Davidson MaramaMARAMA DAVIDSON (Green): As my colleague Jan Logie said the Green Party will not support the children young persons and their families legislation and I struggle to call it the full title—Children Young Persons and Their Families (Oranga Tamariki) Legislation Bill—which includes Te Reo words Oranga Tamariki" because it just does not fit and submitters told us so as well.In the second reading I too recall that 61 percent of tamariki who are in the care of the State are Māori. So for that reason what is being proposed in this legislation is incredibly important to Māori communities. I particularly want to go into the guise of using the phrase which sounds very popular and very heartfelt—"putting children first".If we recall my colleague Louisa Wall alone reminded us that we can search as hard as we like through the bill and we will not find the priority for tamariki to be placed with whānau hapū Māori—iwi Māori. That aside even with the fact that that priority is not in this legislation—and that is the core of some of the big opposition from the Green Party to this bill—we can just go back to the Minister for Children's opening address on the second reading where she herself continues to use "children first" as the exploitative excuse for failing to keep that priority of placing tamariki Māori with whānau Māori. That is what she continues to use.That feeds a racist narrative. That feeds a racist narrative that undermines the care that Māori whānau have always sought to uphold the well-being of tamariki. It feeds a narrative of the failure of social workers of the failure of the system to provide support to ensure that everything is being done to find those available safe whānau Māori. So I really want to address those particular points. It flies in the face of the State's own history of abusing tamariki Māori—generations of it. Generations of it—right back to the time when my own grandmother was physically and psychologically beaten for speaking her own language. The State has generations hundreds of years of experience of abusing tamariki Māori in its care. There is no other word for that except systemic racism.So with that we should know then that this guise of "children first" is a continuation of that racist attitude which says Māori children are better placed by the State. We have been doing that here and around the world to indigenous children for hundreds of years. So it is very important that I wanted to address that particular notion in this legislation. The submissions were very clear to us that there is no excuse for undermining the ability for Māori as a solution providing good safe care for tamariki Māori.One of the submitters Paora Crawford Moyle says that part of the problem is that we are trying to fix a practice failure with a legislative solution and that is not going to do it. What needs to instead be addressed is the institutional racism and that is what we should be looking at alongside the strength-based approaches and steps that would see whāngai—a cultural approach of Māori for decades for generations—as a strength. Whāngai is the ability for other whānau Māori to step up and care for other children which we have been doing forever as a core part of addressing the well-being of tamariki.There is an opportunity there if we stop being culturally incompetent in this House. There is an opportunity to draw on a strength practice that is still used today in a modern context and has been used for generations. This is where our opportunity lies. So I wanted to stand up and say Māori have the answers and the solutions to the problems and we need to be worked with in proper partnership. Thank you."