31 years in the public service Jackie Pivac does deserve our thanks for the effort she has made. But I do think it has been the honourable thing to do and that it clears the way for a new chief executive officer to really take charge and change this department in the dramatic way that it must be changed following the baseline review. 
There is a babysitting body now in charge of the department made up of people from Treasury the State Services Commission and the Ministry of Social Development. I say that is all well and good in terms of things like finances and management systems but what about the need for expertise in social work practice which is actually at the heart of the statutory function of the department? I would very much like to see someone like the Commissioner for Children Cindy Kiro added to that oversight body because without someone with experience as a mother and as a social work practitioner who understands front-line social work I do not think we will really get the rigour that is needed given the state of this department. We need oversight from people who actually understand the situation faced by front-line social workers and the need they have for adequate support and supervision behind them. 
The solutions to the problems lie in implementing both the Brown and the baseline reviews. All the answers are there I think in terms of the department itself including the fact that the social workers who work for the department need to be trained properly to be looked after properly and above all to be treated with respect. The staff themselves need to treat callers and the people they are dealing with with respect. They also need to take more care with the families—take a more holistic approach—and understand that the families of children also need a little more care and attention. 
Other members have mentioned and I agree too that we also need to look at the broader picture. We need to look at how we deal with things like child poverty. This Government should do a lot more to address child poverty through things like reforming family support and family assistance. It should support my member’s bill for a universal child benefit. Poverty and unemployment themselves are exacerbating factors in many of the problems for these families. We also need an immediate repeal of section 59 of the Crimes Act. That in itself—the fact we accept a law that allows people before the court to get away with having beaten their children with bits of wood or hosepipes—actually exacerbates the whole culture of abuse of children that we have in this country. I think that both in law and in practice we have to do everything we can as legislators to end that culture of abuse. 
Above all it is up to all of us to have more respect for children. As Judge Mick Brown Dr Hassall and others have said in these debates what underpins this situation in the end is the fact that it is not up to the Department of Child Youth and Family Services on its own to solve these problems. It is true that the department needs a huge makeover and extensive changes in management and in practice but above all it is up to each of us in this country to learn to understand and respect all our children in a much better way than we do now. It is that culture of abuse that actually leads to so many of these sad situations. It is not just up to the social workers themselves; it is up to us. 
MARC ALEXANDER (United Future) 
: 
 I rise on behalf of United Future to talk about this rather sad issue and what I have been seeing is a lot of finger-pointing and point-scoring. What seems to be lost in all of this is that we are actually talking about people and we are talking about victims. Just 2½ years ago the chief social worker Shannon Pakura when asked how she would judge her reign at the Department of Child Youth and Family Services suggested that there would be no more child deaths. Clearly that has not happened. We have had the case of sisters Saliel Aplin and Olympia Jetson who were stabbed to death by their stepfather Bruce Howse when he found out that the department was investigating allegations that he was abusing Olympia. We have had the case of foster-father Michael Waterhouse who beat 3-year-old Tamati Pokaia and is pleading manslaughter as a defence against charges that he murdered Tamati. He was entrusted with the care of the 3-year-old by the Department of Child Youth and Family Services and he was quoted as saying in reference to the child: “He was making a groaning sound and I could see he was in a tonne of pain. You could see the veins on either side of his neck bulging out.” We had the case of Coral Burrows and as has already been stated her father Ron called the Department of Child Youth and Family Services months before she was killed. We all know what happened. 
The department has a history of not doing what it should be doing. The answer from what I gather seems to be to throw more money at it. Is that really going to solve the problem? I doubt it. Let us look at the size of the department and the resources it sucks up. It is the Government’s fourth-largest department with a full-time staff of 2149; with 989 in the field doing social work 412 in other core functions such as adoptions and residences contracting and coordinating and 748 in management and professional support—such as it is—and psychologists and lawyers. Its current budget is $435.3 million. That is a sizable chunk of change yet let me recount the story of Sade. She was 2 in July 2000 when the Department of Child Youth and Family Services took her from her parents and placed her in the care of her grandmother Patricia Bissett—despite knowing she had a history of violence and was an alcoholic. Bissett beat Sade about the head and body stubbed cigarettes out on her and finally took the little girl to hospital after she had collapsed into a coma. Sade nearly died and has been left physically and intellectually disabled. Bissett was jailed. The departmental office that dealt with Sade was grossly understaffed at the time and the social worker concerned—get this—had just 9 days’ experience. 
