As the Government purposely gag accountability at Oranga Tamariki by removing the oversight of the Children’s Commissioner in a move designed to hide State abuse so MSD staff have protection for the underfunded culture of abuse, Minister Sepuloni is touring Europe on a junket!
What will she tell them in Europe?
That when the State abuses people and uses nefarious tactics to hide their abuse, reduce oversight while pretending it is for the victims?
Is that what Minister will tell our European democratic Whānau?
Will she be telling them that in 5 years Labour cut 4000 disabled people off welfare?
Will she be telling them that there are now 26,664 waiting on emergency housing?
Will she be telling them that we now spend a million per day on emergency motel housing that traps desperate people in desperate situations?
Will she be telling them that there are more children living in cars now than when they entered power?
Will she be telling them there are more homeless in cars than there were when Labour entered power?
Will she be telling them 33% of kids in State care are so abused by the process they end up more damaged than they did going in and go on to commit crime?
Carmel fiddles in Europe while OT burns.
Let’s be very clear why Labour are bewilderingly amputating the Children’s Commissioners oversight of Oranga Tamariki by folding it into ERO (Education Review Office).
It’s because Labour are cowards when it comes to taking on the Wellington Bureaucracy!
As The Daily Blog has been pointing out for months since this was mooted, the State want the Children’s Commissioner amputated from oversight because it’s currently juggling the horrific Abuse in State Care inquiry which is highlighting the despicable tactics MSD used to discredit those they abused.
The sheer scope and scale of abuse by the State must be urgently smothered in an ocean of faceless bureaucracy so no one who was responsible in making these decisions can ever be held accountable.
Oranga Tamariki is a neoliberal experiment in welfare who justify their expense by arguing early intervention saves the State downstream costs so using Big Data algorithms can predict which troubled child will cost us more.
This has NEVER been about the welfare of the vulnerable kid, it’s always been about the welfare of the State’s wallet!
Recently, once the new Government made it clear that uplifting Māori children was no longer acceptable, Oranga Tamariki cravenly embarked upon reverse uplifting Māori children settled with Pakeha families because their are ‘culturally unsafe’. This sudden tide change in uplifting was driven not by any real danger to those children, but by a Bureaucracy attempting to pander to the Government of the day!
To ensure their arses are covered, the Wellington Bureaucracy want oversight removed from the Children’s Commissioner, because they are actually independent, and hidden inside the Education Review Office, the same Education Review Office that didn’t note all that sexual abuse at Dilworth over the decades they were reviewing Dilworth.
This is an arse covering exercise by the Wellington Bureaucracy over the most vulnerable children and Labour are letting the Wellington Bureaucracy get away with it because Labour are terrified of the Unions and power represented by that Wellington Bureaucracy.
Award winning investigative journalist Aaron Smale makes the case…
My guess, and it’s only a guess, is that the Oranga Tamariki Oversight Bill was just being rammed through Parliament. Without digging into the detail (see here if you’re interested), the bill has been slammed by more than 400 submissions, many of them from people and organisations with decades of experience in child protection and advocacy. Many of those, like the submission from VOYCE, are put together by people who were wards of the state as children. Every political party except Labour has come out against it. The government is carrying on anyway.
From previous reporting I’ve done it appears to me that the Labour politicians have been captured by bureaucrats – there has been advice proffered by both the Public Service Commission and MSD. And Hughes was previously the head of MSD and is now the boss at Public Service Commission. The redress scheme that came under heavy criticism at the Royal Commission was set up under his watch.
A number of people have pointed out the law does very little to protect children but it will protect the institutions that have been failing for so long.
While it was fast-tracked despite opposition, there are calls from the Royal Commission on Abuse in Care to implement legislative changes that would have far more teeth. Those calls are also being ignored by the Government.
…meanwhile vulnerable children are being hurt right now by a system that refers to them as ‘clients’.
This whole stinking neoliberal experiment in Welfare should be smashed to bits by Labour, not fucking protected or enabled!
Jesus wept comrades, if it was National pulling this shit, we would be screaming in rage, but because it’s our team in charge, suddenly everyone else on the Left are pulling their punches?
That’s why the Wellington Bureaucracy have been so keen to pressure TDB, and that’s why TDB will never go silent.
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My tears are all dried up. Arms limp from boxing at shadows. Tired I am not. Let me at em.
