Minister for Māori Development Nanaia Mahuta (left), Minister for Children Tracey Martin and Ngati Kahungunu Iwi Inc chairman Ngahiwi Tomoana speak to media. Photo / Ian Cooper
Minister for Māori Development Nanaia Mahuta (left), Minister for Children Tracey Martin and Ngati Kahungunu Iwi Inc chairman Ngahiwi Tomoana speak to media. Photo / Ian Cooper
Hawke's Bay iwi Ngāti Kahungunu has already intervened five times to stop Oranga Tamariki taking children from their families since the Hawke's Bay Hospital baby uplift attempt five weeks ago.
And it's not just Māori families affected, says chairman Ngahiwi Tomoana, who told Hawke's Bay Today the May 7-8 dramaand the iwi commitment to not one more child being uplifted "opened the floodgates" as families across the Bay started calling for help.
Speaking after yesterday's meeting with Minister for Children Tracey Martin, Labour Party deputy leader and Minister for Crown/Maori Relationships Kelvin Davis and Minister for Maori Development Nanaia Mahuta, Tomoana said the iwi had to "intervene physically" three weeks ago to block the removal of a Pākehā couple's two children.
He said the previously he had been "blissfully ignorant" of the demand, because no one had come to the iwi for help.
"We're being alerted by either whānau members, by midwives, by social workers that there is a court order on the child and we send intervention letters saying we want to get involved.
"It is probably more widespread. This crisis has brought some solution opportunities right across the country."
Martin announced that there would be an internal inquiry by Oranga Tamariki into their processes around that particular whānau.
Early last night, Children's Commissioner Andrew Becroft tweeted he was also opening a "thematic review of Oranga Tamariki's decision-making relating to care and protection issues for tamariki Māori aged 0-3 months".
Martin said more details would be announced in the next day or so, but the inquiry would be "led with the voice of whānau" and an independent person Ngāti Kahungunu was "comfortable with" would also be part of the process.
But its findings will not be made public.
Martin said it was the whānau's information.
"We have to remember this is about a family. This was a family that didn't have a lot of power to start with, if any. And they are now experiencing quite a lot of things going on around them again without them having any power over.
"This is an internal review about what happened to them, so there will be a level of information that will be shared with them and with iwi that will not go public because this is their journey."
Oranga Tamariki and iwi would also "come together, with Ngāti Kahungunu leading the process to develop early intervention, intensive intervention services" for everyone in the rohe who needed support, Martin said.
Children's Commissioner Andrew Becroft. Photo / File
"None of us wants to get to the place that we saw the other day and to do that we need to do more in the prevention and walk alongside our families."
Martin said she would "keep the lines of communication open" on a three-monthly basis with Tomoana to review collective progress and apply improvements to current practices to prevent the likelihood of it happening again.
Martin said she hoped she could do what she was "actually given the job to do as the Minister for Children".
"That is to completely change the way we have had a child crisis service into a child protection service with a greater focus on early intervention and intensive intervention and protection.
I was particularly sorry to see the events that unfolded in the hospital that day.
"I was particularly sorry to see the events that unfolded in the hospital that day. Everybody in that room has been impacted negatively and we need to come back together and work together constructively, not just for this whanau but also for the whanau of the future and the whanau that are actually in the process now."
Tomoana said he was "forever hopeful" that things would change.
Through a project called Kōrero Mai Whānau, the iwi invited whānau to "tell their stories", which they will share with government agencies in the future to "try and ascertain better outcomes for both whānau and for the agencies to meet our expectations from our whānau".
