Moroney Sue: Vulnerable Children Bill — In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeMoroney Sue: Vulnerable Children Bill — In Committee[Sitting date: 13 May 2014. Volume:698;Page:17806. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]SUE MORONEY (Labour): I am pleased to take a call in the Part 1 debate on the Vulnerable Children Bill. It was actually a very civilised debate until the Minister forSocial Development got up on her feet and attacked our spokesperson on children Jacinda Ardern for daring—daring—to raise the issue of child poverty and the need to deal with that in this country. I want to put it on record that the Labour Party supports this bill and therefore did not deserve that unwarranted attack. But does it not tell the country everything it needs to know about how much this Government despises people who have not got the means to get by and how much it does not want to debate those issues? I think that was a disgraceful performance by the Minister attacking an Opposition spokesperson for daring to raise the issue.Although we support this bill we wish that it went an awful lot further—we do. I think that is right and proper for there to be debate in this Committee and I regret that the Minister went on the attack. It should be a civilised debate—Mike Sabin: We’re going a lot further by trying to ensure the economy is performing—everything that that member votes against.SUE MORONEY: It should be a civilised debate Mr Sabin when we talk about children and their needs.Mike Sabin: Don’t stand up there and go on talking about poverty and then don’t vote for Government bills that support economic growth.SUE MORONEY: Pardon?Mike Sabin: I said don’t stand there and talk about poverty if the member is not—SUE MORONEY: Oh I am not to stand here and talk about poverty says another one of the MPs on the Government benches. Well there we go. This is a debating chamber on behalf of all the other people of New Zealand and the Labour Party will talk about the needs of all of the people of New Zealand not just your rich mates in your Cabinet club Mr Sabin. That is what we are here to bring to this debating chamber. Please do not tell me that I am not to get up and speak about child poverty in this Chamber. I know it harms you to hear it because it is your Government’s track record but please Mr Sabin do not try to shut down debate about an issue that is very important to this country and certainly very important to the people who are listening to this debate. They will recognise even if the National Government does not that we have growing inequality in this country and going into denial about that as the Minister did when she spoke is not going to address those very real issues.And yet we stand here supporting the Minister’s bill. That is right Minister. We are supporting your bill because this is an area that we do want to see progress on. [Interruption] Mr Sabin is still yelling and bellowing. He does not want to understand that we are ambitious about actually getting a whole range of other issues dealt with when it comes to vulnerable children.But Mr Sabin I do want to speak about one particular part of this bill and that is the part that the Minister actually did rise and speak in a civilised manner about and that is the issue of volunteers. Although I am sure the Government did think about this very seriously it needs to think about it even more seriously. The reality is that the statistics tell us that sadly it is more often the people in the unpaid workforce who are guilty of abusing vulnerable children than it is the people in the paid workforce. The Minister talked about the 375000 people who will need to be vetted under this bill who are in the paid workforce. Well that is useful but all the evidence tells us that the more likely problem is in the group that will go unvetted under this bill. I do think that is a really serious issue. If we are serious about addressing the needs of vulnerable children then we do absolutely need to take that on board. I do not think the Government has given that enough consideration. We will be pleased to support the amendments coming forward on this bill that attempt to address that.I was very saddened to read in the weekend about a case of a carer for Child Youth and Family who had been found guilty of abusing children in his care and the verydifficult situation that the family had had to address. In fact they had had great difficulty finding out that this had even happened. They had great difficulty finding out that it had happened and therefore what steps could be taken to protect their children who were in the care of Child Youth and Family. The reason why I raise that in the context of this debate is that the checks and the vetting that are required by this bill had taken place in that case. So I think we need to be really clear that some of what is proposed in this bill happens already and has happened for quite some time in a number of these Government departments but they have failed to keep children safe.So we should be under no false illusion that the bill that we are passing through its Committee stage this evening will be the silver bullet that addresses children who are vulnerable to being abused by adults in whose care they are placed. We have children who in that case were required to be in the care of that adult—they did not just choose to be in the care of that adult but were required to be in the care of that adult—and these vetting and police checks could not keep those children safe.I think it is sobering for all of us to know that this legislation while taking some steps will not prevent these situations and certainly it quite deliberately as the Minister described before will not prevent them from happening in a situation where the adult in charge of that child is in a volunteer role. As I said at the outset of my contribution to this debate—actually it was not quite at the outset; I had something to say about the tenor of the Minister’s contribution. But shortly after that I referred to the fact that it is more often people in volunteer situations who take advantage of vulnerable children than it is people in the paid workforce. I do think there are things that we need to consider in doing this.My colleague Jacinda Ardern spoke I thought very thoughtfully and without controversy about the need for a children’s plan. This part of the bill brings into place the Vulnerable Children’s Plan. My colleague was quite rightly pointing out that if it was actually dealing with the needs of the vulnerable children of this country it would also deal with the issue of poverty. It would recognise that children living in poverty are vulnerable as well and that it would take steps as the Children’s Commissioner has asked for it to do to address those needs. I do not think that is something that should invite a tirade from the bill’s sponsoring Minister. I think that is something that should be debated in this Parliament genuinely and in a civilised manner for the sake of the children.It is the intention of the New Zealand Labour Party to ensure that those voices are heard as well as the voices that have been heard through the Minister’s process which was carefully harnessed through a green paper and a white paper. I am not sure if it was in that order. It might have been the white paper first and then the green paper. I get confused about which one comes first. But it was a very carefully managed process and I congratulate the Minister on it. But a lot of the people who made submissions to that process in fact said exactly the things that Jacinda Ardern just articulated on their behalf. She just articulated those very things on their behalf around the importance of understanding that children are vulnerable when they are placed in poverty. They are placed in poverty because of the policies being pursued by this Government. I think it is very right to raise those issues. They do not deserve to have their views which were being articulated by my colleague face a tirade from the Minister.I hope that the Minister will take a different approach to the debate for the rest of the Committee stage on Part 1. I hope the Government members on the Social Services Committee will take some calls on this as well and will acknowledge that the role of the Labour Party and I think of all members on the select committee were very positive and proactive in terms of trying to get the best possible solution to this bill. It was the Opposition members who ensured thatchild harm prevention orders were taken out ofthis bill because they were going to be unworkable. That was not argued for by the Government members on the select committee; that was a really valuable contribution finally picked up by the Minister from the Opposition members on the select committee. So I think it is important that all the voices on these issues are heard and that there is no attempt by the Government to shut debate down because we are talking about the needs of children and I think we ought to do that in a civilised manner.