Sunday 14 October, 2012

Greg Boyed interviews Jacinda Ardern, Hone Harawira, Te Ururoa Flavell and Asenati Lole-Taylor

Labour's Jacinda Ardern "overwhelmingly disappointed" Paula Bennett's White Paper ignores 270,000 children living in poverty.

Maori Party's Te Ururoa Flavell: "We're moving in the right direction."

Mana Leader Hone Harawira wonders why if poverty is the great determinant is there nothing addressing it in the report.

Harawira says it's continuing the "tsunami of anti-beneficiary legislation which this Government has been creating".

NZ First's Asenati Lole-Taylor: Poverty a contributing factor, but not always the issue. "We didn't have the money and anything like that, but we turned out to be really good parents."

Harawira: “Eliminate poverty and you'll go a long way towards elimimating child abuse."

Jacinda Ardern says the White Paper plan only waits for the abuse to occur. She says more should be put towards the expertise of nurses, midwives and organisations like Plunket.

Q+A, 9-10am Sundays on TV ONE and one hour later on TV ONE plus 1.

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Q + A
GREG BOYED INTERVIEWS JACINDA ARDERN, HONE HARAWIRA,
TE URUROA FLAVELL AND ASENATI LOLE-TAYLOR

PAUL Well, the Minister is confident. We saw that this morning. She’s passionate, she’s committed, but how much support is there from the other political parties for what she’s trying to do? And what would they do if they had the chance? To find out, Greg Boyed is now with Labour’s Jacinda Ardern; Hone Harawira, leader of Mana; Asenati Lole-Taylor from New Zealand First; and the Maori Party’s Te Ururoa Flavell.

GREG Paul, thank for that and good morning to you. All right, a heap to cover and a heap of opinions, I have no doubt. First of all, 10 to 15 years of what Paula Bennett said, Jacinda, is a Labour government going to support and carry on with what’s been found in the White Paper?

JACINDA ARDERN – Labour MP
There are elements of the White Paper that we would look to support, things like training front-line workers to better identify child abuse. But we are overwhelmingly disappointed by the fact that the Minister has continued to narrow the number of children she wants to work with in this White Paper. The issue is much broader than this action plan discusses. There are 270,000 children in poverty. They are vulnerable children too. She has ignored them in this paper and we will all suffer as a consequence.

GREG Okay, we’ll get to the wider numbers shortly. Te Ururoa Flavell, you’re in government. What do you think of what’s being done and what this puts on the table?

TE URUROA FLAVELL – Maori Party MP
Well, on the back of I think it was 100,000 submissions come in on the back of the bigger picture about poverty, I think we’re moving in the right direction. Sure, it’s not going to be the silver bullet that solves everything, but it’s certainly moving in the direction that we want, and we’re happy that we’ve been able to, through our influence with working with National, have a greater input of whanau ora into this whole process – the recognition that it’s not just the state responsibility. Actually, it’s about our own whanau, families taking responsibility as well. We also are interested in the recognition that iwi have an important role to play in giving support to families – vulnerable families – because vulnerable tamariki – vulnerable children – come from vulnerable families and there’s wider issues to be dealt with.

GREG Hone, Tariana Turia has said, ‘Printing wads of money will not save our babies.’ We’ve spent money before. Do you agree with that, that that’s not the answer here?

HONE HARAWIRA – Mana Party Leader
I always agreed with Tariana on these sorts of issues, but the nub of this is that, and the New Zealand Herald put it out yesterday, that child abuse ramps up hugely in poor families. It’s as simple as that, and yet there’s nothing in this report – not one thing in this report – which suggests that this government is going to do anything to address poverty. Now, if poverty is the great determinant, why is there nothing in this report to address poverty?

GREG She said, though, it’s not about money in the home. I said to her 30, 40, 50—

HONE No, no, no. No, I realise that.

GREG …more in a home—

HONE I realise that, but it is about addressing poverty. I mean, the Government’s own expert on children came out with a report which said some really simple things – feed the kids, provide decent housing, more state houses, a universal benefit, proper jobs, proper education and decent health in those targeted areas. And yet none of that is in this report. This report continues the tsunami of anti-beneficiary legislation which this government has been creating, so they’re creating more and more poverty and then blaming people for acting like they’re poor.

