Logie JanJAN LOGIE (Green): It is with a real sense of frustration that I rise on behalf of the Green Party to oppose this piece of legislation aimed at improving our child protection and youth justice service. The Greens and I are passionate about the care of our children and about creating a society that strengthens all of our families so that the children in our care can grow and thrive and it is gutting actually to be given a piece of legislation that is supposed to achieve that end but takes us further away from that goal. That said I want to be clear that this piece of legislation is not a black and white issue for us. We support albeit with qualifications three provisions in this bill and would vote for legislation with just these changes. However we deeply deeply oppose the changes to enable wholesale delegation of core Child Youth and Family powers and we also oppose the token involvement of Māori in the development of this legislation when it is so central to their well-being and future. So we find ourselves unable to support it. To be clear in our opposition we are in no way arguing for the status quo and our opposition must not be interpreted in that way. We are arguing for a strong functioning society that cares for our children and for a care and protection system and a youth justice system that protect our children and the aspirations of Māori and of all our communities. We support the raising of the age of care and protection to 18. I think it is a brilliant idea—it has been asked for for a long time—though we do agree with submitters that it does not actually make sense to raise the care and protection age and not the youth justice age. Most of these young people in the youth justice system are in care and protection—they are the same young people. So to say that you are a child until you are 18 in terms of care and protection but that you are an adult at this age if it is youth justice when it is the same kid—how are they half adult half child? It does not make sense. As the Office of the Children's Commissioner said it will create an administratively burdensome and inefficient system not to mention that it will continue to breach our commitments to the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. It is frankly embarrassing that New Zealand is one of the last countries in the world still treating children as adults in our justice system. The Green Party though also supports the establishment of the new youth advocacy service in this legislation. That will support young people to express their views on matters that are important to them and will allow the Chief Executive of the Ministry of Social Development to listen to their views on the operation and effectiveness of services provided under the Act—great. However again it could go further. We agreed with the submitters that international best practice would also have the role of that organisation being to connect children in care to advocate for individual children in care—which is a core function that is missing from our system at the moment and it is a check on the functioning of the system—and to empower children in care supporting them to speak up and investing in training and development to grow their leadership. So it is a shame to us that this legislation is missing the opportunity to do that. We also support embedding the views of children and young people in the new operating model with the slight concern that we should not see children in isolation from families and that actually it needs to be supporting those families as well. But we do support new section 11(2)(c) which requires suitable supports to be provided for children who may have difficulties with expressing their view. That has been a glaring omission in our child protection and youth justice systems up to this point and we are very pleased with that provision. However we again support the view of and the concern raised by the Office of the Children's Commissioner that it is not specific enough. Within the existing legislation we have actually got a provision that says that the child's views are supposed to be taken into account but because there is not any detail in the legislation it is not happening. So we supported those submitters who were asking for more detail so that actually the intent of the legislation would have more chance of being realised. Those are our areas of support and they are significant things that we do support. However driving our opposition are those two major things which cannot be avoided and which for us ruin this entire piece of legislation. To speak first to the monocultural design of this process leading to the development of this legislation initially the expert panel that started all of this process off did not have one Māori member on it. It was only later further on in the process when there was a stink about that that the Minister for Social Development appointed one Māori member to that panel. The panel in terms of its wide consultation did not consult with Te Puni Kōkiri (TPK) or any iwi social service provider. When you recognise that 60 percent of children in care at the moment are Māori and historically child protection and uplifting of children has been an absolute tool of colonisation—and this Government did not consider it necessary to consult with TPK or iwi social service providers. Of all the people it consulted only 7 percent of them were Māori. They are 60 percent of the kids in care and 7 percent of the people it talked to. It is a perpetuation of that monocultural design and we are not going to get it right until we go back to the people who are affected—the people who know what works. On that basis alone we cannot support this legislation. Then on top of that this bill introduces wholesale delegation of powers. I think that Jacinda Ardern articulated really clearly in her speech why we are concerned about that because this is the power to uplift children from their homes. That power is being taken away from social workers and police officers who are specifically trained—and we have concerns about some of the limitations of that training at times—and given to who knows who? We do not know who. As was said by the New Zealand Council of Christian Social Services in its submission it felt it could not even comment on this provision in the bill because actually nobody knows who these powers are going to be given to. You cannot even sensibly respond because it is so broad that it could be any power given to almost anyone. That is not responsible lawmaking. The Office of the Children's Commissioner was quite tactful in its criticism noting that the legislative process seemed to have outstripped the policy process—i.e. we are passing legislation without knowing what we are doing. Social Service Providers Aotearoa also pointed out—quite significantly I believe—that the guidance provided by the State Services Commission clearly says that a delegation outside the Public Service should clearly specify which services or functions are to be delegated. This bill does not do that. The Green Party would protect the independent relationship of NGOs with families and explicitly restrict coercive powers to the statutory sector. This bill does not do that. It risks fragmenting an already deeply fragmented system which will put our children further at risk. We will not support legislation that could lead to the role of uplifting children being delegated to people outside the Public Service. We will not support legislation that could lead to profit-making organisations such as Serco playing an increased role in youth justice or in care and protection. We know that Serco is doing this currently in the United Kingdom. It has experience but not the kind of experience we want. We have seen what has happened by giving Serco control of our prisons. Do we really—really—want to pass legislation that would enable if not this Minister then another Minister in the future to give it a role with our most vulnerable children? The Green Party does not.