SpeechJAN LOGIE (Green): Thank you Mr Speaker. I'd like to start my contribution tonight with three quotes from submitters to the royal commission of abuse in State care. Firstly the taking of Māori children has been a cost that has been both intensely personal and inherently political. The presumed right to do so was derived from the same racist presumptions of European superiority that marked colonisation as a whole and the attendant belief that indigenous children needed to be 'saved' 'civilised' and 'protected' from themselves." That quote of course came from the wonderful Moana Jackson. Then Dr Alison Green: "The trauma we are carrying is killing us. I agreed to give evidence at this hearing because I want my whānau to have better lives to be respected as the young people they are and the elders they will be. Hardly a day goes by when I'm not reminded of the trauma we live." And then Keith Wiffin: "Nothing breaks my heart more to see the continued appalling rates of abuse coming out of those homes and institutions today. The historical and the now are inextricably linked. We have not learned from the past."The royal commission which has been mentioned several times this evening found that about 40 percent of people in this country who have been in care have been abused. That's about 250000 people in this country who have been abused in supposed care. They recognised this as historical and also I will quote them "It continues to this day." Sixty-seven percent of children in State care are Māori. Seventy-six percent of children harmed while in State care are Māori. Māori Pasifika and disabled children have been and continue to be disproportionately harmed by our misnamed child protection services.The royal commission is hearing from survivors right now. Yes they've put out an interim report which has been mentioned but at the time they put out the report they'd only heard not even a fifth of the evidence that they expect to hear. They hadn't even started to engage with the Children's Commissioner on the information that they hold. They were only identifying their research gaps to fill. The bulk of their report was starting to tell us the stories and to encourage others to bring their voices. So to be saying in this House that actually this bill responds to the royal commission report particularly when the royal commission forum—made up of survivors and experts who are monitoring that process and have been for many many years—told all of us to stop this bill that they saw this as a pre-empting of the process; they did not say "Go do this now fix it later. You'll give credit to our voices our spilling of our trauma to prevent harm in the future. Don't worry about that carry on and we'll agree for you to fix it later." That is not what they told us. To hear from the other side that this is so urgent in terms of significant reform that we ignore those voices that process gives me a pain if I'm honest.I really want to speak too to the point and to recall that quote from Moana Jackson around the harm of colonisation and how deeply entangled with our child protection services it is and to acknowledge that what we've heard from Minister Sepuloni is "Well there were 22 hui in 2019. That's our commitment to honouring Te Tiriti. That's partnership." Those hui were before the Waitangi Tribunal reported. That was before the Whānau Ora inquiry into abuse in care before the ombudsman report before the Children's Commissioner's two reports around what is happening in our child protection system. People there was no engagement with Māori after that evidence was on the table and there is no evidence of formal Te Tiriti engagement with Māori after the bill was drafted. That is not partnership.It has been actually reviewed by the Auckland University Aotearoa Centre for Indigenous Peoples and the Law which put out a report last week that found that the bill as it sits on the Table today breaches the Crown's obligations under Te Tiriti and the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples in substance and in process. They on scrutiny of this bill and the process in developing it have called on the Government to taihoa and engage with Māori on the transformation of Oranga Tamariki including its oversight and any reconfiguration of the Office of the Children's Commissioner in a way that recognises their status as Te Tiriti partners that recognises Māori rangatira over the care and protection of tamariki Māori and their rights under the indigenous declaration.We've got a royal commission forum telling us to stop a very early-stage engagement with that process and we have a very clear message that the consultation does not meet the requirements under obligations of partnership which is so vital if we are to have any hope of our child protection system no longer being a tool of colonisation which it is actively. We have so much evidence of that. And then we also had the 403 submissions which have already been mentioned several times from care-experienced young people from basically our entire children's sector: lawyers health practitioners Starship Hospital academics including those with deep experience and knowledge of Government. These are not naive people who do not know how to read legislation which to me was the suggestion from the Minister of "Oh people just don't understand this. They think it's you know sitting within the Education Review Office and we bring it and there are—people don't."Some submitters admittedly had that confusion particularly young people who found the legislation and the time frames to be able to understand it did not enable their full participation. But there were many many submitters who are and have been actively involved in helping Government shape legislation in the past who said that this was problematic and needed to stop. And it is not enough for members on the Labour Party to be able to say "We've got experience. We care deeply about children. Our views our few people's views count more than all of those other perspectives and that deep deep knowledge that came from many of those submitters." It just does not stand up.Then in the most possibly—I always find the Tiriti perspective the most important and it's hard to separate from the royal commission perspective. But then we have the perspective around ensuring that we're meeting our obligations under the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child which is about ensuring that children's voices are heard and informing the decisions particularly effective. The Children's Commissioner is their agency and they had no say in this complete restructure of it. It's their agency. It's to carry their voice. And they had no opportunity to say "This is what we want. This is how we want people to represent us and keep us safe." The young people who have been telling this Government to stop need to be heard. Shame on Labour."