Agreed in entirety. But then there are the ‘parents’ of these vulnerable parents, who have abused and/or neglected their kids, and abandoned them to our tawdry Byzantine bureaucracy in the first place. What to do about them? Everything else is a lifetime band-aids until we get to the nub of the matter – the ‘parents’. (I use inverted commas deliberately as many of them, seem to be parents in name only).
sorry – should read “the ‘parents’ of these vulnerable KIDS…”
Actually you were right the first time Jason. These inter-generational faults should have been tackled before they festered and became this mighty sore. I have been repeating ad infinitum that the parents should be being helped, worked with, have parenting courses connected to receiving a family benefit for each child. Carrot more than stick. At present they are forced out to work at any old thing, bringing up children isn’t important to the middle-class, they can choose to get out of passing on values to their youngsters by sending them to boarding schools, contracting out. The low income are left to struggle along trying to cope amidst falling living conditions and values, and government unwillingness to do the work of nation building.
It’s all comic book stuff for them, fun arguments in parliament and grandpa ducks diving into their bags of gold. What do they care if people are at their wits end. It’s just the cost of doing business in a neolib-freemarket economic system. Like Nazis they repeat ‘Work will set you free’.
And yet, what we see here is that State Care are worse then the parents the kids were uplifted from. Go figure. Maybe all the parents needed was enough money to rent/pay bills and eat all in the same week.
Another hopeless Human Being (Sepuloni) who Labour has promoted to its imagine as an diverse party, doing nasty things with a smile…roll of the 2023 election
Nathan. Spot on re “ diversity”. A biggish Tongan woman as Min of Social Welfare and a mute Maori male as Minister for Children, simply endorses the assumed superiority of indigenous people, shuts up critics, and does little for the littlies who are most in need of protecting.
As opposed to the incredibly white Peter Hughes who has overseen the MSD and PSC, and was seemingly unaware ( ie bullshitting) that his team were employing sleuths to try and dig up dirt on people, who were abused, that dared to take action against the state?
I don’t think their ethnicity has anything to do with this.
Wheel. It’s possible that Peter Hughes didn’t know what some WINZ tyrants were up to. It’s a huge department which sometimes also treats its own staff badly, not just its clients. In about 2006- 2008 the Wellington call centre was timing its workers in the loo; two I know of were asked to explain why they took so long – one was S R who told me more than I wanted to hear about her abdominal issues. This was under a Micronesian f service manager. Another part Tokeloan f service manager with a bullying reputation required staff to provide her with the medical details for pre-scheduled medical appointments; one was asked for a letter from a specialist at Wakefield Hospital stating what procedure she was having performed; I think it was a colonoscopy. I urged her not to, and spoke with that SM who said that this information was for her “personal files”. A GP from Naenae in Lower Hutt had the good sense to refuse to provide a similar sort of letter fairly recently, about the future health prognosis for an older woman; that was a young white male sm who is possibly still doing it. Even when staff know that managers are behaving badly, they obey because they need to keep their jobs. A detailed letter I wrote to Hughes as CE at MSD was answered reasonably pleasantly by somebody else, but heads of big organisations don’t always know what their underlings are up to, and underlings can be tricky and dishonest themselves.
Children with Oranga Tamariki, are, in a manner of speaking, unwanted children, and that is why Sepuloni and co are getting away with this. Her mum had a track record of benefit swindle, and hitting hard on beneficiaries could be some sort of transference from her own family issues, and her job could perhaps be better done by somebody else.
Fuck ’em. Ram raids on all their houses.
I can’t wait for the near future in which children who were ‘affirmed’ by teachers, social workers, doctors, etc into the other sex wake up and realize they have been castrated, sterilized without any one daring to try a different approach in the state mandated and legislated ‘affirmation only’ process lest they get arrested or have the children uplifted (see Australia/Canada/US). When that happens i guess you don’t want anyone being independent enough to point to KereKere, Russel, Ardern and all the other woksters for being part of that woo woo science fetishist that heaped lifelong medical misery upon gender non conform/gay/neurodiverse children.
But for once i agree with you, if this were N the usual suspects would by now have heads exploded. But strangely they can’t find a single thing to find fault with when it is Labour that does that shit. Maybe they are not left but just a ‘team player’ who wants to win at all cost.
bratty the ‘libertarian’ view on gender dysphoria is????
interested to hear because I as a lefty think drugging and mutilating children is wrong, adults go foir gold do what you want
surely the freedumb position should be we are all free agents if you want surgery (and can afford it) crack on.
Pretty much do what you want once you are of age and mind to consent, and so long as it is legal and does not harm other people.
Force people to supply their children to an agenda driven by ‘affirmation’ only can only lead to disaster. In the UK the Tavistock Clinic is closing for all sorts of reasons, and small noises being made in the US that maybe maybe we should not offer the children up to medicalization and permanent body modifications inclusive loss of sexual and reproduction function, and the number of detransitioners is raising. Male and Female. And all with various bits n pieces missing or damaged.
