This is the most outrageous capitulation to the Wellington Bureaucracy and Carmel Sepuloni should be sacked immediately!
As TDB has been arguing for sometime, this decision to amputate the Children’s Commissioner from oversight on OT has been driven by a despicable pubic service desperate to cover up their abuse of children and it should be spat upon with the most toxic venom we have!
Children’s Commissioner Frances Eivers accuses select committee of ignoring advice
Children’s Commissioner Frances Eivers has slammed Parliament’s social services select committee for failing to reverse a bill effectively dismantling the position of Children’s Commissioner.
After the horror of the Royal Inquiry into historic state abuse, the Ministry of Social Development wants to remove the Children’s Commissioner as oversight of Oranga Tamariki and instead roll such monitoring into the Education Review Office.
In the decades that ERO was monitoring Dilworth, they never picked up that some of the teachers were molesting their students so critics are concerned that a state agency with the power to take children from parents will have less oversight is deeply concerning. Surely Oranga Tamariki requires more oversight, not less?
MSD in the 2000s oversaw obscene tactics that included hiring private detectives to dig dirt on victims who were complaining about being abused in state care in a Test case that if MSD had lost would have cost the State untold in damages. State Services is now recommending any abuse inside Oranga Tamariki is now monitored out of the Education Review Office who have no skill in this area!
Why is the state allowing itself to cover up ongoing abuse?
Oranga Tamariki is a Frankenstein monster, a neoliberal welfare experiment conjured up by Bill English and big data.
The argument is that children from backgrounds with specific features were the worst in terms of cost to the state, so if the state stepped in and removed the children quickly enough, that cost will fall.
To do this they passed law reducing the legal rights of parents, streamlined their 0800 numbers and weaponised uplifts.
They also ensured that people with children taken from them are ineligible for legal aid so they couldn’t fight back legally.
Oranga Tamariki has always been about saving the State money and the welfare of the child is secondary to that isn’t it?
Carmel Sepuloni has merely rubber stamped this attempt to future proof the state from holding abusers to account, and Jacinda should sack her as Minister!
These Labour MPs are nothing but gutless quislings for the Wellington Bureaucracy!
Fucking disgraceful!
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Martyn, I feel that you have answered your own question.
“These Labour MPs are nothing but gutless quislings for the Wellington Bureaucracy”
Nothing will be done.
The broken system will continue to ruin another generation.
The PMC types that run the country will continue to serve their vested intrests.
The poor will be dominated, shackled with inequitable debt and mistreated.
The rentier class will be further enriched, the working class will carry the cost.
The Left will preside over as much misery as the Right, then the Right will further deconstruct the state.
Agree your comments regarding further deconstruction of the state under the Right, that is a given.
The state as it stands needs to be deconstructed. Starting with getting rid of all ministries that are of no use, then all PR staff and bludgers, then all the consultants, then all those having power and money shoveled their way via ‘family’ connections. It’ll be fun watching Seymour in action. We can’t buy first homes, can’t get home loans, struggle to fill up the tank, go out less if at all, never mind afford anice holiday – but your beloved, adored, St Jacinda and her Govt waste our money like no other govt ever before.
Well that was a tantrum. And your lot crippled health, education by cutting costs, no wonder they left the country in droves because of your faux knight, who ffs was only doing a job that many others who served their country for 20 to 30 years plus recieve nothing. Your ideals are pathetic.
‘the state’ as it was has already deconstructed itself, that’s the problem.
Utter rubbish, Unjust Kraut. If you believe that Seymour’s policies will help the poor and reduce inequality in any way at all, I have a nice big harbour bridge that I can sell you.
(Add-on extras possible, too!)
You believed Labours policies would help the poor and reduce inequality.
How did that work out?
It worked out just fine, increase in financial support.
Problem is there are more now because of an unchecked National immigration policy, “here lets stimulate the economy and promote immigration”.
Now we ended up here, having more struggling than just a few but it’s okay because Molloy is going to cleanse Auckland and take the “filth” off the streets. That’s how you to do it!
Bert I admire your loyalty to Labour but when they are plainly wrong it needs to be pointed out by supporters like you . It is called tough love .
Trevor, your own loyalty shields you from balance, sorry to say.
Well said Left..I couldn’t agree more…
Agree your comments regarding Labour MPs.
light touch regulation works
Sack Sepuloni and Davis both. If Davis articulated about today’s children has forcibly as he did about yesterday’s ancestors, then he’d be doing a much better job.
Agree
Yes I also agree.
What has Davis ever done?
