Second Oranga Tamariki sexual misconduct allegation discovered during surprise visit
Allegations of “inappropriate sexual behaviour” have surfaced against two staff members of Oranga Tamariki and former police commissioner Mike Bush will take over management of its youth residences.
The two staff members acted independently, Oranga Tamariki chief executive Chappie Te Kani said, and were alleged to have offended against five children.
The incidents occurred at two separate facilities. The first was reported to Children’s Minister Kelvin Davis on June 8, he said. The second was discovered when the Children’s Commission sent an inspector to another facility last week.
Children’s Commissioner Judge Frances Eivers said her staff arrived to carry out an unannounced inspection of a facility, which she described as “prison like” and under resourced.
Shaun Brown, an associate deputy chief executive of Oranga Tamariki, said the ministry was struggling with the number of children currently in its justice residences. He said over crowding in the facilities had led to children connecting with each other, and orchestrating crime to commit after their release.
Don’t.You. Fucking. DARE. Be. Surprised. At. Staff. Abusing. Children. In. State. Care!
Don’t you fucking dare!
No!
You can’t pretend to be this ignorant any longer!
As TDB has spent half a decade pointing out,
Oranga Tamariki is a Frankenstein monster, a neoliberal welfare experiment conjured up by Bill English and big data.
Luxon has already promised to revive this horror process if elected in 2023.
So what is the ‘social investment’ model?
Let’s look at Oranga Tamariki.
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!
Since the Royal Inquiry into Historic Abuse, Public Services Commission has done all it can to remove OT oversight and roll it into the ERO so that it saves the State money if children are abused in our care!
Public Services Commission Boss Peter Hughes was the chief executive at MSD in the 2000s that 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.
The elite Wellington Bureaucratic class want to remove the threat of costs and damages from poorly funded social services and the ‘social investment model’ is a means to spend money on the most costliest of those social problems without actually universally funding services.
For the State, amputating social responsibilities and the legal threat of damages frees them up from having to spend any money in the first place.
Rather than creating more taxes like a Capital Gains Tax or Financial Transaction Tax to properly funded the welfare of children in State care, it’s easier to amputate the responsibility altogether.
Social Investment is a bullshit term for ending universal provision of welfare under the guise of providing more resource for the most at risk target demographic.
Oranga Tamariki is that experiment in play.
One of the reasons OT was created was because National claimed CYFs, the old system, had a higher statistical risk of children being abused in state care than left in the community…
Children in state care are being abused and CYF is failing them – report
Children removed from their family home are being sexually and physically abused in foster homes – and the Social Development Minister says there’s no evidence they’re any better off in state care.
…you can’t pretend to be shocked that two OT staff were caught abusing vulnerable children in State Care BECAUSE THAT’S WHAT UNDERFUNDED STATE CHILD AGENCIES DO!
Remember this is the Government that removed the Children’s Commissioner who should have had oversight to look at systemic failures!
What is most outrageous here is that this pocket child prison seemed to have been flying under the radar…
Children’s Commissioner Judge Frances Eivers said her staff arrived to carry out an unannounced inspection of a facility, which she described as “prison like” and under resourced.
…how the fuck is it allowed to exist with barely any oversight and you only catch them out when you do a ‘surprise’ visit?
Oranga Tamariki is a brownwashed under resourced neoliberal experiment in welfare aimed at saving the State money down stream while minimising legal liability, it sure as fuck doesn’t have the interests of the child at heart.
Watching the Political Right, who would want way more Social Investment, decry the abuse it creates to demand more of that Social Investment is the very definition of sophistry.
But don’t pretend abuse of vulnerable children in State Care surprises you, don’t dare.
Don’t.
We refuse to tax the rich to fund this social infrastructure and look for neoliberal experiments to cut costs and protest the State from liability.
This is all on us.
This is why the Children’s Commissioner needs to be put back in an oversight role over OT.
Increasingly having independent opinion in a mainstream media environment which mostly echo one another has become more important than ever, so if you value having an independent voice – please donate here.
If you can’t contribute but want to help, please always feel free to share our blogs on social media
-_-
This government’s kneecapping the Commissioner for Children, was almost certainly to save its own reputation, rather than to save money, although I daresay that helps. Senior staff within Oranga Tamariki itself wanted the Commissioner kept, but Carmel Stalin Sepuloni was determined otherwise. Cabinet, including Ardern, and Kelvin Doggerel Davis, Minister of Misrule, concurred. Labour doesn’t like kids. I consider Helen Clark’s recorded comments about children nasty and needlessly insulting to all Kiwi mothers, and IMO her chilling influence lingers on, with vulnerable children political victims, viewed as millstones, and not as small human beings to whom we owe a duty of care.