But as with all these things – Thalidomide in Germany comes to mind – it will take a few years for the broken bodies to accumulate before the issue will inevitably become a problem. And that is then when no one was responsible and everyone was just following ‘orders’ err best practice. And another government may or may not offer an apology to all those that were harmed.
As for children with dysphoria or dysmorphia my approach would be to wait, watch, lots of therapy, lots of considerations such as are they gay and have issues? are they neuro diverse adn thus have issues? have they got some trauma and thus have issues? So many reasons why someone might not want to present according to sex stereotypes, and so many reasons have nothing at all to do with the body dysphoria/dysmorphia that will lead to a ‘transition’, and in many cases will / are outgrown. Once the children are of age and are in full capacity mentally to make /take these life chancing decisions such as surgery/hrt etc these further steps should be provided with the full information to the long term issues and the restrictions that will come with permanent body modification.
And then the state don’t has to worry about being held legally responsible for accidentally transing kids that are coming later to the conclusion that they are not trans nor ever were.
Reactionary Bratwurst. The Tavistock Clinic, pioneer of gender identity engineering, is facing legal actions, including from former child clients.
Lol at typical alt-right Christian hysterical transphobic nonsense.
sophora what precisely is transphobic about my post? what do you actually object to…actual real criticism rather than a blanket ‘transphobic’ designed frankly to avoid debate
Not directed at you, but Bratwurst. 🙂
fair enough soph my bad.
That one liner is worthy of social media. Don’t hesitate to transfer your passing throughts to there will you Sophora.
Thanks, GW! xx
This vain-glorious woman who seems to allot more time to choosing big earrings than being concerned about children, and who, for some inexplicable reason, wears party frocks to Parliament, will be hoping that there is no hell, because if there is, then that’s where she’s headed.
Labour’s axing of the Commissioner for Children, should ensure the axing of Labour. Labour’s Minister for Children, Davis, should to be told, “ What you did for the least of my children, you did unto me.” Go home, Kelvin Davis, and be grateful you’ve got a home to go to, you’re not wanted any more.
Kelvin Davis is a failed politician having made a mess of everything he’s been associated with.
Kelvin Who?
You’re not channeling the ghost of Joan Rivers by any chance? Earrings, summer frocks? Sepuloni certainly has a lot to answer for but fashion faux pas?
Agree 100%
We have kids being found dead in drums and suitcases and NZ kids in state care, tortured with electric shocks to their genitals while not prosecuting the people that did.
When will they learn that the cover ups to this type of behaviour and lack of solid investigation , is what makes the state more guilty and does as much damage as the deaths and torture themselves!
Placements and lack of oversight of vulnerable children by the state seems to be getting worse https://www.9news.com.au/world/how-did-four-year-old-malachi-leave-court-with-his-killer/a8ebd658-f2d4-442e-be79-6df66d7ac1fc
How jealous lies sent a teenage boy to prison for rape he didn’t commit
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/how-jealous-lies-sent-a-teenage-boy-to-prison-for-rape-he-didnt-commit/CUI5EFPR7FCILMGEL76DVW7MLQ/
Dimetrius Pairama remembered as a ‘bubbly’ girl who loved to sing
https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/crime/115998022/dimetrius-pairama-remembered-as-a-bubbly-girl-who-loved-to-sing
‘It never goes away’: New Zealand survivors of abuse in care hope testimony will herald change
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/may/11/it-never-goes-away-new-zealand-survivors-of-abuse-in-care-hope-testimony-will-herald-change
All very well having justice hearings to expose what happened in these cases but where is the real change so that it doesn’t keep happening.?
It sounds like change is coming it sounds like the opposite, less transparency of state so that justice is a long time coming and abusers get away with it by being able to cover it up and be supported by the state as we have seen in many cases.
Lying and misrepresentation by OT to courts and undermining judges that take that seriously, is part of the problem. https://thedailyblog.co.nz/2022/05/17/oranga-tamariki-critical-race-theory-dogma-in-reverse-uplift-trauma-highlights-perverse-ideological-outcomes/
Good on you, mate! Great post.
With out a doubt saveNZ.
“With out”?
Bert you are one sorry pathetic soul. Waiting for typos to pick on. Fuck sake. How about showing some balls for a change and outraging at Jacinda and her sorry ass govt to let this sort of shit happen. Go on, surprise us.
He’s not capable SK but let’s forgive him.
Wonder if Gaurav got anything on Carmel, tidbits, goss,…peccadilloes. Anything Sharm?
Ethan woke. I’ve been wondering what Mallard has on Arden and Robertson to score a job which he’s patently unsuited for.