With those kinds of resources and with four Ministers who are supposedly in charge and responsible for the department it does a very poor job. There are a lot of questions that need to be answered. If the Government agrees that the problems with this department are deep and systemic and partly attitudinal why would it not agree with Mick Brown’s comments on radio this morning that some of the staff are drongos and need to go? How will this be reconciled with one of the major problems of the department—that is recruiting and retaining experienced social workers? I suggest that one of the most important aspects is to allow those social workers to get on with the job and not burden them with onerous paperwork duties and outcomes that are actually meaningless. 
In the light of the Labour Government’s commitment to increase funding to community-based services how can it be confident that the department will improve its coordination with these agencies as required by the care and protection blueprint given that the strategies and systems for coordination and collaboration will not be established until June 2004? That is 4 years after Mick Brown highlighted this deficiency. With that kind of resourcing and with the number of Ministers associated with it one would think that we could get things moving a little quicker. 
A lot of these children are dying and the sad thing is that families do not trust the Department of Child Youth and Family Services. Time and time again we hear of stories where families are coming under strain and pressure. They want to hold up their hands and say “Help!” but they are scared that if they do they will be punished: their children will be removed from them and their families destroyed. Time and time again that has happened and what benefit is that to the children? In quite a few cases they go to homes that are worse than the homes they were taken from. With four Ministers responsible and so much money embedded in this organisation that is the outcome! Is it the social workers’ fault? No it is not. It is not the social workers we should be attacking but the onerous bureaucracy that the Government imposes upon them because that is what Governments do. They kill the passion of the people who run those sorts of programmes. 
Jackie Pivac we note is leaving without a golden handshake and quite frankly she should not get one—not with the track record she leaves behind. Despite a more than 50 percent increase in funding from 1999 the problems remain. In fact the problems have probably grown by 50 percent and probably 50 percent more taxpayer money is now being wasted. It is not a matter of throwing more money at the problem because the problems are deep and systemic. There is an overly broad set of strategic directions that are impossibly unclear with outcome priorities. That has set up the Department of Child Youth and Family Services to fail from the beginning. 
There has been a vicious circle of problems such as increased notifications and due to resourcing constraints not enough early interventions. The department is able to handle only the most urgent cases so other less critical ones are not dealt with which gradually become even more critical. Staff morale is low and with high stress levels and caseloads they cannot do the job they are tasked to do. As a result of negative publicity social workers are defensive in practice. That hardly sets them up to produce the best possible outcomes for the children and families they are supposed to work for and with. 
The notification system is obviously in trouble and the Burrows case highlights that. There are the findings that 75 percent of physical and sexual abuse cases are classed in less urgent categories and that should be a crime. There is a disturbing lack of information and critical information gaps—for example key aspects of the department’s operations the number of children in care and a trend in financial information. They are just a few examples. Put simply social workers do not see the Department of Child Youth and Family Services as an employer of choice. The department must then recruit new graduates who lack experience. I highlighted that somewhat earlier. 
What is the answer to some of these problems? Clearly we need to re-evaluate where the Department of Child Youth and Family Services can be of the greatest possible benefit. Why do we not ask the harder questions? Why do we have the Department of Child Youth and Family Services at all? Clearly we need a 24-hour emergency service but what more than that? There are organisations trusts and charities out there staffed with passionate people who do give a damn and can do the job entrusted to them. They are under-resourced. Look at the Family Help Trust in Christchurch which is doing a fantastic job for the citizens of Christchurch but continually has its hand out asking for more resources. Its staff do not sit behind desks day in day out answering telephone calls—they are out there doing the work that the Department of Child Youth and Family Services should already be doing. There are the Presbyterian Support Services the Salvation Army and Parentline. There are plenty of organisations staffed with people who can and are willing to do the job but do not have the resources. Most of them are staffed with disgruntled social workers from the Department of Child Youth and Family Services who find that the culture of that department is just not conducive to doing the job they were trained to do and want to do. 
