Oranga Tamariki’s handling of a 4 year old boy who was beaten so badly by his parents that he is now permanently brain damaged and handicapped for life requires some attention.
Let me see if I can get this completly fucking straight.
Oranga Tamariki had the resources and energy to uplift Māori children settled with white pakeha foster families because those white pakeha foster families weren’t culturally safe.
Oranga Tamariki had the resources and energy to challenge in Court the uplifting of Māori children from white foster families despite the MSD workers being caught out lying repeatedly to the white foster families and had their entire justification dismantled as woke ideological bullshit.
Oranga Tamariki had the resources and energy to actually make a complaint about the Judge who exposed their woke nonsense and attempted to interfere with the ruling!
Oranga Tamariki had the resources and energy to do all that, but apparently had no resource or energy to check why a 4 year old with repeated complaints of abuse and who kept appearing with multiple injuries was being kept by parents who were beating him.
The good news everyone is that the 4 year old was crippled and beaten by members of his own culture, and in the end, isn’t that what matters?
The boy’s daycare teachers, who considered him a “happy, sweet and loving boy” were the first to notice bruises and scratches, in 2018 and 2019. They became so concerned that they began taking photographs and recording each injury.
The boy would often tell them that “mum” [Wainohu] had caused the injuries.
“Mum punch my face,” he said once. On other occasions he said “Mummy pushed me”, “Mum did it. She threw me against the wall”, “My mum hit me in the mouth”, “Mum did it, she cut me”, “Mum hurt me”, “Mummy did it, I was being naughty”.
The teachers made a report to Oranga Tamariki, which made follow-up inquiries but could not reach any conclusions.
In June 2019, the boy suffered significant trauma to his head; a type of injury that “requires violent rotational acceleration or deceleration of the head, moving the brain within the skull sufficiently to stretch the bridging vein until it ruptures”.
It was not possible to establish how the injury occurred. Wainohu said she found the boy crawling under his bed screaming. Ramsey said he was outside having a smoke when he heard his son scream.
Despite the boy showing clear signs of major injury and distress, they put him to bed. The following afternoon, by which time he could not open one of his eyes, or stand on his own, they took him to Hawke’s Bay Hospital.
The boy was rushed to Wellington Hospital for emergency surgery.
After that incident Oranga Tamariki placed the boy in the care of a family member in Auckland.
He lived there for six months, in which time his health steadily improved.
In late 2019, Oranga Tamariki agreed with arrangements being made to allow the boy to return to Hawke’s Bay for Christmas. He would stay with Wainohu and Ramsey, who had four other children in their care, in their Flaxmere home.
It was later agreed that the boy could stay in Hawke’s Bay until January, 2020.
On January 27 a family group conference was arranged by Oranga Tamariki to discuss the boy’s ongoing care. At this stage the boy was being looked after by another family member in Hawke’s Bay.
Two days later, on the evening of January 29, the boy suffered the head injury which – were it not for the actions of paramedics and staff at Hawke’s Bay, Wellington and Starship hospitals – would have killed him.
Wainohu caused the injury while Ramsey was at work.
The boy was also found to be covered in bruises and cuts, including all limbs, torso, stomach and back, and had fractured ribs.
The boy is permanently disabled. He has limited vision, uses a wheelchair, suffers poor memory, requires assistance with day-to-day activities and must take anti-seizure medication.
BUT THANK FUCK HE WAS BEATEN BY PEOPLE OF HIS OWN CULTURE EH FOLKS, because that’s really what matters at Oranga Tamariki.
Look, I believe and have argued that Tikanga Māori desperately becomes the new values used in our welfare system because I believe that the current soulless client model damages all it deals with and that Tikanga Māori has values that help all children, not just Māori ones , but Oranga Tamariki are not implementing Tikanga Māori by uplifting Māori children from white Pakeha foster families, they are implementing woke middle class critical race theory that claims white people can’t raise Māori children and so you get an agency spending time and energy on reverse uplifting Māori children from white foster families while keeping children who are getting bashed with their bashers because it ticks some bullshit woke box in fucking Wellington!
