Pugh MaureenMAUREEN PUGH (National): Thank you very much Madam Speaker. I stand along with my colleagues on this side of the House in opposition to the Oranga Tamariki Amendment Bill. It's another one of those bills that we see where the Government has not come up with any solutions but all they are doing is unwinding yet another piece of legislation with nothing to replace it. And that seems to be the modus operandi of this Government. Where are the solutions? As my colleague and friend Dr Shane Reti alluded to we need solutions. But we also need the transparency and openness from the most open and transparent Government—not!In terms of the detail that is informing this policy change when you get information back that is blacked out—and it reminds me of the official information requests that my colleague Jacqui Dean got from the Department of Conservation. She's got black wallpaper in her office now from the pages and pages of redacted information from this Government. So it's a bit ironic that we stand here today with less information than the Government has got because they've blanked out that information. And here we are trying to debate why we need to undo yet another piece of legislation. A piece of legislation I have to say that was introduced as in using the Government's own words an abundance of caution". It was brought in to protect the most vulnerable children in this country.I'd just like to start some of my contribution by referring to the UNICEF Innocenti Report Card 7. In that report card it says "as of March 2021"—so it's current information—New Zealand ranks 35th out of 41 developed countries for child wellbeing outcomes. In 2003 UNICEF ranked us the third-highest amongst rich countries for its child maltreatment death rates. That's why that legislation was brought in: to be another stopgap in the maltreatment of our children. In this country five children die every week as a result of family violence. We've got a shocking record in this space. But interestingly I found that the UNICEF report also made no correlation between the levels of child wellbeing and GDP per capita. In fact the report actually went on to mention the Czech Republic as achieving higher levels of child wellbeing than many rich countries including us. We ranked below them.So what I want to do is pay tribute to some of the children who have not had the benefit of the interventions that this particular part of the Oranga Tamariki Act actually inserts. James Whakaruru he was killed in 1999. The only part of that child's little body that was not bruised were the soles of his feet. The Kahui twins and this case is still unsolved with Chris Kahui the father found not guilty for the murders of Christopher and Cru Kahui. Both twins died on 18 June 2006 from blunt force trauma causing brain injury and it was suggested in the trial that the injuries were caused by either direct blows to the head or being thrown against a firm surface or severe shaking. Nia Glassie 2007 died at the age of three due to severe brain damage. Her mother was charged with failing to provide the necessities of life for that wee girl. Nia had been subjected to family violence for two months prior to her death. That is the absolute most cruellest way to bring up a child in this country. And it's incumbent on us as a Government to ensure that all measures are included in our legislation to intervene in the most high-risk of cases. Tahani Mahomed: Tahani died on 1 January 2008 three days after she was admitted to hospital because she was failing to feed. When they got her there they found that her head injuries were consistent with being hit with great force. The father was charged on one count of murder and two counts of injuring with intent to cause grievous bodily harm. Duwayne Pailegutu: Dwayne died on 2 July 2008 due to 75 external injuries from assault by his stepfather that left him paralysed and struggling to breathe. The stepfather got 18 years non-parole for Duwayne's death. But they were a result of an assault and the subsequent neglect to care for that little boy.Now in 2007 the rate of deaths of children and young persons under the age of 19 in New Zealand—we had the highest rate of such deaths along with the United States. Now this is an abysmal record and it needs to be sorted out. I struggle to understand how unwinding a piece of legislation actually does get us to the objective of caring and protecting our most vulnerable: our children.Now this legislation was actually put in place to try and head off some of those potential cases. Just for the House's information when I was researching this bill I found that only 19 times has this piece of legislation been used since it was first enacted. So it's not a huge problem that is looking for a solution but maybe in those 19 times it was used we've given those parents or that mum the opportunity to turn her life around but we've also had the opportunity to intervene to protect and to save yet another child from being brutally murdered and adding to the abysmal record that we have as a country for looking after these little people.For the record too as of 30 September this year 2021 74400 reports of concern involving 54600 individual children and young people was reported in New Zealand—54600 children. Now that is the reason this legislation exists. It exists to protect those children from the very people who they look to for their care and their safety.Now part of the proposal of this particular unwinding of legislation is to remove Section 66D of the Act. Now that part of the Act only came into effect in 2019 and it's around the information sharing the data sharing between organisations. If I recall some of the debates that happened in this House around that data sharing it was opposed vigorously by the Opposition parties of the time. They were concerned about the security of that data and how it would be used. But then we heard about cases where families would present at A & E in hospitals and there was no one within ACC reporting or sharing the information about the family violence that was going on. So ACC wasn't sharing it—data—with the police. The police weren't sharing their data with Work and Income New Zealand or Child Youth and Family at the time. So there were big gaps in the communication between these organisations.Now it's only been in since July 2019 and here is the Government unwinding that. So what replaces that in terms of how we connect with the various entities in this country that are looking at the symptoms and the results of family violence? How are we ever going to know what's going on? Because we can't see the big picture without this clause surviving.Again I say that it's a travesty when the Government feels that they're making progress when all they do is unwind legislation and replace it with nothing that is substantial in terms of how we are going to maintain the safety for our children in this country. I do not support this bill."