Local solutions for local problems seem to be a sensible approach. Why do we have to have a head office in Auckland Wellington or wherever when the problems are far more regionalised? Break it up and let us staff it with people who care about what they do and do not have to bow and scrape to a Government bureaucracy that inhibits them from being as constructive as they possibly can be. The money being asked to increase resources for the Department of Child Youth and Family Services is ridiculous. If we throw money at it we are throwing more down the gurgler. Taxpayer money should be given to the charities and trusts that already do the job—they can do the job better and that is where the resources should go. Let us cut back on the Department of Child Youth and Family Services—it screws up. 
JUDITH COLLINS (National—Clevedon) 
: 
 It is a tragedy in this country that we even have a Department of Child Youth and Family Services because it is a tragedy when the Government feels that it has to step in and take over the role of a family. No Government wants to have to do that but it is done because families are failing at the moment and they are failing a lot worse than they were back in October 1999 when the Department of Child Youth and Family Services was first set up. Labour took over in November 1999 and today we have had the disgraceful sight of the new Minister in charge of the Department of Child Youth and Family Services trying to blame National which had 1 month in power after the Department of Child Youth and Family Services was set up for the running of that department. She is blaming us for the 4 years of neglect and lack of responsibility that Labour and its cohorts have wrought on this country. That is absolutely a shame and a tragedy to the people of this country. 
Today the Prime Minister has told us that Labour does not set out to put things right. No it does not; it sets out to put things wrong! Absolutely! I would like to know why when Jackie Pivac has resigned and is going off without a golden handshake that Minister Steve Maharey is still on the front bench. He is getting paid the same money for doing a quarter of the job. That is what he is doing. Where has responsibility for the department gone? This particular department has gone from the Minister who refers to himself as having had a life of blameless excellence to poor old Minister Ruth Dyson who has never claimed she has had a life of blameless excellence—and I say good on her for never claiming that. What has happened is that the buck has not been able to stop with Steve Maharey; it has been able to stop with poor old Ruth Dyson. She has yet another unsuspected situation on her hands where she will be able to fluff around make all sorts of comments and try to blame National—when actually National was not in power when all of this was happening—and nothing will happen. 
Today I would like to talk about the work of social workers. I have met many social workers both in my life as a lawyer and in my time in Parliament. Most social workers give a tremendous amount a huge amount to the children in particular of this country. They are people who consistently have to work in an environment where there is a culture of blame on them. It is not their fault when families fail. That is the fault of a Government that sets about destroying the family unit so that people will become more and more dependent on the Government. That is a shame and a tragedy. How many social workers will this country need by the next election? It will probably need another couple of thousand. The reason is that this Government is all about taking responsibility away from parents paying parents to have children that they cannot afford having children shift from home to home depending on how much money will come in the door with them and having solo mothers attract predators who want to get an income from living with them—using children to feather their own nest. That is a disgrace. 
I spoke to Mr Ron Burrows about 6 weeks ago. He rang me to tell me about his phone call with the Department of Child Youth and Family Services in Tauranga. He told me what he had said to the department and he told me that it had said there was nothing that it could do. We have now found out after investigation that the staff member did not even bother to log that 21-minute phone call. He or she denied Mr Burrows had rung the department. Fortunately Mr Burrows’ telephone records showed that he had so that verified him. First the department did not do anything about his call secondly it called the man a liar and then it turned around later and said it was sorry and the chief executive would be sacked. Of course the Minister was sacked too but we are not supposed to say that because he is still on the front bench. Responsibility for the department has been given to another Minister who will at least try to do her best. 
I sat on the Social Services Committee for some months earlier this year and last year and I am pleased to say I will be back there this week as well. I have seen a Minister Mr Steve Maharey come along to that committee and act in a way that I can only say is arrogant. He has a way of dismissing any comment from the committee and any questions that do not fit his spin that everything is just fine with the department. Well everything was just not fine with the Department of Child Youth and Family Services. 
I have had a look at the baseline review. That baseline review states some very interesting things. It states it has come to the conclusion that the particular situation in the Department of Child Youth and Family Services has not improved. It has not improved since back in October 1999. It has not improved after 4 years of that Minister who still sits there collecting his ministerial salary and all the perks that go with it being responsible for the department. Not one thing has improved in 4 years. 
