Planned legislation to dismantle the Office of the Children’s Commissioner and replace it with a board has drawn criticism from the Mental Health and Wellbeing Commission, which says the bill doesn't reflect the people who matter most; children and young people, especially those in state care.
The oversight of the Oranga Tamariki System and Children and Young People's Commission Bill also plans to set up a new monitor of Oranga Tamariki within the Education Review Office (ERO).
The Mental Health and Wellbeing Commission gave its oral submission on Friday. Dr Filipo Katavake-McGrath, the commission's director of wellbeing system leadership insights, says he has some concerns for the bill, including Te Tiriti being foundational to it.
“We’ve gone for far too long with a system that doesn’t work, so we are advocating for legislation and a system that has a partnership with Māori, with whānau, with hapū, with iwi right at its core.
“While tamariki Māori might be a quarter of the child population of Aotearoa, they are 69% of the people who are in state care. So there is a risk that, if you’re not setting up the system around the same way that the people think, live and conceptualise, there is always going to be that risk that greater harm could be done over a longer period.”
With the bill, the largest concern that Dr Filipo has is that there is space for a Māori advisory group, which he says is “not shared partnership”.
Where do Māori fit in?
“There’s no place in the legislation for iwi, for hapū, for whānau, to be central to the decision making of what needs to be counted, what objectives, what outcomes need to be defined and measured. Having a Māori advisory group doesn’t go anywhere near that.”
Filipo says there are many motivations for change in the legislation, some of which include the Waitangi Tribunal urgent inquiry into Oranga Tamariki, which had come up with significant recommendations for“Māori charting our own pathway”.
“They’ve taken a hard look at redressed processes at abuse in state care. This is the very issue that this Bill is supposed to prevent.”
Filipo is also concerned about the proposed independent monitor under the ERO.
“We are concerned that the independence is undermined by being situated within a government department.
“It was interesting because we, as an organisation, are established by our own legislation. We are an independent Crown entity, we do both advocacy and monitoring of the mental health and wellbeing systems.
“When we provided our oral submission last Friday, the MPs were surprised that this discussion was even being had because we are obviously a model that shows it can be done.”
“We’ve come out of a period where watchdog agencies had named people doing what came in towards them, where they sat above an organisation. Then you’ve got other organisations where you’ve got named people who are the general managers of an organisation, whereas we are a board plus an organisation.
“The benefit of that is that you’ve got a group of people who are all responsible for that advocacy and monitoring, so it doesn’t fall to one person; you can get a diversity of people around the table.
“When you’ve got an entity where your structures have more than one person, you are able to bring the diversity, those viewpoints, those experiences, right to the centre of the work that you do to keep systems honest.”