Chhour Karen; O'Connor GregORANGA TAMARIKI (REPEAL OF SECTION 7AA) AMENDMENT BILLFirst ReadingKAREN CHHOUR (ACT): I move That the Oranga Tamariki (Repeal of Section 7AA) Amendment Bill be now read a first time. I nominate the Social Services and Community Committee to consider the bill. Thank you Mr Speaker. This is a real honour to be standing here today to speak to an issue that is really important to me. This bill comes from a place of my own lived experience of being boxed into a system that treated me as an identity group first and a person second and since coming here I've been seeing and hearing the stories of people who have been on the receiving end of section 7AA of the Oranga Tamariki Act. Before coming to Parliament I thought it was bad. Once in Parliament I came to understand that it was a lot worse than I could ever have imagined. When it comes to the safety and the wellbeing of our children that should be front and centre before every other factor. When I look at legislation like section 7AA I can see that it was well intentioned but the unintended consequences have been dire for many children and caregivers around the country. Many caregivers have just given up out of sheer frustration. One case that did make the media comes to mind and it was around the care of a young girl referred to as Moana. Moana was traumatised and neglected by her own whānau for years before she was placed in a safe loving home. It was heartbreaking when bureaucrats then got involved and tried to remove Moana from their care because the Pākehā family could not provide for her cultural needs. The High Court ruled in favour of her caregivers and that should have been the happy ending to this story. Instead there was appeal after appeal by Oranga Tamariki (OT) and the family that had let her down in the first place. Tragically the caregivers had to give up their beloved little daughter because they could no longer afford the battle. Section 7AA meant that OT did not put Moana's wellbeing and best interests ahead of all other matters. It failed the caregivers who had done nothing but love and care for her and it failed a young Māori girl by depriving her of the loving and supporting environment that she needed. It should never have ever gone this far and section 7AA was the justification for these awful decisions. During the appeal hearing noteworthy apprehensions were raised by a respected scholar regarding the risks associated with ideologically motivated advancements. Dr Nicola Atwool expressed her thoughts on this matter: Māori children placed with non-Māori caregivers are being uplifted and placed with whānau that they do not know and in some instances live a long way from where the child has been living making any sort of … transition impossible. In these instances section 7AA … that requires decision-makers to consider the importance of a child's mana culture and whakapapa is cited as justifying this action. Again the practice is ideologically-driven and is neither child-centred nor trauma-informed. Uplift is traumatic for children. It involves the forced removal of a child or group of children from all that is familiar to them at an age when they cannot comprehend what is going on. Forced removal should only occur in the most dangerous situations where the risk is imminent." Section 7AA has led to devastating uplifts in cases of low to zero risk. There are tragic stories that come across my desk each week where caregivers are at their wits' end when it comes to dealing with OT. I hear from European grandparents fighting for the right to care for their Māori grandchildren and being sidelined in the decision making because their opinion is considered to be of less value than the hapū iwi and whānau of these kids who have often have failed these children. I hear from Māori—a family who have said to me they had been encouraged not to include the non-Māori part of their family in the care of the kids and they felt this was unfair and wrong but were too scared to speak out. How is denying a person's whānau and whakapapa Māori or non-Māori consistent with tikanga? I hear from caregivers openly being told that they're not the right race. I hear from caregivers supervising children who are being made to visit family members who have abused them because cultural connection is more important than the child's mental health and welfare. I myself have personally witnessed the trauma these visits have caused. I've heard stories from foster parents of kids soiling themselves before the visits and having nightmares for days after. Surely we just want these kids to get the care and the support that they need—how far are we willing to let this go? ACT says that race-based decision making in care needs to stop. We asked the public to sign a petition if they think State care should be colour-blind. So far 13408 people have signed this to send a message to this Government that the divisive race-based approach they have brought to State care is not OK and that the child's wellbeing and safety should be ahead of all other considerations. I wrote a column a little while ago about a family I knew before coming to Parliament that had taken on a foster child. I named her Mary. They saw that Mary needed a loving home where she would feel loved and safe. Mary had suffered abuse and neglect and then had been passed around from family member to family member. Before the age of seven she'd been in eight homes. She did not know what a stable home was until she was placed with her foster parents. After a while they were led to believe they would be providing this young girl with a home for life a home where she would have the stability she so desperately needed. After two years of caring for and loving her they were suddenly told that they had to prove they had Māori heritage or she would once again be placed with her whānau. OT claimed that the most important thing for this girl was to be raised in a culturally appropriate environment. OT was happy to take Mary from this loving home and place her with a family that had been known to abuse her in the past. This story shows how bizarre and how brainless this law really is. These caregivers are the exact same people. They would be raising Mary in the exact same house. Whether OT would have allowed them to continue lovingly raising her depended on whether they could point to an ancestor from hundreds of years ago. Fortunately for Mary they could and she still lives with them. She is doing well at school and she has a home for life where she is safe and thriving. Thank goodness for that branch they found on their family tree or Mary's story might have been very different. Can Labour really look vulnerable kids in the eye and tell them that they're fighting for this kind of system? This is only one of many cases where I've seen children and caregivers being treated in this manner and not all of them have had a happy ending. My bill seeks to ensure that OT is colour-blind and that they always act in the best interests of the child. This is a crucial step towards creating a more just and equitable society where every child can thrive and succeed regardless of their ethnicity culture or background. I feel OT needs to be colour-blind in its operations and this means that the agency must treat every child and family fairly regardless of their ethnicity culture or background. Every child deserves the same level of care and support based on their individual needs and their safety and wellbeing comes first. Abuse and neglect does not discriminate and when we have a system that boxes us into different categories based on ethnicity this can be harmful. I'm not saying we don't acknowledge a child's culture—this is an important aspect of their identity—but the notion that non-Māori cannot raise a Māori child in a culturally appropriate manner is harmful. It perpetuates the idea that these kids are their ethnicity first and a human second. It suggests that only Māori people can understand and appreciate culture and that all Māori share the same values which is simply not true. It implies non-Māori are incapable of learning and embracing other cultures which is also a dangerous stereotype. As a child all I wanted was a home where I felt loved and safe. I did not care what ethnicity the people caring for me were. Children and young people need to know they are loved and as far as I'm concerned love means love in any language. This has got to the point where caregivers are thinking twice about whether they want to put themselves through the hassle of trying to raise a child and OT seems to be doing everything in its power to keep children in or to return children back to homes that may not be safe or in the best interests of the child. If we truly see our children as taonga let's start treating them like they're precious because right now many children in this country are being treated like property that gets passed around from place to place until they're broken beyond repair and with no care for their rights or needs and this needs to stop. I urge members around this House tonight to think long and hard about the way they vote. This is about making sure all our children are in environments that will provide them with the best start in life. It's about making sure that no child will suffer in the name of being raised by the same race as them. It's about making sure that kids' need for love and for safety and for freedom from neglect are placed first—as it should be. I commend this bill to the House. DEPUTY SPEAKER: The question is that the motion be agreed to."