Bradford Sue: General Debate 
Bradford Sue: General Debate 
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SUE BRADFORD (Green) 
: 
 I move  
That the House take note of miscellaneous business 
. I doubt there is anyone in this country who has been left unaffected by the Kahui case including every MP in this House. There is something about the murder of twin babies that cuts to the heart. As a mother of twins myself I find the thought of what happened to Chris and Cru Kahui simply devastating. However the critical thing for us here in Parliament is to not spend our time trying to make party political capital out of a fraught situation or to berate the police or Child Youth and Family Services for what they are and are not doing in the aftermath of the killings. Nor is it for us in our position of comparative power to spend our time attacking the individual members of a very dysfunctional family when we are far from clearly knowing the facts of the situation. Most of all I hope all politicians will avoid falling into the kind of egregious racism that was demonstrated in Rod Emmerson’s cartoon in last week’s  
New Zealand Herald 
 and in associated follow-up letters to the editor all of which showed once again how the raw underbelly of anti-Maori racism can rear its head when given the slightest excuse. 
Instead the Green Party believes that our role as members of Parliament at a time like this is to work together across traditional party lines to seek ideas and solutions about what more this Government or any Government might do to help reduce violence within families and the dreadfully high rates of domestic homicide in this country. I hope the cross-party working-group that Parekura Horomia has talked about will go ahead once the task force on action on family violence has completed its task. I hope we will be able to use the task force’s recommendations for ways forward as a starting point and that we will be looking for solutions rather than focusing on research plenty of which is already being done. I also hope the Government will have the will to make any such solutions a top priority within its fiscal and policy programme. 
A complexity of issues are at stake here and there are no simple magical answers. Government social services agencies and health providers need to find better ways to identify babies and children at risk. We should consider seriously the suggestions of the Children’s Commissioner around keeping track of all babies from birth and providing more information and support for parents as children progress through each life stage. 
We should be looking at how we treat mothers who have just given birth. In the old days we used to have the option of staying for up to 2 weeks in hospital after having a baby. Now we are lucky to be there for 48 hours if at all. For some mums hospital used to be a place of sanctuary and rest where we could bond with our baby or babies away from the stresses of home life. It is a pity this option barely exists any more. Post-natal depression needs to be taken a lot more seriously. Mothers who suffer from it need every bit of support they can get even when they do not realise they have a problem. Groups that work in this area deserve better and more consistent resourcing. 
The Kahui case also raises the question about the number of working-age beneficiaries in the whanau and why only one of them appeared to be in paid employment. Instead of just blaming those who are the victims of generations of unemployment poverty and total alienation from regular society at a time of low unemployment such as this the Government should be looking closely at whether it could do more in the way of introducing front-on employment creation programmes that incorporate a whole range of features for those who have a multiplicity of problems adapting to the regular workforce. 
What we should not be doing is removing benefits and income-related rents as Rodney Hide seemed to be suggesting yesterday. The consequences of that course of action are almost unimaginable in terms of a total descent into crime violence neglect and children running the risk of becoming ultimately discardable. We see that happening in societies where infanticide is an everyday normalised evil. 
Finally I will say a few words about the connection between child homicide and section 59 of the Crimes Act. Although repealing section 59 will never in itself stop the murder of a child it will get rid of a law that legitimises the use of violence against children. As MPs we should have the courage to change the law so that no adults should ever think they are mandated by law to assault their babies and children. How can we expect parents to change their attitudes towards violence when we still have such a law on our books? 
In the end of course this issue goes way beyond anything a Government or we MPs can do. All of us including those in and around the Kahui family need to take responsibility for what is happening to children in our families in our community and not just turn a blind eye to the damage being done out of fear or wilful indifference.