Oranga Tamariki under fire: Agencies face criticism after Malachi Subecz murder – The Front Page

Oranga Tamariki admits there is "more work to do" when it comes to child protection. Photo / RNZ, Angus Dreaver

Two months after a sobering report into New Zealand’s child protection system, Oranga Tamariki has no update on how it’s improving its practices.

Dame Karen Poutasi made 14 recommendations in 2022 after being appointed to investigate what agencies could have done better after the death of 5-year-old Malachi Subecz.

Malachi was murdered at the hands of his caregiver the year before – and Oranga Tamariki was found to have failed to take the “bare minimum” action over safety concerns about him.

A follow-up assessment released in August by Aroturuki Tamariki – the Independent Children’s Monitor found that system-wide change is still needed.

“We are not confident that tamariki in similar situations to Malachi are any more likely to be seen, or kept safe by the system than they were when Malachi died,” said the report.

Chief executive Arran Jones told The Front Page that out of all Poutasi’s recommendations, only one has been enacted.

“The only one that was implemented was for us to come back and review progress. That’s pretty sobering,” Jones said.

“While work had been done at a discussion and planning level, decisions haven’t been made to either implement those recommendations or make or take steps to implement. So that’s a concern.”

Jones said figures from Child Matters, a youth protection education agency, show that one child is being killed every five weeks in New Zealand.

“A lot of children and young people are being reported to Oranga Tamariki as being at risk of harm. Over a lifetime, it’s quite staggering, that almost a quarter of all children in New Zealand are known to Oranga Tamariki at some point.

“You have around 58,000 reports of concern being made about kids in New Zealand every year. That’s 5% of our children and young people, so quite high.”

When questioned about its progress, Oranga Tamariki pointed to a joint statement released in early August from the chief executives of six public service agencies charged with the wellbeing of children.

“We have nothing further to add beyond this,” the organisation said.

The statement said: “A wide breadth of work is under way on all 13 recommendations with significant progress already made.”

“Aroturuki Tamariki – the Independent Children’s Monitor’s report into the first 12 months of progress on these recommendations concludes that change has not been quick enough in certain areas.

“There is clearly much more work to do, and our agencies will work together on these challenging issues.”

Listen to the full episode to hear more about issues within our child protection framework and what can be done to keep our kids safe.

The Front Page is a daily news podcast from the New Zealand Herald, available to listen to every weekday from 5am. The podcast is presented by Chelsea Daniels, an Auckland-based journalist with a background in world news and crime/justice reporting who joined NZME in 2016.

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