I have deep fears that removing 7AA from Oranga Tamariki will green light a tsunami of uplifts and create another lost generation of Māori kids.
The Social Investment Model uses big data algorithms to pinpoint when a child needs uplifting. For it to work properly and deliver the savings downstream to the State, the uplift must be as soon as Orac tells the State to uplift.
When they switch it on, it is going to generate an enormous tsunami of uplifts.
Removing 7AA removes the requirement for OT to talk to Māori, which is a green light for mass uplifts.
Placing uplifted Māori children into Māori Community Groups rather than the statistically likely abuse within State care is an actual solution (as long as the funding follows the child).
What ACT, National and NZ First are really fighting for here is to turn Orac on and let the magic of AI determine which child gets uplifted and which one doesn’t!
Think of it as a cross between Kindergarten Cop, Minority Report and The Handmaid’s Tale.
If the realty of this hard Right Government gaining the power to use AI to invade your life and rip children from parents doesn’t scare the bejesus out of you, I don’t know what will.
The State taking a child from a parent is the most extreme power imbalance we have in a liberal progressive society. If we uplift children into State care where they statistically stand to be abuse more than if they had been left in the community, you have a very damaged and broken system that requires more oversight, not less!
What the Social Investment Model intends to do is unapologetically supercharge the uplift process and weaponise it against those Orac warns us will cost the State more money down stream.
We need more oversight here, not less and the willingness of this Government to embark upon this radical yet invisible welfare experiment should be ringing alarm bells everywhere.
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Removing 7AA removes the requirement for OT to talk to Māori, which is a green light for mass uplifts.
Even if 7aa is removed I doubt the outcome would be as you suggest. OT learned (or at least should have) that when 7aa was in place it required more interaction with whanau (hapu/iwi) around their work with Maori tamariki. Most social workers realise that working with whanau and other natural supports in the tamarikis environment was important in avoiding an uplift. Using and strengthening the natural supports in the child’s environment is more likely to avoid the need for bringing children into care. Also, there is a massive dearth in suitable and competent caregivers – but this is another story.
But you are right that 7aa forces OT to stop and think about how to manage reports of concern of which totalled approximately 67000 in 2024 – https://www.orangatamariki.govt.nz/about-us/performance-and-monitoring/quarterly-report/overview/ … this data also shows that 780 tamariki came into care during that period and 1150 were removed from care … less than 0.01% of ROC’s lead to children coming into care. Also, during this period, more children were removed and came into care (370 more) which suggests that uplifts were statistically rare in this year (2023).
A stand out clue !
Seymour , pre election
as recorded in The Guardian repeatedly reiterated his goal of dismantling Māori governance. He stated along the lines of,
‘ at first I will meet where people are at then ( I WILL) TAKE THEM WHERE THEY NEED TO BE ‘.
Now there’s narcissism and his Liberty becoming a sham value and regardless of any evidence other than from a Sci-Fi novel , here we are with ACT players living out their fantasies.
Chour’s move is not about big data nor about ethnicity of foster parents. The charade is thin. If it was really about Māori babies’ welfare at all you would see other Sections and Clauses of the Act repealed.
Saying it out loud, what this Amendment Bill is really about is furtively expunging Te Tiriti, zone by little zone, demolishing reference in laws, policy and in roles across government departments. It’s ACT’s obsession.
The tactics are quite blatant. Use a major destabilising event, create a distracting side story , hone in on hurt or the disillusionment of people, manipulate squirrel chasers as the sleazy, portals for Liberatarian fabricated, contradictory pick and choose laws for THEIR dreams of purity.
” I’ll have my rights to amass wealth, guns and property but I need to create a story to diminish ‘protections’ in all forms and exploit others to do so.”
So back to Chour as one of the players and that distracting side story – new fictional headline she’s created, ” An injustice ! Many, many white people feeling slighted by not getting their hands on others’ babies ”
Or that other beauty of the NACTZI’s manipulation, pushing a deficit theory, a FAKE picture covertly created for the ignorant , that Māori do not have loving, caring families for their own.
Māori whanaungatanga, in a sense means, we do not have orphans for the State, for over a hundred and fifty years, to still take at will to assimilate.
Even within the NACTZI’s players’ minds is such a confusion and constant contradiction of lauded ideology coerced on people as ‘deliverables’ that the new mutant ideological VALUE of the CoC is
‘ POWER – FUCK THE EVIDENCE, FUCK THE PEOPLE ! “
I wish Bob would take another pseudo as we have seen too much of this name already and it is a bit shop-worn.
The post above is so scary and not at all over-egged. We will have more than egg on our faces as time goes by. It shows that we have remained a nation of lower-class strugglers at heart concentrating mainly on moving up.** But the extra education that has enabled that advancement has not opened our minds.
When I was young the Post Office produced beautiful *little money boxes for us in brass covered with red leather and the slot for money had little brass jaws that you pushed money through. But when I was needy I could slip a knife through and hold back the teeth and slip a coin or two out. As I have said before we are all devious to some degree and enjoy a challenge. But from childish piggy banks to adult scams and ignoring the needs for proper method for mass government is a big step.
Pity that we couldn’t make it to a mature country with implementation of wise probity over investments and business to a reasoned degree. NZ/AO is basically a failed state just holding together by the skin of its teeth, which are false! As the rest of the world is declining we need all our strength to keep our heads above water and landslides of chopped trees and the wastage of our natural resources despite the hand-wringing of trained people and concerned citizens. I see the Democracy Project reporting on Wellington’s Mayor; being Maori and a woman isn’t enough to give the lift to reasoned and judicial decision-making that a Council with problems needs to adequately cope today.
*Money box – https://www.kotuia.org.nz/collection-item/48090089/
** Movin’ out with Billy Joel https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ua8iiKZHHF8
Spot on Gw !
Well thanks O’T; yours was salient.
I still have my Post Office money box with a nice green cover. The lock is relatively easy to open and I think mine is currently full of 1 & 2 cent pieces. Do you also remember the plastic piggy banks and the ones shaped like Piggy Muldoon?
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/entertainment/sideswipe-june-27-muldoon-piggy-bank-found-at-tip-shop/TKOEKKHU3REECNETZ3VZHX4L3A/