March 01, 2022
Child abuse bill flawed
The Children’s Commissioner is unhappy about a Bill that will do away with her position.
Judge Francis Eivers says the Oversight of Oranga Tamariki System and Children and Young People’s Commission Bill splits the monitoring and advocacy functions now done by the commissioner – which she says are complementary roles.
It also replaces the single commissioner with a six-person commission.
“The independent children’s monitor, which has been set up to have a deeper dive into Oranga Tamariki’s processes and system, a great thing that is, is not independent of government and it needs to be independent if we are going to have faith and trust in the system and if we are going to have real outcomes,” Judge Eivers says.
She says it’s critical to get the system right, because at the moment The United Nations children’s agency UNICEF ranks New Zealand 35th of 41 developed countries for child wellbeing, with a child dying every five weeks as a result of family violence.