JACINDA And, Greg, these aren’t just opinions. This is evidence-based – research and evidence tells that the biggest, the single biggest determinant of a child’s well-being is poverty and income.

GREG We are going to come back to that in just a moment. Asenati, do you agree this needs to be a universal register for kids, not just the 30,000 that have been targeted?

ASENATI LOLE-TAYLOR – NZ First MP
I agree that there’s a need for more people, you know, for the numbers to be expanded because of 270,000 people who are actually in poverty, but I do reject the view that poverty’s got anything to do with it. It’s a contributing factor to the problem, but it’s not completely. Because I come from a background where, you know, we didn’t have the money and anything like that, but we turned out to be really good parents. And my parents did not have that much money, but they were good parents. And they put us in good education. They actually got me to where I am today. So, you know, the problem that we have in this paper, though, is that there’s lack of plans put in place of structure that will help with the community groups whom Paula Bennett was talking about is going to be responsible for identifying those children in an abusive environment. And I think it’s time that we stop all this political correctness and get the people out there – empower the police, empower the people to go out there and get those families who have been identified and so something about it and make them aware that they need to be accountable.

GREG Jacinda, Paula Bennett said she’s offended by using poverty as an excuse; there was more poverty after the war; it’s an offensive excuse.

JACINDA There is no excuse for abuse. Absolutely none. But what we’re arguing is that, actually, if you broaden out what you’re identifying as what you need to address and broaden it out to poverty, you’re actually going to lift up vulnerable children who aren’t just being abused, but a much wider group. The child who goes to school hungry and has poor educational outcomes, who earns less money over their life course, they cost the taxpayer money as well. The child who lives in a poor, overcrowded house ends up getting rheumatic fever, costs us $150,000 over the course of their life. They’re not necessarily children who are being abused, but they’re vulnerable and having poor outcomes.

GREG They’re vulnerable, but they’re not violent. They’re not going to end up beaten as a result of the scenarios you just put forward.

JACINDA But that’s the point. If you narrow what you’re trying to attack, as the Minister is doing, and saying, ‘We’re going to use a dodgy assessment tool, pick out 20,000 kids and try and help them.’ If you actually go back to first principles and say, ‘Let’s address poverty and vulnerability,’ you not only help those 20,000, you help a much wider group of kids who need us, quite frankly, and you save the taxpayer money as a consequence.

GREG Labour had a swing at this. Ruth Dyson had a swing at it. Steve Maharey had a swing. It obviously didn’t work that well because we’re still having a swing at it. Hone Harawira, is there anything in here that you do agree with that’s being done and being laid out?

HONE First of all, let’s clarify this issue about poverty, and Asenati was probably born in the ‘60s or the ‘70s, but I was born in the ‘50s, and, you know, we weren’t well off, but nobody was. Back in those days, there was no sense that there were poor people. Everybody was relatively the same. What we have now is a massive cohort in our own society that is desperately poor and a small group who are insanely and obscenely rich. The level of poverty and the relativity of poverty has changed. The world has turned upside down for great numbers of people. So we have to factor in poverty as a real issue. It’s not an excuse. I mean, The Herald—

GREG Plenty of poor people aren’t violent. We all know that.

HONE The Herald doesn’t make excuses about statistics. The statistics say children in welfare families are 10 times more likely to be abused than those who are not in welfare families, so it’s really simple.

JACINDA Children in poor families.

HONE Yeah, so children in poor families are going to cop it more so than children that are not in poor families. So eliminate poverty, and you’ll go a long way towards eliminating child abuse and all of the other problems that come with poverty. In terms of is there anything good in the paper? There’s one thing that’s good in there, but I don’t believe it’s going to happen. You know, when you asked if anyone’s going to be held accountable, the paper says that the CEOs of Te Puni Kokiri, Ministry of Social Development, the Police and Justice are going to be held accountable. I guarantee you if the stats don’t change, none of them get sacked.

GREG Te Ururoa Flavell, is this a Maori problem or not?

TE URUROA Oh, no, it’s not a Maori problem. Sure, we might have rates that are little bit higher than others, but it’s not a Maori problem, it’s a New Zealand problem, and everybody acknowledges that.

