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The president of the Māori Women's Welfare League says the league has been fighting the taking of Māori babies and children for more than 60 years, and it is still not being listened to.
A Newsroom investigation of New Zealand's stolen generations has revealed more about a recent incident where Oranga Tamariki tried to seize a baby from Hawke's Bay Hospital.
On average three Māori babies are being taken into care each week.
Prue Kapua says that should not be happening.
She says league has long argued that responsibility for providing support to whānau needs to go back to the community rather than all decisions about people's lives being made by a government agency.
"We don't want tamariki in an unsafe environment. What we want is to put the support around whānau so it will only be in the most extreme of cases that you don't have a child living within their whānau and even then, if they are taken out, we are working on ways and means of it being a temporary situation," Ms Kapua says.
The fact Oranga Tamariki uses the police to support uplifts as in the Hawke's Bay case shows a complete lack of trust between the agency and the whānau it's supposed to be supporting.
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