‘Hardest decision of our lives’: Foster parents return Moana to state care
The couple caring for “Moana” – a traumatised young girl placed with them five years ago – say they can no longer deal with the ongoing legal battle for her care and have made the painful call to return her to Oranga Tamariki.
The couple, known as the Smiths, came to their decision after a High Court decision that went in their favour was appealed by Moana’s birth mother, who wants Moana placed in the care of a Wellington family – the Taipa family – who are also caring for Moana’s brother.
When Moana was placed in the care of a Hawke’s Bay couple in September 2018 her teeth were rotten, she had an untreated club foot and showed all the symptoms of a traumatised child.
The then 3-year-old – one of four siblings – had already been removed from her mother three times.
Oranga Tamariki placed Moana with the Smiths, who are Pākehā, because they could not find a suitable or available whānau to take her.
But then after three stable years with the couple, Oranga Tamariki and the girl’s mother wanted her removed because they did not think the couple could meet her cultural needs.
They wanted to place her with a Māori woman and her daughter(the Taipa family), who live in Wellington and have Moana’s younger brother in their care. What followed was a protracted legal wrangle.
Mrs Smith told Stuff the decision to relinquish the role as foster parents to Moana had been extremely difficult.
Among the reasons was the continued appeals and associated ongoing stress, lack of support from Oranga Tamariki’s Napier office and the “numerous baseless ‘reports of concern’ that were lodged against us – all of which found no evidence of abuse.
“In the end it just became an unviable situation, especially for [Moana]. This was the hardest decision we have ever had to make.
“Due to the constantly difficult positions Oranga Tamariki and [Moana’s] whānau put us in instead of coming together with us to support [Moana] in every way possible – we just couldn’t go on.”
How awful, hideous and cruel of Oranga Tamariki!
Using woke Critical Race Theory, Oranga Tamariki removed Moana, a Māori girl from pakeha foster parents who she had been placed with as a ‘forever home’.
Oranga Tamariki decided that virtue signalling and woke dogma were more important than the material well being of Maona and despite being told it would be psychologically harmful to her to remove her after she had been told she was living with them forever, decided to lie and trick and use deceit to force the Foster family to hand over Moana.
These lies by Oranga Tamariki were exposed in Court when the Pakeha Foster Family fought back and when the deceit by the Oranga Tamariki staff was exposed in Court, Oranga Tamariki asked other Judges to interfere with Family Court judge Peter Callinicos and attempt to influence the case!
This enormous toll has finally broken the pakeha foster family, OT wins in crushing them and implementing woke critical race theory dogma above the material well being of the child.
It is a sickness that believes white people can’t look after Māori children and we have allowed this sickness to become State policy.
What a terrible day for Moana, what a terrible day for the pakeha foster whanau, what a terrible day for justice but most importantly, what an incredible victory for the woke who now infest the Public Service like a virus.
This tells the woke that if they just keep wearing good people down, they can get their dogma agreed to out of shear exhaustion.
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Very sad to read this. OT and the mother’s lawyer mounted a type of lawfare so as to make an ideological point.
Next time I read of a Māori child beaten to death or mistreated I will remember the OT claim that Māori children are ALWAYS better off with whanau…
Indeed, Ada. I’ve followed this story over the past few years. The latest outcome leaves me immeasurably sad, and flamingly angry. That poor child and her foster parents: they’ve been used as pawns in a particularly vicious ideological game. Welcome to ethnic chauvinism folks: this is what it looks like.
Her ‘cultural’ needs???? Fuck that is a sad case. I expect Chippie to reverse this.
It needs to be remembered the Minister for OT is Sepuloni our deputy PM. This whole sorry saga shows the racism in this government and how it is dividing the country . Imaging how it will be if Labour gets back with Greens and Maori Party white people will be the enemy.
White people are already the enemy to the GP and MP…..Labour just seem to tag along and let the Labour maori cacaus call the shots.
And the voting NZ public know this, how they will still vote is up in the air, it’s clear defeat was assured if Ardern was still PM, she stood down as she knew she was political poison to Labour.
Sadly you are right. Too much of a divided system here being created in NZ, that enables child abuse and a laughable justice system that helps the lazy and criminal while making the law abiding run through more and more hoops.
