Information sharing step to safer tamariki

Peter Verschaffelt Rawiri Waititi | Information sharing step to safer tamariki

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Māori Party co-leader Rawiri Waititi wants immediate action on a call for mandatory sharing across government agencies of information about suspected child abuse.

The recommendation is included in a report by Dame Karen Poutasi on the murder of five-year-old Malachi Subecz by his caregiver.

She found negligence and a series of failures across six agencies, with a refusal to share information meaning red flags were missed.

Mr Waititi says it shows that despite efforts to fix Oranga Tamariki, the whole child protection system is still broken.

“This is absolutely about the orange of our tamariki. Yes, whanau ora was about killing off the ability for those agencies to be acting in silos and to be continuously failing our tamariki. No baby should be dying at the hands of any of those government agencies, and once again it has failed,” he says.

Rawiri Waititi says the money for caring for tamariki should go to Whanau Ora rather than Oranga Tamariki.

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