GREG Does there need to be—? Okay, then, let me ask that a different way. Does there need to be a different approach to dealing with the Maori families who are abusing their kids, who are killing their kids, or can we use the approach that’s been put out in this White Paper?

TE URUROA The first approach is that it’s pretty— it’s been fairly clear and put out there by the Maori Party that our belief is that we take a whanau ora approach. As I said earlier, vulnerable tamariki are a part of vulnerable families, and so I tend to agree with the notion that there’s an impact of poverty on those families. And the research that Hone talked about – 85% of tamariki that have been proved to be in abusive households or otherwise come from those who are on the welfare benefits. So we know that it’s in that area, but our belief is that, look, they’re a part of whanau, they are part of families, and the families must take a greater role in holding ourselves responsible for the things that we do amongst our families. And when I say families, I’m talking about whanau in a Maori context, families in a wider context, because we are part of families and we can’t rely— continue to rely on the state to come up with the goodies all the time. We actually have to take responsibility. Strategies are fine. They only last a particular period of time. We actually have to take a responsibility which is a human responsibility.

GREG Are those lines that are applicable to the Pacific community, Asenati?

ASENATI It is, but I think sometimes you use the culture far too much as an excuse. This is an issue that’s applicable to everybody in New Zealand, and I think that the problem I have with this paper is that it’s looking at an abuse register – a register to record the numbers of those people who are coming from abusive families and so on. So the question I need to ask is that there is a privacy issue here – how is that going to be—?

GREG Surely, privacy goes out the window. When you get a kid that’s getting the hell smacked out of them, privacy isn’t—

ASENATI Yeah, it’s part of the police operation, but, I mean, it’s still about how, you know, the information’s going to be shared, the accessibility by those people that Paula Bennett was talking about that would be put in place to look after. There’s also a need for a register of social workers, because, you know, at the moment it’s not mandatory and there is an issue about mandatory reporting. It’s not being enforced.

JACINDA All of that waits for abuse to occur. Now, surely in all of this our biggest focus should be getting in front of the problem.

GREG Okay, that should be a focus, but let’s take the scenario we’ve got at the moment – there are kids who are getting abused. I would have thought the first thing a government – any government – can do is the mechanisms in place need to be— the police, the CYFs, the schoolteachers, the parents, the neighbourhood do share information. Is that not a step in the right direction?

JACINDA Yeah, absolutely, and I would like to have seen the White Paper do that. The Minister’s not doing that. She’s creating a new separate platform where information will be shared for some children and only the children that she deems to be at risk based on a tool that she’s mocked up using Auckland University— rather than using a computerised tool. I would rather use the people we have contact with every single baby born. Our midwives, our Plunket and Well Child providers, they see every family. They know the kids who are going to be at risk. Why rely on a dodgy tool that only uses beneficiary information instead when we have people at the front line who know where the risks are? Now, some DHBs are using that information, identifying vulnerable mums before they’re mums and working alongside them to upskill them as parents and empower them to be good parents. They had dropped abuse rates by 50%.

GREG You would have midwives? You would be having midwives? Right across the board, you’d have these people in the database you’d be talking to these people right from the get-go—?

JACINDA We’d be using the expertise, the people who see those mums before they’re mums, who know where help is needed. You know, in the Kahui case, you read that coroner’s report. We missed a number of steps along the way, where, actually, CYFs had a conversation about whether or not there was a role for them to be in that family and decided there wasn’t. But there was a nurse in hospital who said they noticed there was an attachment issue between Mum and baby. Now, if we’d used that information and been involved with our Plunket and our Wel Child providers, who knows what the outcome might have been.

GREG Hone, is there only so much a government can do? You can keep throwing money at it, and money has been thrown at it and will continue to be spent on this issue. Is there only so much a government can do and then you have to get to a point and go, ‘You guys have to take responsibility of yourself and start treating these kids better, simple as that’?

HONE No, government cannot absolve itself of the responsibility of caring for the most vulnerable sectors in its society, including children. It has an absolute responsibility there. I have to say that I’m supportive very much of what the Maori Party’s trying to do in terms of Whanau Ora for Maori whanau. I’m very supportive of what Mana Ririki is doing in terms of training people. They’ve had great success rates in terms of that. I do agree with Paula in terms of the argument that this isn’t about spending more money; it’s about spending the current money more wisely. But I also support what Jacinda said, that are women out there, nurses, midwives, Plunket nurses, people who have direct contact at the very early stages and know what the issues are at the very early— even before children are born, who have a better understanding of that community and those families than a model developed down here in Auckland University’s ever going to have.

