Wall LouisaLOUISA WALL (Labour—Manurewa): Tēnā koe e Te Māngai o Te Whare. It is my pleasure to speak on this third reading of the Children Young Persons and Their Families (Oranga Tamariki) Legislation Bill and the Vulnerable Children Amendment Bill.I would like to take us back to August 2013. In August 2013 the Hon Paula Bennett who was then the Minister for Social Development went to the Iwi Leaders Forum. And what did she say? She said to iwi leaders: You need to take these children and you need to be responsible for them." That is all. Imagine if that conversation was the beginning of a partnership. Imagine if she had gone to that iwi leaders' hui and said: "We've identified over 3000 children in our care and protection system who are Māori and we the Government want to partner with you iwi to create a better pathway forward for our children and our families who for whatever reason are coming into the care of the State." That was within a context where we knew that the current system was not effective in intervening early to provide the support that children and families deserve.The Children's Commissioner 2 years later came out and talked about the ineffective case management system the care placements breaking down the difficulty in recruiting and retaining staff and the casual workforce who are insufficiently trained and supported. But I just now have to wonder what would have happened if there had been a partnership approach to this issue that could have led to an expert panel that comprised 50 percent Māori who sat together—Marama Davidson: Imagine that!LOUISA WALL: Imagine it. You know I imagine what this legislation could have been what we could be doing right now based on that principle of partnership in the Treaty of Waitangi rather than the Minister going and saying: "Take these kids. They're your kids. They're your responsibility. They're a burden on the State." Actually what has driven all of this is statistics like 90 percent of children who were born in 1991 who entered the care and protection system were on a benefit when they reached 21 years of age—25 percent of them were on a benefit with a child. That is what has driven it from the Government's perspective: actually limiting their fiscal liability.But imagine if we had gone from a different base a base of actually caring about the circumstance of the children and their families of wanting to work in partnership with iwi with Māori groups and actually saying: "Hey how about we all work together because it is in all of our interests for our tamariki and our mokopuna not to be on a benefit with 83 percent of them in prison with all those negative statistics." If the drivers over that side actually were about putting children at the centre of a piece of legislation then we would be in a different place.But the reality is that you have removed the "whānau first" principle because what you have distilled from those statistics is that by putting our children in "whānau first" that is what has resulted in the re-abuse all the placements that have broken down all those sorts of things. You have just blamed it solely on that principle and we cannot look at it in isolation because what you have done is created the "home for life".We acknowledge the work of our 2000 foster families. They are doing fantastic work but the priority for all of us as we have been saying throughout this whole journey is that because 61 percent of the children in the care and protection system are Māori we want those children to be placed within their whānau hapū and iwi. It is not a radical thought. And the reality is and Judge Henwood said this it was the State that picked the wrong alternative whānau to look after those children. It was the State that re-abused those children. But what the State has done again is abdicated its responsibility and has blamed it on the Māori whānau.So it is a very sad day. We wish we were supporting this legislation but as we have said consistently we will not support legislation that fundamentally strips away Māori children's Māori identity. Kia ora."