SpeechJAN LOGIE (Green): Thank you Mr Chair. I'd like to speak to this. This is a really important part of this piece of legislation and probably one of the most controversial parts and it does hinge around—there are specific provisions but a large part of concern is around this concept of independence. I acknowledge the Minister saying Well the Monitor sits within MSD at the moment—departmental agency that's more independent." But the real source of tension coming from the community is that there was an understanding from pretty much all of our agencies that this was being set up in the Ministry of Social Development (MSD) to be brought back into the Office of the Children's Commissioner that would be independent of the Government and not part of the Public Service. That is where the mistrust and the concern fundamentally lies and the fact that the reasons for keeping it within the Public Service have been unclear and opaque for most people. The consultation that the Minister mentioned earlier did not involve that concept. I specifically asked Waikato-Tainui if they had been involved in the hui around the country on this bill. They said they'd attended those hui but the consultation and the engagement did not relate to the content of this bill of this proposal.I'd love to hear from the Minister to address specifically the points in the report from David King and Jonathon Boston and to acknowledge that David King is an independent public policy analyst specialising in child and youth wellbeing mental health public administration and constitutional policy; was a senior public servant for 20 years across a wide range of public policy domains—this is not somebody who does not understand legislation or the functioning of Government. And Jonathan Boston has advised the Government on critical child-related legislation just last term—like people who know the functioning of Government and want the best for our children I would argue very strongly and supportive. They are saying that they do not believe this model of supposed independent monitoring is appropriate because it removes the possibility of having a virtuous learning cycle where monitoring and complaints and advocacy can inform each other and creates the possibility of a vicious cycle of those things being separated out where actually the learnings get lost between the agencies and the requirement for cooperation actually—and having had something to do with Government agencies trying to work together in the last term of Parliament I can say that is not a straightforward thing. Our Government agencies do not work easily well together. That is a challenge that I think everybody in this House recognises. Just to put in legislation that they have to cooperate does not mean that that happens consistently or in the way that we would imagine it would.They also point out that having the departmental agency reporting effectively on another Public Service agency is like a junior chief executive (CE) critiquing a very powerful CE in the same Public Service. The chances are that junior CE is going to want a career in our Public Service and that their career progression will depend on their ability to maintain those relationships across the Public Service. Not one of our children's commissioners that I've been able to find out has gone from that position into a role in the Public Service because actually that is not seen as an appropriate interflow because they have independence from the Crown. They are not—and it's crucial in terms of having an absolutely independent voice for our children not for the State. And whether we want to say we're putting it into law we also know that the last Ombudsman's report of Oranga Tamariki found that they were in breach of law pretty much constantly in most of the cases they were reviewing. So to say it's in law does not mean it automatically happens. And we are in this legislation it is my very strong view creating very significant risk for our children of a loss of independence and holding them first."