Worse actually, the minister is Kelvin ‘I’ll Just Sit Back and Collect My Fat Salary’ Davies. Where is he standing up for that poor girl and coming down like a tonne of bricks on that cruel birth mother and OT?
Davis says anything about it and abundant cretins will be after him for intruding where he shouldn’t – a la Nash.
The Kraut Went Wild. I seem to recollect that Kelvin Vanilla Davis only likes Maori who think the way he does, and that’s not saying much.
The Kraut Went Wild Where was Kelvin Davis standing then when Trevor Mallard abused kiddies in tents at night with sprinklers spraying cold water at them and torturously loud music blasted at them for hours on end ? Watching from the Parliamentary balcony? It was the maligned police who tried to have that stopped, not the so-called Minister for Children. There was a time when men were seen as protectors of women and children, but Kelvin doesn’t seem to be one of them.
This is the government you voted for, in action.
Andrew: “This is the government you voted for, in action.”
Don’t look at me. I didn’t vote for them. Will likely never again vote for them.
Ideology is more important than practical reality.
Or to put it another way, solving a problem removes the opportunity to complain about it; and then what have you got to complain about? Well you don’t have anyone or anything to blame for your problems for a start.
Satan stalks the world seeking those who will, whether eagerly or reluctantly, serve him. Oranga Tamariki by their actions here are clearly in the former group.
and satans acolytes the evangelical evil religion are stealing belivers into the path of perdition….as the dusty old book predicts houtman
Satan stalks the world seeking those who will, whether eagerly or reluctantly, serve him. Oranga Tamariki by their actions here are clearly in the former group.
Incredibly sad not only for the Smiths whose sole motive was to provide another human being with the love and necessities of life which was denied this child earlier on, but a sad day for our nation, who for racist reasons, a government department blatantly obstructed these foster parents from giving the aforementioned aroha and security that every child deserves.
ORANGA TAMARIKI HAWKES BAY, hang your head in shame!
Racism in New Zealand is being driven by the Labour Government.
Hope people remember that at election time.
Whanau neglects child who at 3 years old has rotten teeth and an untreated club foot, nobody interested in looking after her in the family. OT appoint another family to look after her for years, wins the right to do so in court, while whanau on the sidelines do nothing to connect with her while in her new home. Then more lawyers for whanau appeal. Now the poor kid is to be uplifted via court bullying, into a home and people who she does not know and did little for her.
What a terrible system for a child to be bounced from abuse, allowed by lawyers, with OT always in the centre making bad decisions for children and foster parents and enabling further abuse. No doubt additional benefits are involved for the child’s care, like the Malachi murder, where abuse was ignored.
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/blackmail-fears-inside-the-custody-battle-for-malachi-subecz-before-he-was-murdered-by-caregiver/FNHPKYNYBFGB7B3LCPLQESXH4I/
“Barriball had become Malachi’s caregiver (for which she received $700 a week in welfare payments) at the insistence of his mother, Jasmine Cotter.”
“He died in November 2021 at the hands of his caregiver, a woman named Michaela Barriball, after suffering months of unimaginable cruelty that left him so terrified he would soil himself.”
As for Nash having to resign about a court decision, it seems that others are perfectly allowed to interfere in judges decisions when someone lies in court and are told off and others try to get others to interfere in the judges decision!
Tired of race based, stupid system, that abuses and enables bad behaviour that ultimately keeps NZ child abuse going while OT worker lies are not prosecuted (aka child close to grandmother in cultural report, (but the grandmother is dead).
Hopefully someone does a Offical Information Act to see how much the whanaus lawyers and family are getting in government funded payments in this appalling case that makes a mockery of the courts and puts further spot light on poor OT decisions in NZ.
How many more kids have to suffer by their stupidly and enablement of appalling abusers in NZ who then play the victim card when it suits them.
Children should not be property to be ‘claimed’ after serious abuse is detected and they are settled and doing well years later!
SaveNZ: “…at 3 years old has rotten teeth and an untreated club foot…”
I remember reading about this child some time ago when the case first hit the news. In most recent accounts, she’s also described as “being traumatised”. In those first reports, she was said to be “terrified of men”. But now it’s euphemised: that original characterisation was much more honest.
What’s done is done. But at least Carmel Sepuloni has ensured that Oranga Tamariki is protected by abolishing the Commissioner for Vulnerable Children against all expert and other advice.