This is a fucking disgrace and when you consider Labour have removed the oversight of the Children’s Commissioner over Oranga Tamariki, it makes this disgrace an obscenity.
Our vulnerable children deserve better than this.
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Co-governance in action.
In any other country the minister responsible for this would resign but hey, it’s Kelvin Davis, It’s Labour and hey it’s Jacinda Ardern
Frank the Tank. Kelvin Davis, the theoretical minister, is too busy playing the victim himself to spare the time for vulnerable and abused children.
What does co governance have to with this? Are you saying Davis is only there because he is of Māori descent? Was that why Simon and Paula were there ( sorry Paul Goldsmith doesn’t count)?
Wheel. Davis is almost certainly there because he is Maori. His silence over the abolishing of the Commissioner for Children is also astonishing when all the other political parties and organisations concerned with the well-being of children want the Commissioner kept.
The silence about this case in msm is deafening. If it has been reported it certainly didn’t make the headlines.
Now do you believe me when I say we have a race obsessed therefore fascist government?
This is our shame in NZ. Our special (vulnerable) people being abused. Why is it still happening? Seriously. People are getting paid to do their job but look the other way? Are there enough foster parent volunteers? My hand is up but in OTs eyes I don’t make the grade, having been fostered myself etc. We need to keep shifting the paradigm. When we know we don’t need to be “led” anymore by self interested incompetent people, this energy will change. It starts with each one of us individually to care, to recognise the divine in each other, however you understand that. We are all important because our lives touch each other’s lives and we’re all in this crazy life together. Our own radars for unacceptable behaviour must come from within. Get hearty everyone, let’s shift this archaic paradigm of pain and leave it in the past. We can be better than this.
Its not just you who dont make the grade.
My cousin a spinster nanny began fostering 20 years back and quickly came to be the go to person and ended up with six kids at one stage and had to leave her employment becuase she couldnt do it all, even part time. Kids were happy, she is fabulous with them and she went on to adopt one of them.
She is white and to be fair is now in her 50’s. Since the OT changes came about she now only has non Maori children placed with her and is down to 2 kids and a string of short stays while OT finds other places for the kids. So maybe the right question isnt – are there enough carers?
Well I’ve never heard a truer word said Sinic. So better batter down hatches for the apocalypse
Well said Sinic, you’re a good woman. A while back, a poet said it too, “ No man is an island”. And in this increasingly mad little country we can’t even say ‘man’ or ‘woman’ any more without triggering the inane termites. Kia kaha.
I am interested to know how Tikanga values would be better for OT children.
These parents are violent abusers who are unfit for parenthood.
More human rights state abuse, by not doing a good enough job for our kids, and OT keep making the same mistakes, again and again (with often Maori children that they now won’t uplift out of danger and abuse).
One day, the political class and its band of ‘officials’ might wake up and realise OT is broken beyond repair.
AND like several other gummint agencies, it needs to be demolished so that it an institution can be constructed from the ground up – without ‘officials’ grounded in the art of bullshit and spin, and who understand the concept of public service (which doesn’t include self service as its priority.) And if and when that happens, no one will expect them to be martyrs – just that they should operate as decent human beings without huge egos they bounce off one another, a sprinkle of humility, and a purge of PR spin, mis-speakings, mis-sellings and bullshit in their various spacings and eco systems (going forward). That really is why the electricate has lost faith.
Bringing up one case, as appalling as it is, in mainstream media, in order to highlight the inadequacy of the system, shouldn’t detract from the wholesome way in which this same system has fitted in to the lives of other broken families. But yet it does.
The picture painted is of a country where child abuse is rife and social inequality reigns. Is this really true? Is this really the situation in New Zealand in today’s times? Is the labour government so woefully incompetent that child abuse has deepened under their watch?