I think he’s probably a nice person but not effective as an MP.
He might be a bit bitter and twisted about his perceptions of history; that can handicap anybody. But Sepuloni’s colleagues should be backing her, and most importantly, the children’s interests against the interests of Oranga Tamariki staffers.
It could be helpful to know who the Select Committee people are, but Labour continuing Key’s tradition of ignoring qualified and expert opinion is generally unacceptable in the real world.
Sepuloni should have been reshuffled along with Faafoi more than 6 months ago.
I’ve always thought JA has a stubborn streak, while Sepuloni has a mean streak (and Faafoi only ever had shit streaks because he lost interest ages ago) – as loverly specimens they all may be.
It never ceases to amaze me how Labour’s intelligent beings still haven’t woken up to the Senior and upper muddle management ranks of the bureaucracy. I’m constantly reminded of that old saying that’ll no doubt trigger quite a few: “Too many Chiefs and not enough Indians” – the Chiefs studying the latest management theory and looking for LinkedIn underling recommendations’ greasing up the arses of their responsible Munsters for the purpose of capture, and promoting the idea they’re both impartial and indispensable while actually being disposable, having their own agendas rather than public service,
Here’s bit one example: A specimen involved in the whole MIQ debacle (booking cistern et al) that’s now gone on to promise better service from ACC case management. Pigs will fly!!!! (because our spin meisters tell us it shall be so)
Another Job for Hipkins?
Is this not the problem of the Labour Party, they can fire and should, but there is no one to replace the fired ones. Empty of talent, empty of skills.
Martyn
Clearly Jacinda regards Sepuloni as one of her top performers. Otherwise she would having been shuffled. So we better respect that decision. Jacinda knows what she’s doing.
Perhaps PM Jacinda is going for a second tranche which will be snuffled. There are some good contenders for it.
Cabbage From time to time we agree. Sepuloni sabotaging the Commissioner for Children may be acting as decreed.
What has Carmel actually done in Government??
Carmel showcases big earrings, and occasionally unsuitable frocks. Surprised Joanna Kidman hasn’t hit on her.
Who’s going to look out for the pre-school aged children that might be under OT’s care. Those children won’t come under any ERO review……..
good point thomas
I forgot…THE PREVIOUS GOVT
You have to have a brain first to be able to forget coward, bahahahahaha!
I listened to Nick Drake this morning wininging Magic. His songs are sensitive and the music is ggreat.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8GNxvWWBmds
To – an unfeeling and basically inhuman government; politicians and administrators
Frim a young child who wouldn’t know how to express these telling feelings.
“Magic”
I was born to love no one
No one to love me
Only the wind in the long green grass
The frost in a broken tree.
I was made to love magic
All its wonder to know
But you all lost that magic
Many many years ago.
I was born to use my eyes
Dream with the sun and the skies
To float away in a lifelong song
In the mist where melody flies.
I was made to love magic…
I was born to sail away
Into a land of forever
Not to be tied to an old stone grave
In your land of never.
I was made to love magic…
Writer: Julia Fordham
https://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/nickdrake/magic.html
(On 25 November 1974, Drake died from an overdose of amitriptyline, a prescribed antidepressant; he was 26 years old. Whether his death was an accident or suicide has not been resolved.)
I put in some typos just to get people interested. That’s my excuse. I did mean to put ‘singing Magic’ Do you like the words, I thought this woman penned a poignant piece?
But “Oranga Tamariki” is a Maori term, so it must be good for Maori children and Maori families, right? And giving things the right name is far more important than making sure they actually accomplish anything beneficial — either to individuals or to society. But pardon me, my sarcasm is showing…
mjh
A song for all clairvoyants like you starts sweetly ‘I can see clearly now the rain has gone’. Well the rain seems persistent and we don’t have enough clairvoyants yet. We need more . How can we show Labour that we see through their mist and steam?
I sure as heck don’t know!! And why call me clairvoyant??
Why not mjh. It is a positive reference from me. But there are so many critics and putdowns on blogs these days that everything said is looked at suspiciously. Presently it seems that it takes super ability to see what should be plain to reasoning people. I think many people on this blog are, or are turning, clairvoyant, not so much supernatural but beyond the customary.
Meaning – clairvoyant
a person who claims to have a supernatural ability to perceive events in the future or beyond normal sensory contact.
Mjh “ Giving things the right name… is important “. Precisely. Chopping statues down and dumping English place names does not improve the quality of people’s lives or banish social ills. Nor does burning books.
The Wellington City Council proposes having Wellington a Te Reo city by 2040. This will not transform the town into some sort of nirvana or utopia or make existing problems magically disappear.