With the Commissioner for Children’s role theoretically abrogated to a motley crew from the gender nutty Department of Education, Oranga Tamariki should emerge relatively unscathed. The child ?
Hats off to the noble parents-in-lieu who look as if they did their very best for the little girl. The long-term prognosis for kids in foster care is grim, and is a national shame, but protecting their own interests seems to be the scabies of all these effete politicians. They’ll do ok.
It’s incredibly sad for the child.
We are dividing New Zealand on race.
Labour Government are responsible for this dreadful state of affairs.
It was shit @ Bob a long time before this government came to office. Sepuloni has just kicked the can down the road and ensured the whole setup is normalised.
Unfortunately She’s not as clever as She thinks She is – and that can be a dangerous thing.
Hopefully She has a conscience, and not one that’s pulled out for political expediency.
In this case, I’d put money on the mother (and father) have alcohol and drug ushyoose, and have probably already been through the various box ticking exercises (such as FGC’s and anger management courses ), and probably suffered abuse as kids themselves.
It’d be nice if politicians and public servants took more notice of people who’ve been through the shit of it all and turned their lives around. I’m still waiting
Bob the first. Wrong. It was PM John Key who snuck Pita Sharples off to the good old USA and signed New Zealand up to the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, which Helen Clark had refused to sign. Much of it was not applicable in.our context, and Clark also understood that it posed a direct threat to the sovereignty of the New Zealand state.
Well the ‘lucky’ child will now grow up in a culturally safe space provided by the family that lived with when she was found with a mouth full or rotting teeth aged three and was uplifted.
I guess that is what is called Te Ao Maori.
No, it’s called barbarism when a vulnerable child is returned to whanau who allowed her teeth to rot, and it is an indictment of this government and its ghastly Minister of Social Welfare.
This will remove a lot of caring people who will never put their hand up ever again to foster someone not of their ilk….
Not true. Maori (And all other races) will still be willing to foster Pakeha and Asian children, because they do not have any “Cultural needs”.
It will only negatively effect Maori children, which ironically are the most in need of help
Very true.
And the OT staff will welcome that outcome…no ‘problematic’ placements to consider briefly, before ruling them out..
That, right there, is Evil. You know, that someone in Oranga Tamariki’s getting a thrill, a frisson, out of the power trip of it. Evil fuckers. Good on you @ MB for picking it up.
Can the foster family drag Tamariki Oranga and Iwi to court for bullying and such?
No, I suspect that this is part of the reason why they are throwing in the towel.
They are being blocked by OT and the birth mother who are both funded by govt or moaridom so this has probably made it impossible to afford combined with being deeply upsetting for the foster family and by default, Moana.
It is shameful and makes me desperately sad for all the Maori and PI kids that come into care. It’s a mistake of monumental proportions which we will be reviewing in another 10 to 15 years at great expense and consternation.
Ot says a child cannot be safe if it is not raised in its culture but the judge ordered cultural excursions were blocked repeatedly by Moana’s whanau with by the looks of it, OTs support. So it doesnt matter what the judge said, they did what suited them ie: Blocked the visits so that the child could not make cultural progress and the caregivers could keep on being attacked for not meeting her cultural needs.
They should be dragged back into court for breaches of ??? care orders?
This same approach is being played out around NZ every week in various fields and is a direct result of the Ardern’s govt’s policies related to decolonisation and their specific impact on law and order in a wider sense. For example, transcripts now publicly available (under OIA) show that TUT had (and have) no intention of living up to the agreement that they had with DOC when they signed the T U agreement. Many excuses and rationales were given over a number of years for what was happening and then you get the transcript and find that the aim was always to block and obfuscate and do what they wanted despite the agreement.
Fantail: “….TUT had (and have) no intention of living up to the agreement that they had with DOC when they signed the T U agreement.
………
…….the aim was always to block and obfuscate and do what they wanted despite the agreement.”
I didn’t know about this, but it’s no surprise. Some time back, I read an article about what was happening there; I remarked to this household that if they wanted to see what co-governance would be like, they need look no further than Te Urewera National Park.
Reactionary Brat. No one can afford to go to lawyers, and legal aid is harder to come by nowadays. Maybe in due course, Oranga Tamariki’s child clients may be able to take legal action against them for not acting in their best interests. This could be why, when the Education Review outfit replacing the Commissioner for Children front-footed about an issue recently, I think that their spokesperson was a lawyer, with a history of government department lawyering.
