Warren-Clark Angie; O'Connor GregANGIE WARREN-CLARK (Labour): Thank you Mr Speaker. I want to acknowledge first and foremost before I talk about Malachi the Speaker of the House enabling us to have this very important debate. I think it is important that this House take heed of what has happened with Malachi and that we acknowledge the mistakes that have been made and the loss that his family has sustained. I want to be very clear that every person who has spoken today has spoken their truth and I want to add to that. But first and foremost the member Rawiri Waititi nearly brought me to tears with his song and I hope at the end of this speech today that we as a House consider the heavy matter that we have heard and that we lay that matter to rest for a small amount of time.The death of Malachi is a really difficult matter for us to talk about and I want to acknowledge Judge Peter Boshier the Ombudsman for the investigation that he carried out and for bringing this matter as an independent person to this House for us to discuss. I've worked with Judge Boshier for many many years as a domestic violence adviser in the Ministry of Justice when he was the Principal Family Court Judge and I have always acknowledged the good work that he did in that place. I want to thank him for raising this.I also want to thank all members in this House for speaking to this matter. But I do have to say I don't think family violence and these kinds of matters should have politics played upon them. And that is what we see sometimes in this House and there is the outrage and all of the things that happen and actually what we really need to do is to just stop yelling at each other and start working together. Finger-pointing blaming and asking for resignations and all of those kinds of things—what do they do? What do they do? They do nothing. The real work has to happen across the transformation of our country around family violence work. The real work has to happen when each and every one of us puts our hand up and takes responsibility for this kind of horrific history we have in this country.It terrifies me that more than 15 years ago I worked on the death reviews—on behalf of the Ministry of Justice—where a family violence death had occurred and it terrifies me that the same systematic issues are appearing here many years later. It is horrific to think that again the siloed mentality of practice the failure of practice and the systems basically continue to support the death of our babies. And it's just heartbreaking. There are quite a few in this House who have done this work who have worked in Oranga Tamariki or worked in the family violence sector or worked protecting children. Many of us have known for years what needs to change and it's trying to get everyone to work together to do that. We're very lucky now that we have a joint venture on family violence and we have a strategy: Te Aorerekura. It's really important that we have that strategy because this is part of the solution that each and every one of us have to take responsibility for. So I want to also just acknowledge the Oranga Tamariki workers in this situation. My community Te Puna was where this little boy was murdered. He didn't lose his life; he didn't die—he was murdered. So this is where this little boy was hurt and couldn't survive his injuries. And I want to acknowledge those Oranga Tamariki workers because I've worked with many of those officers over the years. I've attended so many meetings with these workers and they've actually done the very very best that that they could to keep and protect our children. But the system does not allow best practice. And that is what our Minister is saying when he is saying that actually we need to change the system. This system does not allow our staff who are working at Oranga Tamariki to have even the basic training around family violence work—and it's something that I've come to Parliament about: the family violence skills and expertise for social workers in this country is abysmal. And the Minister Kelvin Davis has actually incorporated family violence practice and identification into the social work development that occurs. This is the kind of transformation that we need that will protect and support best practice to enable when a child who by the way was asked by the little education provider who hurt him or how he got hurt—he actually answered. If that organisation had known what to do—he clearly said that he was being hurt by his carer and Oranga Tamariki didn't pick that up and the education provider who has now been closed down didn't pick that up.Each and every one of us ask ourselves: if you asked a little person Have you been hurt?" or "How did you get that bruise on your head?" and they said "I can't tell you because such-and-such will be angry at me."—that's a flag that each and every one of us needs to identify as worthy of a report of concern. And then each and every one of us needs to continue to follow up those reports of concern because there are more than 50000 reports of concern in this country. The more reports of concern the more attention is paid and that is not a system that is a good system; it as an overburdened and under-resourced system—Hon Paul Goldsmith: You're in Government.ANGIE WARREN-CLARK: I just heard someone say "and you're in Government." I'm going to double down on what I said: this is not a political issue—this is not a political issue. This is about the death of a baby another baby—Nicola Grigg: Then fix it. Do something about it.ANGIE WARREN-CLARK: What do you mean "Do something about it"? At least we've funded family violence services retraining our social workers to ensure they know this work making sure that there's Te Aorerekura with a policy that teaches each and every person in this country how to identify abuse and to report it. We're doing so many things but it will take not just finger pointing; it will take each and every one of us to get on board and stop finger-pointing. I want to acknowledge the hurt of Malachi's family. I've been in the situation when I worked at a refuge of holding on to babies when they've been in hospital and the Oranga Tamariki emergency social worker standing beside me was crying. So I just want to acknowledge that this work is important. It needs to be better. But these are people too and they have done their best. But we have failed them because the system does not support what we need it to do.I just hope I never have to make another speech like this. Thank you.DEPUTY SPEAKER: The time for this debate has expired and I'd just like to thank the members for the sensitivity with which they approached this tragic event. I think it does credit to the House the way this debate was conducted.The debate having concluded the motion lapsed."