Green manifesto for children ranks real safety below cultural safety

Responding to the Green Party’s “Open Letter to the Minister of Children”, ACT Children’s spokesperson Karen Chhour says:

“The Green Party’s new manifesto for children is revealing. In their list of seven duties of care, they relegate child protection to fifth.

“Meanwhile, they’ve put ‘whānau and whakapapa must be centred’ first on their list. They clearly do not understand, or care, that many young people’s trauma is from their whānau.

“This focus on ‘cultural safety’ over physical safety is typical of the Greens, and sadly it’s an ideology that crept into Oranga Tamariki under the previous Government. That’s part of the mess I’ve been left to clean up as Minister.

“When Oranga Tamariki behaved as the Greens advocate, children were removed from safe and loving caregivers because the agency believed only Māori carers could provide for their cultural needs.

“A high court judge recently labelled this practice as “egregious” and ordered Oranga Tamariki to pay costs estimated at $108,000. Under the Greens, bills like this would skyrocket.

“The Greens’ letter fails to acknowledge the significant improvements that have been made by Oranga Tamariki under this government:

• The size of the Oranga Tamariki social worker workforce has increased, and a further $41 million has been put towards their professionalisation in Budget 25 alone.

• Caregivers are receiving greater support, training, and have played a key role in developing the latest caregiver strategy.

• The percentage of children in care who have been visited by their social worker within the target time to ensure their ongoing safety and wellbeing is up significantly.

• Young people in Oranga Tamariki care with a current caregiver support plan that sets out the actions that will be taken to meet caregiver needs, to enable them to provide quality care, has improved.

“While politics may be a contest of ideas, all of us across the House should put the care and protection of children and young people above petty point scoring. It’s sad to see the Greens failed this moral test.

“The Greens have told the media I won’t meet with them to discuss these issues. The truth is they never reached out. Their dishonesty does no child or family any good.

“My entire reason for entering politics was to ensure that another generation of children wasn’t failed by the system as I was, and I remain committed to putting the needs of young people above all else.”