More taxpayers’ money has been poured into the Department of Child Youth and Family Services. I do not think there is a person in this House who would object to money being well directed in order to help the children and families of this country. I do not believe there is one person in this House who would object to that. I think we would all like to see money being used for the benefit of the children of this country who do not have the sorts of families that many of us had—very good families. We would like to see that money do some good but has it done any good? No it has not. The situation has actually become worse. It is an absolute tragedy that no matter how much money is poured into the department we have a culture where we do not take responsibility for our actions and where children are used as a mechanism to get income. That is a disgrace and it is something that this Labour-led Government has encouraged and fostered and will keep on doing. 
One of the things that the Government has stated in this review is: “... we are not able to say what a sustainable baseline for CYF should be.” That is because the Government cannot tell what the data regarding the department are because the department is not very sure about its data. We already know that it does not bother to log phone calls that are 21 minutes long from distraught fathers who are worried about their children—and particularly not at Christmas time because maybe someone needed to go out to see that child. 
One of the things that have happened over the last 4 years is that this Government has been so intent on trying to get the numbers of unallocated cases dealt with that it has actually had a certain quantity of work going on but there is not the concern for quality that there needed to be. We have heard today about the number of people who with their new qualifications to be social workers—straight out of learning to be social workers—have had the buck stop with them. They are the people who have to live with the fact that their actions have not been able to save children and that is not right. They should not be resigning. They are the people who suffer—those social workers and the children and their families—while this Government sits by and does yet another review. When will this Government learn that review after review will not change a thing if it keeps up the attitude that families are not important? 
In my time in this Parliament I have been shocked by the way that this Government thinks it will replace families. It will not replace them while there is breath in our bodies. The family is the central unit of any society. The traditional family is the best unit for children. We see that time and time again. Sure there are some families that are dysfunctional but the dysfunctional ones that we consistently see do not represent the traditional family unit. In fact they are something that has been made up because of the money that comes from the funding of children whether or not they are wanted. That is a disgrace. 
In summary this Minister Mr Steve Maharey needs to go. He needs to go right back to the back bench and to start to learn again. Ruth Dyson who has been given yet another responsibility is sitting there on the back bench. She is in the Labour Cabinet and she is getting all the tough jobs. I am sure she is not necessarily the right person to do them but at least she will have a go. 
Hon STEVE MAHAREY (Minister for Social Development and Employment) 
: 
 I welcome this debate today because this Government has been in the driving seat on the Treasury benches for 4 years and during those 4 years I cannot remember— 
Simon Power 
: Four long years! 
Hon STEVE MAHAREY 
: I say to Mr Power that they do feel like long years. He should get used to long years because in his young years he will get used to more long years. In 4 years of being in Government I cannot remember the National Party raising this debate once. National Party members say nothing about these issues and I have often wondered why that is but today I think I know the reason for that. If I were in the National Party it would take me at least 4 years to get over the sheer embarrassment of what it did to the Department of Child Youth and Family Services in its various forms during the 1990s. I would be embarrassed about that; I would keep my mouth shut and say nothing. Finally I might creep out of my shell and try to start to debate the issues once again. 
I know a lot about the running down of the Department of Child Youth and Family Services. I used to lecture half the social work students who are currently in the department. Mrs Shipley started the decline of the Department of Child Youth and Family Services; it can be traced to when she became the Minister. She cut the department’s funding attacked its training attacked that organisation and began the process of seven restructurings in 9 years and five changes of name in 9 years. She began that process. She was the person who ensured the department lost money year after year and she began the process of bringing that organisation to its knees. In 1999 the organisation then called the Children Young Persons and Their Families Agency went through a ridiculous process whereby the Government of the day the then National Government tried to call it I think at the time the Department of Child Youth and Whanau Services. The then National Government backed off from that after a large argument—as if it mattered—before it set up its last incarnation of that organisation which it had destroyed. That National Government gave us that organisation in October 1999 and we got our warrants on 10 December. That is when the organisation was formed. We were delivered an essentially abused and neglected department that had been run into the ground. 
