May 08, 2024
Oranga Tamariki job cuts silence Māori voices
A veteran social worker says cutting specialist Māori roles at Oranga Tamariki is an attack on vulnerable tamariki and strips the agency of the ability to address harm in real time.
Paora Crawford Moyle says the shape of the cuts – which includes 632 roles and 447 jobs – reflects a white supremacist Government.
She says some of those roles had been set up in response to the baby uplift scandal and were aimed at giving whanau and the young people a voice within the system.
“They’re removing particularly the unit where children, our children and their families can go and say ‘I’m getting a raw deal here as a result of being having to navigate Oranga Tamariki.’ Our babies have got nowhere to go. That is negligence,” she says.
Ms Crawford Moyle says removing section 7AA which requires Oranga Tamariki to report on its Treaty of Waitangi compliance will make it much harder for truth to come to the fore.