Many years ago we fostered a boy, left in NZ by his mother who returned to Australia. He was with us from the age of 5 to 10. We eventually made moves to adopt him. At that both estranged parents refused, both were flown to NZ for a Family Court hearing at NZs expense. Both were provided Lawyers, and one for the boy too, again at NZs expense. We decided not to have a Lawyer, it could have been horrendously expensive to defend, so we made it easy.
The boy went back to Australia with his father, where he walked out onto the streets in Sydney at 12, returning to Australian Social Welfare eventually. Australian Social welfare sent him to spend Christmas with us for the next 4 years and eventually sent him back to live with us when he was 18. By that time he had serious drug and alcohol issues.
He’s in his 40s now, we hear from him occasionally, off the drugs and alcohol but very damaged.
I’m on side with the foster parents here. Do your best in difficult circumstances.
So many sad stories like this – good on you for doing your best. The victims of our system is the children. Bad parenting and neglect is enabled in NZ as bad parents seem to be ‘owners’ not parents. If parents neglect their kids, have little to do with them and have serious issues in NZ, the child should be allowed to be divorced from bad parents, parents legal costs not free so they have to pay for it themselves, and bad parents stoped from getting free trips and legal help to make bad decisions on behalf of their neglected, abused kids. I know a similar story – drug addled, abusive parents get more help and attention than their kids who are the victims – the legal system loves helping them keep the abuse/drug cycle going.
And @ Nic181 – He’ll be one of the lucky ones. You obviously did your best.
What started out as a ground breaking idea of FGC’s admired around the world ended up being just part of the box ticking exercise. CYPS to CYFS to OT: Too many Chiefs (having captured their “responsible” Munster) and not enough Injuns – or to many box tickers and not enough overworked social workers is a big part of it.
I’d be interested to know if he feels he’s been listened to, or at least if he feels he’s been taken seriously
If OT are not careful they will loose support from prospective foster families whatever race they be.
What will happen to the poor wee kids then?.
It’s hardly an inviting environment for families who want to give support but are the wrong skin color to fit the profile.
Families with the wrong skin colour need not waste their or OT’s time applying.
Fostering or adopting a child is now being race controllled.
So much for a united New Zealand,yet another wedge being inserted between Māori and Pakeha.
This is such a disgrace, and it just shows the reality of the woke. Nasty bitter virtue signalers.
And yet, before the cock crows again, some ardent prog or Marxist on this site will claim that reports of CRT in our insitutions are just right-wing scaremongering, or demanding evidence that radical race/gender ideology is actually a problem in NZ.
Pope Punctilious II: I’ve read through the comments. Thus far, nobody’s been stupid enough to do that. But give it time, I guess….
Yes agree with the comments made.
Pakeha will not foster or adopt Māori children it’s just worth the emotional stress.
Some studies for OT and all child caregivers and pawn-players to read as I hear that many have no formal training certification for the work they do. Most of the entries in google relate to Covid-19 affects, so it seems a topic that hwe been overtaken by late events.
Attachment theory is important here. John Bowlby from the 1940s had ideas that were taken to extremes and the word was that mothers couldn’t leave their children with anyone else without harm to their confidence. As usual the idea was adopted excessively. However this link is explanatory.
…Having a caregiver who provides consistent, responsive care helps children to learn to recognise the nature of their own emotions, and to regulate their own behaviour and emotional states. Through experiencing responsive and sensitive caregiving a child also develops social competencies, empathy and emotional intelligence, and learns how to relate to other people and understand what to expect from them.
When a caregiver is sensitive to a child’s emotional needs and responds positively, this helps the child to develop a sense of being loved and lovable. This is how children learn that they will be able to rely on others for help in times of trouble later in life. Children are better able to cope with traumatic experiences when their earlier experiences are of being safe and protected.
From NIH – National Institutes of Health* National Centre for Biotechnology Information (FGS – the humanity side of learning about people is smothered in objective tech. Note that there is a plethora of USA funded studies on this topic. Is it to be used against poor people, particularly women?)
