Waatea News Column: The horror of Oranga Tamariki laid bare – again

The latest Oranga Tamariki report by the Office of the Children’s Commissioner came out this week and it is again grim reading for anyone who has been following this neoliberal experiment in social policy.

The argument that underpins this use of big data to make uplift decisions to stop future crimes is a cost equation. The State argues that early intervention saves the State more money downstream, this is a highly questionable value to decide whether or not to rip an infant from a mother into State care.

Put aside those deeply troubling values and equations and just look at what Oranga Tamariki themselves found in regards to the infamous Hawke’s Bay Hospital uplift, it found that such a monumental decision was signed off by just one person and there was quote “no clear rationale” for the uplift in the first place!!!

So not only is this entire process of using big data to uplift children before future crimes are committed justified on deeply questionable values like cutting costs to the State, the process itself is so underfunded and under-resourced one person could sign off on the kidnapping of an infant with no clear rationale as to why it was doing it in the first place!

We have an organisation that has total power with almost no check or balance promoting policy that has nothing to do with the welfare of the infant being uplifted!

This is a disgraceful social policy.

First published on Waatea News.