October 22, 2020
Name changes but attacks on whanau Maori continue
The president of the Māori Women’s Welfare League says problems with child protection systems go back long before Oranga Tamariki and pose fundamental questions abut the way the state interacts with Māori and their children.
Prue Kapua has been giving evidence this week into the Waitangi Tribunal inquiry into Oranga Tamariki.
She says whether it was called the child welfare division of the Education Department, the Department of Social Welfare, the department of social welfare, Child, Youth and Family or Oranga Tamariki, the system hasn’t changed.
"We have had the same problems, the same issues, the same judgments made, the same decisions, the same inability to trust us on the ground to be able to provide the kind of support our whānau and tamariki need. Unless we change that, under whatever name, we are going to have this continuing," Ms Kapua says.
She is looking for recommendations that it is not appropriate for crown agencies to have so much power.
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