There is one thing out there which is more public knowledge than speculation, is that Carmel’s stormtroopers will literally raid the lives of beneficiaries if someone dobs them in about a dole overpayment, but if someone in Carmel’s government makes a complaint about one of their own then the stormtroopers will move heaven and earth to do nothing about it.
Sorry Bomber they aren’t my team or any of the destitute people they solicit votes from every three years then turn their back for three years.
” This has NEVER been about the welfare of the vulnerable kid, it’s always been about the welfare of the State’s wallet!
Yes pretty much sums up how this country operates. If it doesn’t make money then it just won’t get done.
Not all children in care are the outcome of hopeless parents. My children’s father died young of an horrific medical condition. Fortunately, I lived long enough to see them through to adulthood. When grandchildren arrived, their parents set up guardians to care for them, should tragedy also strike them along the way. When my first child was born, my late husband and I lodged a document specifically excluding certain whanau, megalomaniac religious nutters, from having any input into the welfare of our children. Fortunately, that never came about either.
The very sad case of two little Korean children found in suitcases, appears to be linked to the fairly recent death of their own father, and a bereft young mother left alone in another country. Being a single parent is hard. I found it hard.
The modern nuclear family often lacks supportive family networks, hence the importance of agencies like Oranga Tamariki acting in lieu of parents, prioritising the well-being of the children, with the same sort of “ excellence” which government spouts about extremist speech and other pc meanderings.
That this country with its dark underbelly of violence should axe its Commissioner for Children beggars belief – and sends a dreadful message to all of our children, all of whom matter.
Shades of the Muslim shooting aftermath. Young mothers, parents left without a clear pathway for managing their lives and a hypocrisy by government about feeling sorry but with the western present anti-societal approach of putting an economic fix when there was heart needed. So women with dead husbands being expected to go to work in a strange country, unfamiliar language, often without family networks .
Grey Warbler. I don’t really want to get into this, but I know enough to know that the young Korean mother, a stranger in a strange country, coping with the loss of her husband from cancer, may well have been crippled with grief.
There are some losses which one never really recover from, in spite of what the death-and-dying gurus say. Caring for two small children suffering from the loss of their father, could have been unimaginably difficult. My young son navigated adolescence without a father or father figure. My eldest child contacted an uncle suggesting he show an interest. Uncle said if he was depressed he should see a counsellor. Affluent white whanau, where the loss of a shoe or jacket isn’t a financial challenge, nor interferes with skiing holidays.
Elsewhere I knew a kind woman whose family think lost her mind after the loss of a child in her care. The lady died young. Korean women are quite culturally different from our lot, and like the Muslim widows who you mention, the impact of a catastrophic life and death shock is an unknown to outsiders, and it is not for others to judge or generalise about. Sadly, a good hospital social worker may have been able to help in a scenario like this one, but that’s another unknown.
The government just announced plans to bring thousands more foreigners into the country as cheap labour (and probably residency pathway), but what we don’t need here is more homicidal maniacs who can just stuff their kids in a storage shed like some disused furniture and casually fuck off back to their own country. And today we read about one of New Zealand’s true creeps, lawyer Tony Ellis, who is terribly concerned about the welfare of another South Korean, a homicidal maniac who fled to our country after they killed another human being, and who Ellis and Mahuta say will suffer at the hands of China if deported. These people are truly sick, playing politics with innocent lives, using our country as an insane asylum, and fighting for the privileges and emotions of murderers. This is what they do for a living, this is who they are.
Cripes Jody. It used to be that we were to look for Reds under our Beds – now it’s Homicidal Maniacs. I think that the very high emotion that comes from people who have found a recipient to pour out all their negative emotions on. It is easier to pick one type of person for the target. It is much harder when one looks at the wider world nad sees the liquefaction of so much that used to be held dear. You are not helping in our fight to hold onto a moral culture and principles that go with it, when you turn on Tony Ellis. One barrister killed himself probably from facing the sly, evil side of all our natures to often. Learn about projection in psychology and then get a bit humble.
After doing a review on poverty that returned 24 recommendations Labour hasnt started any of which, the medicinal cannabis scheme they handed to corporations to control and reviews into electricity and petrol and then this supermarket debarcle on top, I dont really know who Labour is trying to represent.
We all thought they were left wing…..
I wrote to her once when she became the new Disability Issues minister, What a waste of time that was.
The letter I got back regurgitated every failed attempt I had made in the past trying to get help as if that regurgitation was helping me.
The only help I have ever gotten was from the Lotteries Commission and Internal Affairs in helping me get a bloody wheelchair because I could never meet the criterias of exclusion from the Ministry of Health.
This country is shocking in how it treats disabled people.
After the BS that was the medicinal cannabis scheme where now we still cant afford the medicines Im convinced voting for these arseholes just isnt worth my time, they simply dont want to help.