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7197095/
The Impact of Caregiving Disruptions of Previously Institutionalized Children on Multiple Outcomes in Late Childhood
*https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Institutes_of_Health
,,,is the primary agency of the United States government responsible for biomedical and public health research. It was founded in the late 1880s and is now part of the United States Department of Health and Human Services. Many NIH facilities are located in Bethesda, Maryland, and other nearby suburbs of the Washington metropolitan area
The UK in WW2 and after, when there was a rush of improvements for children and people in general to recover from the past. Why are we going backwards?https://www.iwm.org.uk/history/growing-up-in-the-second-world-war
Grey Warbler. In times past, New Zealand had a standardised formal social work qualification obtained at the Extremist Tilting at Windmills Centre, then known as Victoria University of Wellington.
One could apply for, and be awarded a Social Science Cadetship to fund studying for it while working part- time for the Department of Social Welfare in Wellington. There was also hostel accommodation available at Woburn in Lower Hutt. As a tertiary qualification it needed reasonably working grey matter, ironically not a requirement to become a contemporary politician, with University Entrance examination pass or accreditation being required to access university courses. One can assume that the graduates were reasonably professional.
The television documentary with Melanie Reid showing the harrowing attempted uplift of a new born baby from its young mother, featured three or four social workers, only one of whom, appeared to be particularly professional or empathetic. One appeared not to have even done her hair that day, which was flat at the back as if just out of bed, and seated in chairs around the mother’s bed, they didn’t look that good. A police officer, also a young parent, told me at that time that the police hated doing those uplifts.
Your point about the quality of social work training is clearly a reasonable one, or these awful damaging scenarios like this little girl’s would not still be happening. Minister Sepuloni should explain why they are.
Snow White: “…Extremist Tilting at Windmills Centre..”
Haha…. hilarious! But sadly accurate nowadays. I’m reluctant to tell people now that I’m a graduate of that place, though in fairness, it was still a university back when I studied there.
Other household members are grads of the university of Auckland. It’s a bit better, though I concede that the bar isn’t very high. One other person is also a grad of Vic, though doesn’t like to admit it either.
The social work programme you describe there doubtless predated the march of the Rogernomes through this economy. Neoliberalism has brought benefits, but I fear that they’re vastly outweighed by the damage that’s been done to this society.
I also saw the TV piece about the attempted uplift of that newborn (no longer with his mother, you’ll be unsurprised to hear). It was a hard watch, especially for anyone who’s a parent.
I remember noticing that the social workers were Maori. I wondered what they thought about why they were there.
That uplift policy sounds very hard-eyed, and I wasn’t a fan of it. But in fairness to Bill English, it’s surely better than the justice system having to pick up the pieces, after children are damaged, horribly injured or murdered, as was the case during the 90s and early noughties. And is – regrettably – happening again, since that policy was abandoned.
I note that in Moana’s case it’s Maori pushing for her to be in a Maori family. I wonder if the only qualification in many offices nowadays is “being Maori” and/or “being a Maori parent, especially a mother”.
Sadly, the driving issue in pretty much all cases of neglect and abuse is class, not ethnicity. Maori children are overrepresented in state care because of their class, not because they’re Maori.
Activists claim that state care differentially disadvantages Maori children because of ethnicity, but that isn’t true. State care has negative outcomes for most children, regardless of their ethnicity.
wait till see gets beaten or killled….they’ll all be running for cover with much pearl clutching…but at least she’ll be abused in a culturally safe way.
That’s harsh gagarin but unfortunately true.
Will OT place Pakeha children with Maori? I reckon if there was a situation where OT or any other adoption agency refused to place a Pakeha kid in a Maori home it would be determined racist by the race relations conciliatior.
Speaking of which, where is our usually garrulous Human Rights Commissioner giving an opinion on how Moana’s rights should be protected? *crickets*
Joseph The Race Relations Conciliator seems pretty relaxed about brown on white racism. Government funding is even available for penning doggerel supporting it.
Something must be done!
That’s it
I’m voting for TOP. When none of the parties have the nerve or mana to oppose this obvious injustice I’m through with them.
