Bennett Paula: Vulnerable Children Bill — In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeBennett Paula: Vulnerable Children Bill — In Committee[Sitting date: 13 May 2014. Volume:698;Page:17803. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Hon PAULA BENNETT (Minister for Social Development): I am going to make it absolutely crystal clear in this Chamber right now that the Vulnerable Children Bill is about children’s protection and it is for those most vulnerable children who are being abused and neglected right now. If you want to cut to the facts of it we get over 150000 notifications to Child Youth and Family. In the last 12 months there have been 61000 notifications with further action required and over 21000 substantiated cases of abuse and neglect. That abuse and neglect has been increasing over a period of time because we have more notifications which means we are getting to more of those children. It equally means if you are asking for my opinion that we are getting to about a third of them so that means we have at least another 40000 kids in my opinion who are out there and who are quite frankly living little lives of daily hell that we are not addressing as we should be as a Parliament. So this bill goes some way to addressing that.That member Jacinda Ardern can talk about broadening this discussion out to all of those children who are purported to be living in poverty but I can tell you that we would not be addressing those most vulnerable children if we did that because there is a need right now for these kids to get the kind of response that they need. They need child protection policies in schools in NGOs and in Government departments which have much better training behind them so people know where to go to. We know perfectly well that there are cases right now where children are being abused and neglected and there are professionals who are turning a blind eye because they do not have the right policies and the right training in place and they are not doing the job that they should be.So that member can get up in this Committee and take her little call about how she thinks this bill needs to be broader and reach all of these hundreds and thousands of kids when the reality is to this country’s shame we have kids who need us performing better now and this bill goes some way to achieving that.It has to go further. It has to go to what is happening in our communities in our streets in our households. It needs child protection policies that actually go across it. It needs chief executives who are standing up and taking a stand against child abuse. That member just needs to spend some time out there talking to some of these children whohave been sexually and violently and emotionally abused and then she needs to ask herself about standing up and talking about a measure of poverty at this time when you have one of the most critical bills in my opinion going through the Committee of the whole House on this day. That can be where the debate wants to go for that member but actually this is what this bill is. I have always owned that this is for the protection of our most vulnerable children of which there are tens of thousands whom we have a responsibility to stand up and address in this House.