Little AndrewOVERSIGHT OF ORANGA TAMARIKI SYSTEM AND CHILDREN AND YOUNG PEOPLE'S COMMISSION BILLFirst ReadingHon ANDREW LITTLE (Minister of Health) on behalf of the Minister for Social Development and Employment: I present a legislative statement on the Oversight of Oranga Tamariki System and Children and Young People's Commission Bill. ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jacqui Dean): That legislative statement is published under the authority of the House and can be found on the Parliament website. Hon ANDREW LITTLE: I move That the Oversight of Oranga Tamariki System and Children and Young People's Commission Bill be now read a first time. I will nominate the Social Services and Community Committee to consider this bill. This must be a bill with one of the longest titles. There is no confusion about what it actually is about. It is pretty much provided for in the title of it. This Government is dedicated to improving the wellbeing and the lives of children in Aotearoa New Zealand and that means that for those who require or come into the care of the State or come under the agency of the State we have appropriate safeguards around that system for children. What this bill does is effectively it adds a third leg to the stool—not that we've been sitting on a stool with two legs so far but it does create a stool with three legs on it and the third leg is this one which is a dedicated oversight body of Oranga Tamariki to make sure that it conducts itself not only in accordance with its own laws and the laws of the land but in an appropriately ethical and acceptable way given its multitude of relationships with all sorts of communities including Māori and Pacific people. So this is a very important bill and it adds the third leg to the other two legs. One is the Ombudsman. The Ombudsman retains responsibility for accepting complaints about the conduct of Oranga Tamariki and then the third leg remains the Children's Commissioner who is the advocate for children's policy—good effective healthy children's policy and advocacy to Government and to all the institutions that make up our democratic society on the interests of children. The reason for this bill is that the current system is fragmented and lacks accountability and it's not well-established around a common purpose. So this bill reflects the Government's commitment to establish a more comprehensive and more cohesive system of oversight arrangements that will help to improve outcomes for children and young people—tamariki and rangatahi and tai tamariki—across New Zealand and it does so in the ways I've explained. It sets up this new body this independent monitor of the Oranga Tamariki system as a statutory officer with specific functions and duties that it has to undertake to monitor those outcomes for children and young people who are in the care of—who are receiving services from Oranga Tamariki. The current care system isn't achieving the best possible outcomes for children young people and their families and whānau that New Zealanders expect. So we've heard the message from New Zealanders and from a variety of communities including from Māori that we need greater accountability and better advice on the Oranga Tamariki system from a trusted monitor who can provide evidence of how the system is meeting the needs of tamariki rangatahi and their families and whānau. The objectives of the monitor are to carry out objective impartial and evidence-based monitoring on the performance of Oranga Tamariki and to provide authoritative and trusted advice to the Government and the public. In that respect the monitor will be able to gather information from agencies and providers on the Oranga Tamariki system as well as from children and young people themselves and their whānau with their consent and in accordance with its code of ethics. The monitor will also be required to assess the Oranga Tamariki system in the context of wider systems of support and services that are provided to children under other legislation or where there has been a report of concern to Oranga Tamariki for people who are in the youth justice system. This broad scope reflects how the outcomes for children and young people in the Oranga Tamariki system do not just depend on the services delivered through that system but on the wider range of services provided by other agencies. The bill reflects this by requiring the monitor to take account of this wider context in monitoring this work. The information collected by the monitor will inform regular publicly available reports to help identify strength and areas for improvement in the Oranga Tamariki system including an annual report on outcomes being achieved for tamariki and rangatahi Māori and their whānau. In combination with a general obligation to develop arrangements with iwi and Māori organisations the bill also creates a legislative framework to operate in a way that best supports better outcomes for tamariki and rangatahi Māori as informed by Māori. This includes meaningful and effective engagement with an appointed Māori advisory group under the bill. The monitor will collaborate and have regard to the views of the group when developing its priorities work programmes and monitoring approaches. Secondly the bill designates the Ombudsman—as I've said the second leg of the stool—as the body responsible for independent complaints and investigations of the Oranga Tamariki system. We need a stronger complaints process that is easy to navigate for all system participants including children and young people families and their whānau as well as caregivers and delivery partners. I believe that focusing the Ombudsman's role on complaints and investigations will help reduce complexity for people navigating the system and allow the commission to have a greater focus on systemic advocacy for all children and young people in New Zealand. The bill will empower the Ombudsman to provide a timely and child-centred complaints and investigation mechanism that is separate and independent from the internal Oranga Tamariki processes and governance. Individuals will now have the option to go directly to the Ombudsman if they wish to complain about their approved care or their custody partner. The bill supports the Ombudsman's role by providing additional powers and duties that will augment the Ombudsman's existing investigatory powers under the Ombudsmen Act 1975. The Ombudsman has stringent information-management procedures reflecting their strict statutory confidentiality requirements as well as robust processes for engaging ethically with complainants and other parties including children. I'm confident that this existing strong framework precludes the need for explicit information-management or ethical engagement requirements in the bill. Under the Ombudsmen Act the Ombudsman can exercise its powers over any of the Public Service agencies and organisations set out in Schedule 1 of that Act. I note that the bill extends the Ombudsman's jurisdiction beyond Schedule 1 of the Ombudsmen Act to include partners providing care or holding custody under section 396 of the Oranga Tamariki Act. The select committee process will provide an appropriate opportunity to more fully consider the views of stakeholders that may be affected by this or any other broadening of the Ombudsman's jurisdiction. It is going to be very important to hear from those who are in those partnership roles who aren't formally part of the State apparatus about what they think about the Ombudsman's reach being extended into their operations. Finally this bill strengthens system-level advocacy for all New Zealand children and young people by establishing the Children and Young People's Commission—the commission—to replace and enhance the existing Children's Commissioner's functions with that being the third leg of this very important stool. Currently under the Children's Commissioner Act the Children's Commissioner has key functions to monitor the Oranga Tamariki system investigate decisions report on children's issues and advocate for children generally. This bill shifts the role of the Children's Commissioner away from the monitoring of complaints and strengthens its systemic advocacy role. It means that we don't have one organisation spread thinly across all those functions but we make each of those very important functions when it comes to children discrete and self-contained. But knowing that the system as a whole will need to operate effectively together. Children and young people's issues span a huge diversity of sectors including education health care and protection and the justice system. The bill will replace the current commissioner-sole model with a new enhanced Children and Young People's Commission governed by a board that reflects the diverse skills and experience required to advocate on a broad range of issues. Parts of the bill that relate to the commission will become its own separate Act. The commission's role will be to promote the interests and wellbeing of the children and young people of New Zealand and to advocate for their rights. These rights will include those under the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child and other child-specific local and international obligations such as Te Tiriti o Waitangi and indeed other documents. In addition the commission will have more clearly prescribed and expanded responsibilities to encourage and facilitate the participation of children and young people in matters that affect them. As noted earlier the Ombudsman will have a strengthened complaints and investigation mechanism and so the Children and Young People's Commission will not duplicate this function. So there is a strengthening of those functions all around. It's to be noted that the bill also includes a requirement for a five-yearly review of the commission's and the monitor's functioning so this will ensure that we continue to evolve grow and adapt as children's issues change. This is a reasonably common feature now when we're setting up these new oversight bodies and advocacy bodies it's to provide for a review so that we stop and check to see that things are working as intended and we can refine things and improve things and make them better. I believe this new bill will further strengthen this Government's commitment to ensuring New Zealand is the best place in the world to be a child. I commend this bill to the House. ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jacqui Dean): The question is that the motion be agreed to.