GREG Then you’ve got $20 million, you’re Social Development Minister for a day, where would you be spending that if she’s not?

HONE The first thing I’d do is I’d appoint community coordinators in every community in the country. If that meant taking somebody out of social welfare, I’d take them out because I want community coordinators that the community respects. The second thing I’d do is I’d ensure that those agencies – their funding is available to that community coordinator, because families need it immediately. They don’t need to be going through hoops and all of this kind of compliance rubbish. They need it immediately. Thirdly, I’d want to make sure that community jobs are available so that if somebody walks into the house and says, ‘Get off your arse, mate. You go and get a job,’ and he says, ‘There aren’t any,’ he said, ‘I’ve got one for you tomorrow.’ You know what I mean? It’s as simple as that. You take the money that’s already there, you put it into the communities, use their Whanau Ora model if you have to and just get on with it.

GREG Te Ururoa Flavell, you mentioned Whanau Ora and the use of Whanau Ora. What one new idea would you come to the table with on this?

TE URUROA Well, Whanau Ora’s approach still has to be implemented in a fuller way. It’s out there, and we’re still working through and tracking how it might be implemented. But I think the idea of having people on the ground dealing with families is something that Maori families at least warm to. Back in the day, when Maori Affairs were on the ground working with the people, and it’s sort of like a combination of both Jacinda’s and Hone’s view. But the key thing that’s come through time and time again, Greg, at both the select committee process that we’re doing with Maori Affairs on vulnerable children, I think through the poverty report, is the interaction of the agencies. They do it one-on-one – only one department working with one family.

GREG Okay.

TE URUROA And the thing that comes through on this report is it’s about time those services were integrated so everybody’s in the can and Whanau Ora’s exactly that.

GREG Okay, we’re going to have to leave that subject here. Moving very rapidly on, Hone Harawira, on Thursday night you fought the law and the law won. Housing New Zealand says you were rarking these people up. Are you?

HONE Look, in 2008, Government made a promise to the people of Glen Innes that nobody would be moved out of that community if they didn’t want to move. The Glen Innes community took a survey and not one family wanted to move. Since then, Government has gone out of its way to force those people out of those communities. I’m there defending the right of the people of Glen Innes to stay there. And by the way, the law hasn’t won. I’ve been arrested, but it hasn’t been to court yet.

GREG Are you going to turn up in court?

HONE Oh, look, I’m not going to get arrested on a warrant over a petty charge like failure to remove a vehicle from a road.

GREG So, no, you’re not turning up in court?

HONE I’m coming to court.

GREG Okay, we’ll see you in court. Well, I won’t be there. Someone will. Jacinda, finally, Kevin Hague’s Adoption Bill – are you going to support that? Are you going to get behind that?

JACINDA Well, we’ve obviously got mine coming up before Parliament first, so we’ll be waiting to see how the passage of that one goes. But, look, ultimately, as I understand – I’m yet to see Kevin’s bill – our goals are very much the same, and that is reforming our antiquated adoption laws.

GREG So at this stage it’s a possible maybe, yes?

JACINDA Yeah, I haven’t seen Kevin’s bill, but as I understand, it’s looking to do the same— similar things to ours, and that is putting children at the centre of adoption law and decision-making around their guardianship.

GREG So yes or no?

JACINDA I haven’t seen it, but, look, in principle, that’s what it’s doing, then I imagine yes, but I haven’t seen it. It hasn’t gone to caucus.

GREG Hone, would you back it?

HONE I understand Kevin’s coming on next, so I want him to say nice things about me, so, yes, I’ll support his bill.

GREG Asenati?

ASENATI We will be discussing that at our caucus, and then we will let you know where we stand, but, you know, it’s all about what’s in the common interest of everybody.

GREG Te Ururoa?

TE URUROA We generally take the view that we support most bills at the first reading unless there’s something really controversial in there. We’ll be waiting with bated breath to have a look at it in more detail.

GREG We’ll see it in a minute. All right, to all four of you, thank you very much.

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