Waatea News Column: Should we strip Oranga Tamariki of its name?
You get the feeling that the Ministry of Vulnerable Children’s name change to Oranga Tamariki was a brown washing exercise to gloss over the much more violent reality of what this new agency would be doing.
The lowered thresholds for intervention and the weakening of parents powers of guardianship with no legal aid representation to challenge a seizing and no independent oversight has created the perfect storm of over zealous Government employees with unchecked powers.
Such a dangerous combination of power minus oversight always lands hardest on the weakest and most vulnerable, that’s why we saw a Māori mother having to literally hold onto her new born infant child while the State like a lidless crocodile waited to snatch her baby away.
To give this social policy failure a Māori name adds insult to injury.
As a historic inquiry into State abuse of children in their care kicks off, we are creating the exact same social carnage now while looking backwards at our past failures with no appreciation of the grim irony that dooms our future if we learn nothing from these wrongs in the present.
First published on Waatea News.
The name , the Maori staff, the Maori progammes, the funding, the employment process all need to be dumped get rid of that baggage now and start again using a NEW well-being economic and social progress model based on the TOW where is that model? develop it i made it up I am sure we have the people here in our country that can do this. We are still looking at the Puao te ata tu report and how old is that document this says we haven’t moved forward, why is this ? The justice system is just as bad Moana Jacksons work ‘Maori and the criminal justice system’ is as relevant today as it was when he first wrote it and I ask again what has happened in this space = more Maori in prison. And people wonder why our people are so angry i can tell you why if you have any dealings with the state they wear you down they kick you in the guts and they can be very spiteful and nasty.
he name , the Maori staff, the Maori progammes, the funding, the employment process all need to be dumped get rid of that baggage now and start again using a NEW well-being economic and social progress model based on the TOW where is that model? develop it i made it up I am sure we have the people here in our country that can do this. We are still looking at the Puao te ata tu report and how old is that document this says we haven’t moved forward, why is this ? The justice system is just as bad Moana Jacksons work ‘Maori and the criminal justice system’ is as relevant today as it was when he first wrote it and I ask again what has happened in this space = more Maori in prison. And people wonder why our people are so angry i can tell you why if you have any dealings with the state they wear you down they kick you in the guts and they can be very spiteful and nasty.
+100 Great Post Martyn Bradbury
….and agree MICHELLE….Maori must be in control in the design of their State funded organisations ( not just the name)…they know best what is needed to support their parents and babies and children and adolescents and young adults
imo first is housing and jobs or job training
second ….more community support for parents
third …only parents and their whanau can decide when a baby should be relinquished to whanau care…but the parents should still be in contact with their children
Moana Jackson and others with mana and experience should be the designers
Changing the name is like the lipstick on Judith Collins.
Good analogy Martyn, “Brown Washing” is exactly the term to describe the deception they created when they changed the name.
There are virtully no real honesty in our governence today.
The Department of Social Welfare has been “overhauled” several times. Apparently.
The reality is that it seems only the name got overhauled, the system carries on becoming more vile with each passing year.
I guess the longer government departments get away with things they shouldn’t be doing, the more ingrained it becomes. Add to that even more weird ideas about child care . . . .