Dame Susan Devoy: Tackling child abuse

Little over a week ago, another defenceless young baby suffered non-accidental injuries and died.
A more blunt description is that she was murdered.
The irony of her name, Serenity, meaning calm, peaceful and untroubled, would be lost on the mongrel that did this.
Sad that peace was only achieved for Serenity when she passed away after her life-support was switched off.
I am struggling to remove the image of this baby from my mind, but I know it will fade just as all the other pictures of those young children who have suffered the worst fate handed down by their abusers. The difficulty lies not in the problem itself, but the solution.
These tragedies will continue to happen. The cycle of abuse is so well entrenched in our society that the real tragedy is our apparent inability to halt the rising tide of child abuse and neglect.
Some of the impetus for the anti-smacking bill came from the frustration of New Zealanders desperate to stop the increase in violence and a desire to try anything that offered hope of change.
High-profile national social marketing campaigns, changes in legislation and more hui and more intervention strategies.
All of these will be open to criticism I suppose because none of them appears to have made an ounce of difference.
We can at least be reassured that we will not have a repeat performance of the Kahui trial.
This year, legislation will be passed making it a crime to turn a blind eye to child abuse.
It has quite rightly been dubbed the "Kahui Law" because of the family's stonewalling of police in 2006.
The Kahui twins are two well-known faces in New Zealand but for all the wrong reasons. But finally a law is on its way to help stop such unnecessary deaths - or at least convict those who are responsible and to stop the cover-up that allows a child abuser to roam free.
That will probably be too late for Serenity, but we can guarantee there will be other scumbags.
The one glimmer of hope is the appointment of the new Children's Commissioner. Dr Russell Wills, a community paediatrician for the Hawkes Bay District Health Board, was a surprise choice, given his outspoken role as spokesman for the Paediatrics Society campaign to keep smacking as a criminal offence in the 2009 referendum.
NZ Child and Youth Epidemiology Service statistics show that hospital admissions of children for assault, neglect or maltreatment in Hawke's Bay plunged by two-thirds from 37 for every 100,000 children in 1998-99 to just 12 in 2008, while the national average was static at around 20.
This was under the watch of Dr Wills, so we can assume that if he can have the similar success at a national level that he has achieved in his own region, then Paula Bennett will have picked a winner.
He states his priorities in the job as the priorities we all have: child poverty , parenting, family violence, child abuse, the education tail, teenage pregnancy.
Well Mr Wills, you will probably be aware that the weight of the whole country falls on your shoulders to solve these issues. I note that the naysayers have already been critical that you only wish to do this role part time.
It does appear you have a massive job, but I couldn't care less about the hours you work or your pay... just the success you will have in saving innocent babies like Serenity.