Of course Oranga Tamariki failed. It will fail us again
The latest harrowing report into how so many state agencies failed to ensure Malachi Subecz’s well being is another report to add to the many, many others that expose child welfare failure.
Malachi was entrusted by his imprisoned mother to a friend who then killed him and it seems multiple welfare agencies simply stood around and monitored this abuse without intervening.
Oranga Tamariki like CYFs before it and like CYPFA before that and like CYPS before that and like the Department of Social Welfare before that and like the Child Welfare Division of the Department of Education before that, have all failed our young people.
And every version of a State Department charged with looking after the children society throws away will continue to fail us because we have relentlessly underfunded these services with the necessary checks and balances required for protecting vulnerable children.
We refuse point blank to raise taxes on the richest and wealthiest to properly fund child protection services.
Even when a liberal Government like Labour take power, Treasury still attacks the extra funding to Oranga Tamariki as loose and without clear justification for dollars spent.
For Treasury, ensuring desperate children are safe, warm, fed, loved and not abused is an unnecessary cost on the State that needs extra scrutiny.
We have a dreadful history of abuse while in State care, and that abuse occurs because of a deeply underfunded social welfare environment. Until we make funding them via higher taxes on the rich a priority, we will continue to get reports about children like Malachi Subecz.
Martyn Bradbury
Editor – TheDailyBlog.nz
twitter.com/CitizenBomber
Radio Waatea and its board would like to advise that the opinions expressed in this article are those of Martyn ‘Bomber Bradbury’ and not necessarily the views of Radio Waatea, its Management or its Board.