National members sit on the other side of the House and say we should fix the department. Let me tell the House about the first thing that we found. The department had been left in such bad shape that when we looked at its first budget we found that 65 social workers would have to be fired in order to meet the cuts that the previous Government had built in to the baseline of the organisation. It had built in sending 65 social workers down the road. National members get up in the House today and say how shocking that is. Let me say to them that social worker numbers in the Department of Child Youth and Family Services today are higher than they have ever been in the history of the organisation and the workforce has stabilised in its turnover so it is no different from any other public service organisation. The previous National Government did not do that; we did it. 
We are confronted with a department that over the last 4 years has had a great number of improvements. Let me just run through some of them. We were the people who asked Mick Brown to review the department. No one else did that. I asked him to give us an independent review. We were the people who set up the non-governmental organisations to be a reference group for the department. We were the ones who restored its baseline in our first Budget so that it did not have to fire 65 social workers. We were the ones who gave more money to community groups. We were the ones who saw to a change in its contracting. We were the ones who raised the salaries of social workers hired more social workers and registered social workers. I know that Mrs Rich on the Opposition side of the House hates to listen to this because she likes to think that nothing has happened for 4 years. After the embarrassment of her Government driving this organisation into the ground cutting its funding and driving social workers away she loves to think that nothing has happened. 
But a lot has happened. There have been changes in salaries a lifting in the number of people and a drop in the number of unallocated cases. The National Party did not even have a system of identifying how many unallocated cases there were. It did not have a system at all. When I was formerly in Opposition I used to ask how many young people were waiting to be looked at and the then National Government could never tell me that. Can we tell National Party members now? Yes we can. Why can we tell them? We can tell them because we record unallocated cases. We insisted that we know what the situation is for the benefit of people here in the House. We introduced the new computer system and a new call centre. 
The Opposition member is completely and utterly ignorant of how the call centre system works. She said that the people who are on the end of a phone call at the call centre do not want to record something—that those professional senior social workers just choose not to record something. They do not choose not to record something; they receive 27000 notifications every year. They receive hundreds of thousands of phone calls every year. Many of those phone calls take 21 minutes because when people ring in to complain about their partner’s treatment of their children they take some time to do it. I know that Mrs Rich knows nothing about social work. She is the agricultural spokesperson on the Opposition side of the House and knows more about pig farming than children in the social work situation. But she does not even know how the call centre works or how a professional social worker deals with those calls. It is embarrassing to have someone on the front bench of the National Party who does not even know the most basic ways that a professional social worker goes about recording a notification. That is embarrassing—[ 
Interruption 
] 
Members on the Opposition side of the House talk about the social work area and baseline reviews as if we are not the ones who asked for the review. When we came into Government the department was brand new and it said it thought it did not get enough money. The department said the previous Government had treated it so badly that it had ended up with no money. I told the department that we could not do a baseline review when the department had been in place for only 5 minutes. I said we would run the organisation for 2 or 3 years and then do a baseline review. We did that. The lines in the paper were written by our officials. We know what is in the paper. We do not need people like Katherine Rich to get up and read out what she almost seems to believe are secrets about the department. We know what is in the paper. We asked for it we worked with the officials and they gave us what we wanted. We know what is recommended in the review: $127 million worth of new funding and a range of improvements yet again to the department. 
The only argument that Katherine Rich came up with today was to come in here to the House and say that seared on to the minds of National people were dead children. She raised sickeningly the case of James Whakaruru. I say to Katherine Rich that if she reads the front cover of the report on James Whakaruru’s death from the Commissioner for Children she will find out when he died. He died in 1999. Who was the Government in 1999? The National Party was in Government. The only argument National makes today is to dig up the case of that poor child and say on the basis of that that this Government is not performing. James Whakaruru died on National’s watch not on ours. National members should not come in here and try to use him to attack this Government which has for 4 years worked assiduously to improve the circumstances of children of families and of social workers. 
I want to go back to what I said at the beginning. I know that National Party members are embarrassed about 9 years of doing nothing. I know they feel bad about that. But I think they should acknowledge that under this Government there has been more money more social workers more work with community organisations and more change all of which has been designed to put right an organisation that they destroyed. Yes they did that. We are the Government that will put the organisation right. They know that. We are the ones who can be trusted to do so. 
The debate having concluded the motion lapsed.