Lole-Taylor Asenati: Vulnerable Children Bill — First ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeLole-Taylor Asenati: Vulnerable Children Bill — First Reading[Sitting date: 17 September 2013. Volume:693;Page:13395. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Le’aufa’amuliaASENATI LOLE-TAYLOR (NZ First): Talofa lava greetings andtēnā koutou katoa. I rise to speak to the first reading of the Vulnerable Children Bill on behalf of New Zealand First. When the lives and the rights of children are at stake there must be no silent witnesses. There must be no silent witnesses. It is our duty as politicians decision makers policy makers and legislation makers to ensure that the most vulnerable are protected against harm and from those who inflict it. I commend the Minister for Social Development for the efforts that you have put through in this bill. Unfortunately it so happens that in our New Zealand society the term “vulnerable” is too often associated with our children.The bill has a number of objectives to be commended as it aims to No. 1 reinforce the need for shared responsibility and coordinated and collaborative action across the Government’s social service sector to better protect vulnerable children. This collaborative effort will see the police justice the Minister of Health the Minister of Education the Minister for Social Development and the chief executive officers be held accountable for protecting and improving the lives of vulnerable children. I think that is a very good thing. No. 2 it will help ensure children are safe with those who work with them. This intends to address the issue of having paedophiles or people with a history of an abusive nature come near vulnerable children who should never be allowed to. No. 3 is to minimise the risk of future harm posed by those who have abused children in the past and in doing so ensure the safety of children from adults who have previously had a child or young person permanently removed from their care due to abuse or neglect or where the adult has been convicted of murder manslaughter or infanticide of a child in his or her care. There have been many cases in recent months in this situation.The bill seeks to enhance the response to children who have already been abused or neglected. Given the recently released devastating records of children being re-abused in the care of Child Youth and Family one would expect a thorough process this time. Although this Government’s response to these issues is positive we cannot forget that it is a delayed response—a delayed response warranted by recent cases often resulting in the fatalities of many New Zealand children. It is unfortunate that the victims in thesecases did not have a reasonable response of preventable measures set out at the time to protect them from such devastating harm.New Zealand First was fully aware of this issue. That is why a bill was developed and submitted which was pulled out of the members’ ballot on 6 December last year. It should therefore be mentioned that the New Zealand First bill in my name the Sentencing (Protection of Children from Criminal Offending) Amendment Bill is the first step towards protecting our vulnerable children in New Zealand. It is rather odd that the Vulnerable Children Bill has been swiftly drafted for its first reading in the House when the New Zealand First bill has been waiting for its first reading for many months now. The Sentencing (Protection of Children from Criminal Offending) Amendment Bill was formulated some time before today’s bill to address the very issues that this Vulnerable Children Bill intends to remedy and more. Furthermore my bill also aims to properly address the way in which New Zealand deals with criminals who continue to ignore the rights of our children to safe and secure environments as well as contain deterrents to prevent future criminal activity from occurring. It is for these reasons that I sincerely hope that the Government will support our bill when the time comes for its first reading.There are key changes within the Vulnerable Children Bill. It will dramatically alter the judicial system as we see it today. There will be two principal Acts. One is the Vulnerable Children Act and the second is the Child Harm Prevention Orders Act. It is important that the bill has exhausted all evidence to suggest that the two principal Acts are absolute justified and provide no room for error. Key changes in this bill include a number of areas. First of all it requires chief executives to work together to produce and report on the Vulnerable Children’s Plan. New Zealand First supports a cross-agency approach. We recognise the need to have a better-coordinated and collaborative system put in place to address issues concerned with vulnerable children. We also recognise the importance of accountability placed on these agencies in achieving results for vulnerable children. However what we need to see is a transparent plan that sets out how these performance targets will be demonstrated and evaluated. I sincerely hope that the Minister could give that some consideration.Recently the Minister announced that the first two Children’s Teams had been established in Rotorua and Whangarei. The design of these two teams is driven by the communities they serve. With two demonstration sites in place it is important to see the differences these teams will make in assisting vulnerable children in New Zealand. A Vulnerable Children’s Board is already established so what accountability measures are in place for this board? Is there a risk of shifting the blame from one agency to another? These are some of the questions we want to ask from the teams to the board: who at the end will be accountable and where is the transparent plan to show how this structure will succeed?The bill seeks to have State services put in place policies containing provisions for the identification and reporting of child abuse and neglect. Although New Zealand First finds this an integral part of the reporting system we are yet to see what the provisions will be and whether enough focus has been placed on making sure that staff of State services are adequately trained to recognise abuse when it occurs. We do not want to run the risk of false accusations or neglecting to see when abuse is occurring. It is important that the code of practice for working with children which is being developed for professionals working with children is one that will appropriately provide guidelines for professionals. It is also vital that training is provided in conjunction with the code.No. 3 is new safety standard checks for employers in the Government and Government-funded children’s workforce. This means that over 370000 employeeswould be screened and vetted. In addition there will be the implementation of a permanent restriction on people with serious convictions being able to work closely with children. New Zealand First recognises the importance of having in place these appropriate safety measures when it comes to protecting children. At an estimated cost of $200000 every 3 years there will be no argument against the reduction of child abuse in our society. There is no doubt that early and appropriate intervention is crucial in preventing the abuse of children. The restrictions suggest the immediate dismissal of employees found to have serious convictions from working in roles in the core children’s workforce. We would query though whether this is to be extended to those suspected of untoward actions against children.There are many areas in this bill that we would like the select committee to consider. This is probably one of the reasons why New Zealand First will only support this bill going to the select committee at this time because we do have a number of concerns that we hope the select committee will consider and we hope that an opportunity will be provided to the wider public of New Zealand to either submit or comment on the bill in order for us to be satisfied that the bill will deliver the outcomes that New Zealand First believes New Zealand deserves. The bill comes with really great intentions Minister—I must reiterate that. I do believe that we are on the right track. You know it is a step in the right direction of addressing this very serious and very important issue in our country. Thank you.