Yes that is what I was trying to say. I guess not very clearly. Renaming something so it sounds “progressive” or “inclusive” without making underlying changes in how things work is just window dressing.
the places where bi-ligualism has worked I’m thinking wales and quebec* has duel signage, subtitled media etc…you can’t help absorbing the language.
I used to watch maori tv til they dropped eng subs (best ANZAC day coverage), RNZs screeds of untranslated maori just irritate which I suspect is the intention
aside from anything else lack of translation is just rude.
proper definitions of conceptual maori words might help too if the intention is people use the language
*at the moment I’m watching a quebecois comedy drame with eng subs with no issue
I say that as a person from possibly the least multiple language competent country on the planet.
And yet Martyn you whine about the prospect of the National led government taking the blowtorch to the public service. For all their expansion, including Oranga Tamariki, what benefits has the public of New Zealand derived? Big fat zero.
Labour exists at the behest of the union movement. Sepolini is a teacher’s union hack so is basically unfireable
And National at tge behest at the Business Round Table, NZ Herald and the Federated Farmers, so your point is?
labour existed at the behest of the unions 40yrs ago, do please try to keep up with current events andrew
Your first line is such utter bollocks, and your second line is a lie. As a teacher unionist I helped a principal to go the right way about getting rid of a bad teacher.
No teachers enjoy carrying a bad colleague, but that idea would not suit your simplistic views, would it Andrew?
Pathetic!
Then you’re an exception. When my kids were in high school the worst teacher in the school was the union rep. He was there for himself and certainly not the kids.
Andrew. Different times/places. Years ago when I taught in a London Comprehensive, staff met in their own time so as not to impact upon the kids’ time. It was a given. Now, here, children are shunted off home for whole days because it’s teacher time down at school.
Agree Andrew my experience also.
In Vino shouldn’t the union rep help the principal?
Not my experience Robert, completely the opposite in fact.
Well I’m very pleased for you.
Good for you Bob the Last
You have more knowledge than me — it seemed to me the CC was contradicting too regularly Labour’s nonsense about putting the poor first. I took it as a sign of the sourness of Labour they were willing to silence their opponents in govt. We all know they are still run by narrow narrow people who don’t give a shit about anything but the next election — whatisname finance minister reaching out to farmers in ‘inclusive’ language just prior to the last election.
I’d say no heart but the Left has always been realpolitik in govt. What kept great granddad out of the upper house in 1935? He spoke his truth, and with impolite terms. The Left’s respect for the courtesies of the ruling class has destroyed so much of our cause.
Sumsuch. But this issue isn’t about “ the ruling class”, it is about vulnerable New Zealand children. Currently children have a Children’s Commissioner who Sepuloni is proposing to replace by a group of public servants from the Dept of Education.
Many of the issues affecting children, like poverty, ill health, homelessness, violence, and exploitation, have nothing to do with educationists. Sepuloni or anybody else expecting a group of government employees from the Dept of Education to assemble and fearlessly issue statements about children which may critique other government departments or government policy or decisions, is being unrealistic.
Instead of constantly ‘bitching’ about the organisation charged with supporting New Zealand’s most vulnerable children – yes there have been children in State care abused (often within their own extended whanau whatsmore) but have you actually stopped to consider what might happen without OT, CYF or whatever you choose to call it? Why is there a need in the first place? Where is your indignance against the adults in the community who continue to harm children and there justifications for such abuse?
WTAF?
big tick bob.
Big tick from me too.
Jacinda Ardern :
*goes in to politics “to end child poverty “
* axes oversight by childrens commisioner.
Dreadful isn’t it.
That is my impression entirely — or the moral death knell of this Labour Govt. Except a party run by paid activists wouldn’t know its elbow from a principle.
Minto seems to suggest this is more on a bureaucratic level. Jacinda hasn’t disproved my support of the previous two Labour leaders against her and Grant.
I think we have to accept that ending “child povidy” was just electioneering spin, as was climate change being her generation’s nuclear moment – another steal from David Lange, who did spend London Christmas’s helping others. These worrying shenanigans re children’s well-being need other political parties to show some guts and advocate on their behalf if Sepuloni and the Minister for Children don’t.
@mickyboyle.
Poorly.
I will point out for the record, beyond “saving us from COVID” this Government has been a largely policy free zone.
Bloody good at crises. Just no principle that rises above focus group opinions. And that hatred of the poor and unwillingness to address climate change is not good enough for reality beyond the next electoral minute.
indeed leftorium