Rather I look to the fact that benefits have increased under labour and wouldn’t have increased under national. The fact that we’re almost back to normal again under labour after three years of absolute hell, and that had national been in charge we’d have reopened our borders way too early and the outcome for everyone in this country would have been worse.
Child abuse has been a major priority targeted by our Prime Minister. She has dedicated so much time, energy, and passion to finding solutions and working with people to achieve desirable outcomes. Helen Clark wouldn’t have done the same. And I see no national leader, past or present and probably none in the future, who would follow the lead of our labour Prime Minister, Jacinda Ardern, in this regard on this issue.
Make no mistake about it. If child abuse was rife right now in this country under her leadership, she’d be on the telly every night fielding questions about it and finding solutions. Her proactive approach to the issue is the reason why she is not.
How many children are in State Care Daniel?
4,800 children and young people in state care as of 31st March 2022. A disproportionate number of them are Maori children and young people.
right, so 4800 children is a lot eh Dan?
It is a lot.
It has been suggested that OT wants less children in care as an aim rather than more children kept safe. Be interesting to know if numbers are declining.
The evidence of the problems with OT is growing even though MSM usually keeps it on the down low. Some small mentions of children being placed in housing with ex sex offenders, or those with a history of assault. Most abuse takes years to become so obvious that it must be dealt with and it’s clear that other agencies are scared to report things.
So the jury is out really and only time will tell, I am not optimistic but would be very glad to be proved wrong.
As to no other govt trying to reform OT (the entity) that is simply untrue.
Many did including National who although Martyn has commented on the cost savings approach – did put in place the review that resulted in the Uplifts. Because Uplifts were viewed so negatively, what goes under reported is that the first and foremost aim of that particular review was to Ensure the best outcomes for children and keep them safe. Not sure the same can be said of the current changes to OT and these concerns have been echoed by some established figures in the Sector and in Maoridom.
Whether that policy was culturally unnacceptable, traumatising or rightwing aside, having worked for the person who recommended this policy, I believe that this was seen as the genuinely best option to keep children safe. The Chair of that review was one of NZ’s most experienced, most intelligent and most practical Chairs at that time. For her to have recommended such radical action (as she is conservative by nature) tells me that the reviewers considered it absolutely necessary.
Water under the bridge and a now perceived unnacceptable approach but my point is that Labour does not have a monopoly on trying to effect child centred change at OT.
Thank you Fantail. Those sure are interesting points.
It’s more important that babies and children stay culturally safe than physically safe. We are all in agreement with this now. Moving on…
What do you expect of this woke crap govt? Putting kids lives after their shitty ideology, and removing the safeguard I.e the commissioner oversight… but we can write letters!… dump these drongos before more Māori kids are killed and maimed.
Kirk 28. I won’t make excuses for the government, but don’t forget that the most publicised cases where happily settled children have been uprooted from white families, have been because of complaints from whanau elsewhere. It is at this difficult point that OT practices may not always stand up to scrutiny, and nor may their very well-paid advisors and consultants.
Don’t forget that the Minister of Social Welfare, Carmel Sepuloni, who decided to axe the independent Commissioner of Children, is a Polynesian woman, which makes it that much harder to query her extraordinary decision without racism rearing it’s head, but ironically the same criticisms could be made if she was of any other ethnicity or gender.
At the heart of the matter are all of our beautiful children, and if an ideology is damaging them, then that needs to be looked at dispassionately and with honesty and courage by everybody involved, and vulnerable children not used as political footballs by anybody.
Keeping the Commissioner for Children would serve all kids well, and the cancelling of the Commissioner is enough reason for me to to not vote Labour again.
Sylvian. Erebus Erebus Erebus. Government sponsored lies and killing and non-accountability were closely embraced before some in current govt were even born and they just follow the same dirty pathway. Tinkering with democracy isn’t going to produce better politicians, and they know it.
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