Henare PeeniPEENI HENARE (Labour—Tāmaki Makaurau): Tēnā koe Mr Assistant Speaker. Thank you for this opportunity. I think the views of the Labour Party and the Green Party have been articulated quite well on this particular bill the Children Young Persons and Their Families (Advocacy Workforce and Age Settings) Amendment Bill. One of the pressing issues that come into my office in Tāmaki-makau-rau is around supporting families with issues they have with Child Youth and Family—children who have been lost to State custody grandparents who are seeking a role in the lives of their mokopuna—and I want to pick up and commend the point made by the member Jan Logie about Māori engagement in this particular process. The statistics are overwhelmingly clear. This Government prides itself on data and research; well the numbers and the statistics are there. They say that 61 percent of children in State care are of Māori descent. My research tells me that an overwhelming number of them actually are from Tāmaki-makau-rau live in Tāmaki-makau-rau or find themselves placed in Tāmaki-makau-rau. So it is important that the services for our rangatahi for our tamariki are best advised and informed by the very people who are affected by them. I want to commend Jan Logie's comments about Māori participation because we do support in this particular bill the youth voice being heard. We support that. I think that is a great commitment by this Government to allow the youth voice to be heard in deliberations on policy matters regarding children young persons and their families. I think that is an important part. I also think it is important to have an advocacy service to work alongside the likes of our out-of-Parliament offices to help and assist families in advocacy for children's rights and services. I think that is a good thing. But I want to touch on the point raised by my colleague Carmel Sepuloni about the funding about the kinds of resources that this service will receive and about whether or not that support and that funding is in line with the actual demand that is out there. The evidence is overwhelming as far as I am concerned about the number of tamariki—the number of children—who are involved with State services. Many of those families come into our offices and the evidence is there. Just like most other bills—around policing around advocacy—that are passed through this House we are really concerned that the funding and support will not be there to make sure that the bills are actually meaningful that the services fulfil the duties placed upon them or expected of them through bills like this. That is of serious concern to us. My colleague Jacinda Ardern articulated very well the reason why we believe this bill is failing. That reason has already been canvassed well by this side of the House: the chief executive's powers of delegation where the powers of delegation go to and who these people are that they will be giving such significant powers to in order to remove tamariki from family. That is of serious concern to us—serious concern—because what is being missed in a lot of the conversation from this particular Government is that actually quite often the State is the issue in these matters. The State is the actual issue in these matters and sadly what is not being considered when we give such powers to the chief executive is the continued role of the State in that particular child's life. Those are serious concerns. There is ambiguity around it—where are those powers going to go? Whom are those powers going to be given to? Those are serious questions that we—the Labour Party and the Green Party—have on this side of the House and they are of real concern to us. One of the other points that I thought was a bit strange from New Zealand First was about age settings. We like that the age of State care and protection will be shifted up to 18. We think that is a good thing. It does bring it in line with a few other things out there. In a conversation with my 20-year-old son as he was navigating the treacherous waters of teenage years—what is a rite of passage? How do you know the law is going to affect you? You get a licence at a different age to when you can join the army. Once upon a time that was out of step with when you could have a drink. It was out of step with State care and protection. We think that that is a sensible step moving forward—to move it up to 18 to bring it in line with a lot of the other eligibility criteria for State services that young people are entitled to. We think that that is a step in the right direction. But in spite of all of the support and all of the good things we see in this like that particular part around the age of 18 like advocacy powers and like youth involvement in the policy decision-making process or certainly in the informing of the policy decision-making process—we think those are all good things—the hurdle that is just too hard to get above is the delegate powers given to the chief executive. We want to know that at the end of the day the responsibility for such important decisions is a collective decision made by this House something that we all agree on—not necessarily something that is just given to one individual omnipotent. I am also rather concerned that in this particular part of the bill we have not heard from the Māori Party. We have not heard from the Māori Party. We have spoken about the Māori involvement in this—a Māori watchful eye over this particular bill—and we are concerned that the voice of the Māori Party the voice that claims to represent Māori interests at the Government table is not being heard on this very important matter. That is of concern to us here in the Labour Party and on this side of the House. It is such an important issue—such an important issue. I note an interesting comment from Mr Doocey regarding the 22 submitters who according to that member had sort of a general agreement with the intention of the bill. As pointed out by my colleague Carmel Sepuloni sure there was agreement from many of the submitters on parts of the bill but the devil is in the detail and it was overwhelming from those submitters that the issue and the barrier that stands in front of the Labour Party's and the Green Party's support for this particular bill are insurmountable. Submitters' issues relating to that particular part around the chief executive's powers of delegation are still very evident. Their voices need to be heard and we can guarantee this House that the Labour Party will certainly be challenging this all the way through the entire process to make sure that there is not a lopsided approach in working with our families in working with whānau and in working with tamariki who sadly may have to come into State care. Children and tamariki welfare is a very complex issue. We do not pretend to know everything which is why it is important to listen to submitters—why it is important to take on advice and experiences from those who have been through the system and from those who work with the system. They are the people who are working with our whānau and our tamariki and it is important to listen to them. I would hate for their voices to be silenced on such an important issue around the powers of delegation by the chief executive. We have canvassed quite well on this side in the Labour Party our particular areas of support and those we will not be supporting. That is enough from me. Kia ora tātou.