Oranga Tamariki reform: Act’s thinly-veiled attack on the Treaty of Waitangi - Shane Te Pou

THREE KEY FACTS

• The Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuse in Care report found ‘unimaginable’ and widespread abuse in care between 1950 and 2019 amounts to a ‘national disgrace’.
• Section 7AA of the Oranga Tamariki Act 1989 has been described as the primary legal mechanism that recognises the Crown’s Treaty of Waitangi duties in the country’s child protection system.
• The pledge to repeal this section was part of Act’s coalition agreement with National.

Shane Te Pou (Ngāi Tūhoe) is a commentator, blogger and former Labour Party activist.

OPINION

The way the story of the infamous ‘reverse uplift’ of kids by Oranga Tamariki has been told to the public is a lesson to never take the framing that’s presented to you at face value.

The original video report presented OT as monsters, sending children back to the family they had been removed from.

That has been weaponised into an attack on recognition of Māori whakapapa by OT, as the Government moves to repeal section 7AA of the Children’s and Young People’s Well-being Act 1989. That’s the section that says OT will honour Te Tiriti and work with iwi and Māori organisations to keep children connected with their whānau and wider whakapapa where possible.

But that narrative wasn’t true. An extraordinary new report aired on Whakaata Māori this week. For the first time, we got to hear from the aunt and uncle who took in the kids. For all the demonisation of this couple in the media and by politicians, they were clearly loving, level-headed parents and caregivers.

When the four tamariki were removed from an unsafe environment with their mother, OT failed to identify that the children’s aunt and uncle, who were estranged from their parents, were themselves OT fosterers and had worked for them. The kids should have gone to them.

Instead, the children were placed with another family for three years, before the fault was righted and they were returned to their whānau. Now, living with their aunt and uncle and cousins, they are thriving with their whānau – reconnecting to te reo and kapa haka.

Children’s Minister Karen Chhour has attempted to paint this as a race issue and as something to do with section 7AA of the Act. No. It was a mistake on OT’s part in not sending the kids to live with their whānau in the first place. An extraordinary mistake, given OT was already working with this family to help kids who needed it.

It was obviously distressing for the family who had taken the kids in. My heart goes out to them – they did nothing wrong, they displayed extraordinary aroha for these children and were made promises by OT that should never have been made.

And, yes, it was obviously unsettling for the kids to move from one home to another. But it was done gently and gradually with visits and temporary stays. While undoubtedly there was sorrow at leaving, who could deny the children are now where they should be?

Minister for Children Karen Chhour is a survivor of abuse, herself. Photo / Mark Mitchell

What’s the alternative? That the Government wouldn’t allow qualified, loving family members to raise these kids? That a mistake should be made permanent? The error was that the kids didn’t go to their aunt and uncle in the first place, not that they went to live with them eventually.

Chhour claims that it was because the foster family was Pākehā. Race doesn’t enter into it. It’s about having the kids with their family. It certainly has nothing to do with 7AA.

The belated correction of a mistake in the ‘reverse uplift’ case seems like a thin excuse to pursue the Government’s real agenda – the removal of references to the Treaty from legislation.

Now, I don’t want to have a go at Chhour. She’s a survivor of abuse, herself.

But I would like her to reflect on the impassioned speech she gave at the release of the report by the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuse in State Care. Having lived that hell herself, she should be devoting every moment to ensuring it does not happen again. That would be an incredible legacy for her time in Parliament.

Instead, she is focusing on repealing 7AA, launching boot camps that we know will be expensive failures, and cutting spending on care providers. There has been no action so far on implementing the Royal Commission’s recommendations for new protections to prevent it happening in the future.

I don’t think Chhour is driving this. In fact, she reportedly told an abuse survivor that she is “not happy with some of the decisions she was having to make”. It seems to me that this is an agenda that’s coming from David Seymour’s attack on Te Tiriti, not from Chhour herself.

It’s time that Chhour took ownership of her actions and decided how she wants to be remembered.

Does she want to be the one who undermined OT carers, alienated Māori tamariki from their whakapapa, and used child welfare as another angle in Seymour’s wannabe culture war?

Or will she be the one who made sure the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuse in State Care actually means something and enact the changes it recommends?