Children’s Minister Kelvin Davis has put all agencies on notice, with a top-down instruction to every department that they need to take responsibility for caring for vulnerable children.
In reply to Kelvin Davis’ cry for help, Jackie Foster CEO of Social Justice Aotearoa, has said “This is the job of the Children’s Commissioner not the CEO of the Ministry of Justice or the CEO of the Ministry of Social Development. Those people won’t advocate for children like our current and previous Children’s Commissioners have”.
Davis said he expected an official update every six months, with the first arriving in December. But he also encouraged officials and frontline staff to report any roadblocks sooner, saying he expected the public service’s top brass to act with haste – or he is willing to get involved.
“The Children’s Commissioner reports directly to the Prime Minister on matters affecting children, so asking CEOs of other agencies to get involved just makes no sense, and we reiterate that removing the role of the Children’s Commissioner will only make things worse” Jackie said.
Social Justice Aotearoa’s position remains very focused and clear, “The Children’s Commissioner role must remain as it is now, and the government needs to listen to the people of Aotearoa”.
For one surreal moment I thought that Kelvin Davis, theoretical Minister for Children, had broken ranks and stated that the Children’s Commissioner is desperately needed, and I got it very wrong. Davis’s scatter gun approach of now trying to deflect the CC’s responsibilities onto everybody else shows that the CC is in fact very much needed.
Davis has a nerve telling other government agencies that they have a responsibility to care for vulnerable children when Carmel Sepuloni, the person heading the agency legally and morally responsible for the welfare of children, is incomprehensibly axing Oranga Tamariki’s only independent watch dog.
And if either of them, Davis or Sepuloni, are even cognisant of the ongoing coronavirus impacts upon kids’ and their carers’ day-to-day lives, they are conveniently and ruthlessly pushing these aside seemingly to suit their own agendas. Davis will possibly get involved six-monthly ? Our vulnerable children deserve much better than Davis appears able or willing to provide.
Kelvin Davis dear me.