New Zealand has made no significant improvement to children’s safety since the high-profile death of Malachi Subecz in 2021, a new review has found.
Another 24 children were killed by their caregivers between December 2021 and June 2025, according to the Independent Children’s Monitor (ICM).
Most of the children were under the age of 5 and many were babies, and most perpetrators were known to police, the review by the independent Crown entity revealed today.
Oranga Tamariki was aware of half of those children before their deaths because someone had made one or more reports of concern about them.
This is ICM’s second review into what has been done about recommendations from the former director general of health following Malachi’s death.
The review looked into the progress made by agencies to improve child safety and found Oranga Tamariki lacked the resources to properly respond to reports of concern.
“Tamariki are still no safer now than when Malachi died,” the report read.
In 2021, 5-year-old Malachi Rain Subecz was tortured and murdered by his caregiver Michaela Barriball, who is serving a life sentence with a minimum non-parole period of 17 years.
Malachi’s sole parent was his mother, Jasmine Cotter, who was jailed in June 2021 for importing drugs and signed over guardianship of her son to her friend at the time, Barriball.
His death became one of New Zealand’s most high-profile child murders and prompted multiple inquiries and reviews.
The six government agencies that were in contact with Malachi, Barriball and Cotter all conducted practice reviews.
These agencies were the New Zealand Police, the Department of Corrections, Oranga Tamariki, the Ministry of Social Development, the Ministry of Education and the Ministry of Health.
In 2022, the agencies jointly commissioned a review of the children’s sector from the former director general of health, the late Dame Karen Poutasi.
Poutasi’s review found children continued to fall through gaps of the safety net designed to protect them.
She made 14 recommendations for improving child safety and last year the Government accepted all of them.
As of 2026, only two of those recommendations had been implemented.
“Our review also found that even if everything Dame Karen said was needed to close the gaps is done, we are not confident that Oranga Tamariki will be able to respond appropriately,” Independent Children’s Monitor chief executive Arran Jones said.
While the number of reports being made to Oranga Tamariki were increasing, the number of reports local offices took action on had not risen and remained at 40,000 across nine years.
Jones said people had to make multiple reports to Oranga Tamariki before action was taken.
Meanwhile, Oranga Tamariki staff were concerned about being unable to physically visit children because of limited resources, he said.
The review found some Oranga Tamariki offices took no action on more than half of the reports passed on to them from the national contact centre, despite those reports being considered serious enough to warrant a response.
The coroner’s findings on Malachi’s death were released last week, which also included recommendations for changes in Oranga Tamariki’s practices.
The ICM also found most other Government agencies were making reports of concern to Oranga Tamariki and had “put some training in place for staff in lieu of Oranga Tamariki providing this”.
Chief Ombudsman John Allen said the review’s findings raised the need for “cross-agency collaboration, for health, education, welfare and justice, to keep working together for a better care and protection system”.
“This is the type of shift that Dame Poutasi was calling for.”
Children’s Commissioner Claire Achmad announced in today’s press conference that she would be sending a letter to all MPs, urging them to create meaningful cross-party collaboration to improve resourcing for the child protection system.
“I will also make a call-to-action to MPs to lift their game when it comes to listening to children and young people who are in this system,” she said.
Better resourcing could help alleviate the pressure Oranga Tamariki is under and assist in growing the agency’s workforce, Achmad said.
“New Zealand has a problem when it comes to child abuse.
“Clearly the system is under strain and it must be better resourced, including through Budget 2026.”
Minister for Children Karen Chhour acknowledged the ICM’s report and said she had first-hand experience of “being let down by the children’s system”.
“We are seeking to turn around generations of failures to protect our children, that will not happen overnight.”
Chhour said while more work needed to be done in this area, recent Oranga Tamariki data showed the “safety net is becoming stronger”.
“I am particularly proud of the progress towards working more closely with community, with our strategic partners, iwi and hapū, and with communities themselves.”
She called on all New Zealanders to speak up when a child might be in danger and “work together to address this national shame”.
“I am committed to fixing our children’s system. To achieve this the state must work better with community and within itself.”
If you are worried about the safety or wellbeing of a child, contact Oranga Tamariki by calling 0508 326 459.
If you think a child is in immediate danger, call 111.
Janhavi Gosavi is a Wellington-based journalist for the New Zealand Herald who covers news in the capital.