Again, with the gender ID agenda being forced upon young school children by the faceless government department ridiculously promulgated as a replacement for the independent high calibre Commissioner for Children, children are being used as political pawns to accommodate the powerful well- heeled LGBTQ community whose scenario is seeded in unscientific dogma, and frightening mindless public servants more concerned not to be accused of being anti-transgender, than with giving all children the best possible start in life. This won’t last.
The UK Prime Minister’s recent statement that safeguarding the well-being of children is his top priority was music to the ears of everybody who does care about children; one such decent politician in the Beehive could make a world of difference to the lives of all New Zealand children and be a much sounder investment in the future than any property portfolio, or hidden shares, or preserving lack-lustre political parties focused more upon themselves, than on acting for the common good as they should. They’re a dismal sorry bunch at the moment, the whole damn lot of them, IMHO.
Great comments .I was not surprised to see your thoughts on this matter .
Trevor. Hush. You’re agreeing with me could have me demonised as right-wing, yet again, or dubbed a Pom, like that imperialist colonialist countryman of yours, Wm Shakespeare.
I have to say though, that when I read Sunak’s comments, saying that the well-being of children was his top priority, it brought a rare moment of joy to see a male, the traditional protectors of women ( unlike the NZ police) and especially of children, prioritising non-materialistic values which have such a huge impact on the quality of life where it is so much needed.
So who is going to protect women from old bastards like you? I bet you are one of those pricks who think women should serve their husbands, and want to control women’s bodies. You did say a few weeks ago that women shouldnt drink and they should dress modestly and keep their legs closed, and let their men beat then.
Millsy I said nothing of the sort, nor am I in the habit of attacking other women. You are confused as usual. Eat more fruit and vegetables, in fact grow your own in case you’re eating toxic substances which you’d be better off without, and always say No to drugs.
You are a prude, Snow White. Plain and simple.
I am curious.
What part of what Snow White says in her comment are you objecting to?
Your total resentment of the male figure is unnatural!
How do you feel about life? Are you happy?
If not, I hope you get better soon.
All of it.
You cannot go one single post without putting the boot into the LGBT community.
Snowwhite hows about boot camps
How about addressing the socio-economic factors underlying the instability and misery in which some children live ? How about successive governments failing abysmally to address such a basic issue such as housing, and the fact that some children grow up never having a permanent abode ? ‘No fixed address’ is an incredibly disadvantaged way to start a life, at every single level.
OT is completely out of control.
This latest revelation is all the evidence needed,it’s disgraceful,it makes me feel sick.l
Bob the first – Me too! Just another brick in Labour road to election defeat…
No they are not. You are right though – it is sickening.
Consider the hundreds of thousands of interactions between OT and the public – but a couple of bad apples – and throw away the bath water.
It was National that developed the current OT model.
What are you suggestions to improve the situation apart from putting all young offenders into boot camp where nothing is likely to go wrong … yeah right!
Adam Smith. Suggestion: Keep the independent Commissioner. Older children and maybe younger ones, carers and their associates, field workers, teachers, anyone involved in children’s lives, need a readily identifiable contact person who they can touch base with in confidence, knowing that the Commissioner is there to represent the best interests of the child, if they are in any way concerned about them.
The whole notion of a backroom government department or worse still, a committee, replacing the children’s advocate is unrealistic and impractical, and government department’s confidentiality cannot be relied upon either, as one or two politicians have found out recently.
The Children’s Commissioner can also work pro-actively and fearlessly on behalf of children, which public servants needing to keep their jobs, rarely do.
A couple! Like just 2. Tahi, rua? Two? A couple. You’re fucked cunt.
Very proud Sam?
Out come all the right wingers ( whingers ) with faux outrage. These are the people who decry children’s youth facilities as barbaric in one breath and want to lock them up in the next breath, aka. boot camps etc.etc.
Look to the root cause of the problem – why is the state having to uplift so many children?
> Solo mums
> Abusive boyfriends
> Addiction
> Neglect
> Criminality
> Long term welfare dependency
Christian fundamentalist right wingers need to stop telling people what they can and cannot do. If a woman want to raise her kids without a father (who probably just treats her and the kids as property) she can, and it’s none of your business. Why don’t you just beat your own wife instead. Fucking wife beating prick.
Kelvin Davis part of the problem?
Andrew it’s state encouraged.
I see my posts are becoming persona non grata