Some of you will know – what are the ‘cultural needs’ of a 2…3…4..5 year old? Answers please
Hugs and cuddles and more hugs and cuddles. Smiles, funny pointless game playing initiated by the littlies; one on one interacting – talking to them, and listening to them even when their chatter is incomprehensible. Accepting food foibles and messes, reading to them over and over, they love the repetition of the familiar, hence the beauty of nursery rhymes and children’s verses, which also fire up their imaginations when they are born knowing nothing except the comfort of a mother’s breast, if they’re lucky enough to have one. Make them sandpits, and let them play in mud, kick leaves, and walk through puddles, and if they want to wear a dishcloth on their head, then that’s ok too. Big thing is helping them to feel good about themselves, and to know that they matter. Amen.
Yes yes Snow White, but what about her cultural needs?
Kraut. Oops. Your lot sing them lieder, Maori waiata, mine lullabies , and everybody south of Dipton, melancholy dirges.
Filial piety, Chinese; don’t sit on tables, Maori; elbows off the table, Irish; everybody under the table Dipton downwards, dance on the table for Froggies, and it’s ok for little Greek blokes to dance together.
Further north one is meant to ask baby’s permission to change its nappy, but I’m uncertain whether that’s reached New Zealand yet.
Can’t be bothered getting into eating with fingers, but it’s nice how Indian mums feed their kiddies, and asparagus is another story.
Hear hear, Snow White! Exactly what you say.
OT ensuring no Pākehā family will ever want to put their hand up to adopt Māori children.
Given the shortage of foster parents, this will impact Māori (and potentially PI) children the hardest. Which makes it the usual case of Woke ideologues hurting the very people they claim to be fighting for. Fortunately getting rid of the children’s commissioner will enable disproportionately poor outcomes for Māori foster kids to be obfuscated for years until needed as political leverage for ideological cultists.
Woke (TM) burning down the village in order to save it.
Once again adult agendas trample the needs of a child. OT are a Disgrace.
Our 2 mainstream media outlets media NZ Herald/Stuff have again only briefly touched on this travesty (Moana/Smiths v OT/Abusive Whanau)
……..funny that.
Under the woke, media are allocated $40million of government money to keep media through a ‘Maori’ lens – thus the pou tiaki, Kāhu News – Ngā Take o te Wā sections in our news.
Free government money is way more important than child abuse or independent reporting!
Between woke government pay offs and transport and supermarket money in our media, no wonder it is so pathetic and full of middle management, comms people, missing information, misleading information and journo kids trawling fb for trivial content, making up more stupid, NuZilland.
P>S – the money is being paid also to look through a $40 million dollar ‘woke’ lens pretending to be Maori.
Woke Maori seem at odds and dismiss and bully other Maori as seen by the 7 scientists – some were very respected Maori academics who do not agree with the Maori woke lens being appropriated as a Maori lens.
In many cases the media are breaching their obligations by pretending things are for Maori which are not for Maori at all, but woke!
PROFESSORS KENDALL CLEMENTS, ELIZABETH RATA, DOUG ELLIFFE, GARTH COOPER, ROBERT NOLA AND JOHN WERRY AGAINST STUFF
https://www.mediacouncil.org.nz/rulings/professors-kendall-clements-elizabeth-rata-doug-elliffe-garth-cooper-robert-nola-and-john-werry-against-stuff/
Media Council finds Wiles column breach of press standards
https://www.kiwiblog.co.nz/2022/03/media_council_finds_wiles_column_breach_of_press_standards.html
Same problem with OT, and the lawyers representing abusive parents of Maori children for their ‘cultural needs’, they are not helping Maori they are helping abusive parents to be enabled instead of stamping out abuse.
SaveNZ “…they are not helping Maori they are helping abusive parents to be enabled instead of stamping out abuse.”
The Maori lawyers and Maori staff of OT are pursuing ideology. They have an unshakeable belief in that by-Maori, for-Maori approach, as if it will fix all the problems such families have. It won’t. The driver of those problems is class, not ethnicity.
Moreover, by-Maori for-Maori programmes are exactly the apartheid against which my generation campaigned, all those years ago. To our shame, we criticised south Africa without looking over our shoulders into our own society. We had a racist electoral system, but we failed to see it for what it is. And by-Maori for-Maori proposals are just more of that pernicious approach.
saveNZ. And yet we know that there is no such thing as a universal Pakeha lens either, and that the rich diversity ( now a dodgy word) of our splendid cultural heritage would not exist if this were not so. The journo kids trawling trivia are part of a determined assault upon our European heritage and time-honoured values as part of a tawdry divide and rule scenario now being played out in every direction in New Zealand today.