Andrew Dickens: Children deserve better

Oranga Tamariki is getting rid of its target to place 58% of the kids in its care with wider Whanau.  

And it's also ditching a target for investment with Māori organisations - 23% of funding was targeted for those organisations. 

The Minister for Children Karen Chhour says this is part of OT's 'Safety First' approach. She says the targets were outdated and went against the ‘need not race’ directive.  

And she was concerned whether the priority of Māori organisations were getting in the way of the quality and efficacy of the services being provided.  

And it all makes sense. 

The ingrained belief in our child social workers that kids are always better off rehomed with whanau always seemed counter factual.

In many cases the abuse directed at the kids was at the hands of whanau themselves - people that had been raised by other people in their family but failed at their own parenting. So why would we give the kids to them?

It often seemed that children were being thrown right back into the very cauldron we were trying to help them escape from.  

There have been examples for generations - let us not forget Baby Ru. He was murdered in October 2023, and nobody has been charged for killing him. 

There was anger then and anger now when the people who were there when he suffered did not co-operate with Police.  

Those people were, and are, Rosie Morunga, her partner Dylan Ross, and Ru’s mother Storm Wall. Ru's whanau. What happened people? 

The uplifting of kids is a very serious thing and they need to be housed in safe places with good people. 

But the history of Oranga Tamariki suggests that too many of the supposed saviours are in fact predators hiding in plain sight. 

There's no easy answer to this other than strong vigilance by our agencies and the need to find good people who can help. 

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
So Aranga Tamariki is getting rid of its target to
place fifty eight percent of the kids in its care
with wider faro or family, and it's also ditching a
target for investment with Mali organizations. Twenty three percent of
their funding was targeted for organizations with Maori and Ewe links.
The Minister of Children Karantur says this is part of

(00:21):
OT's safety first approach, and she said the targets were
outdated and went against the need not race directive, and
she was concerned whether the priority of mari organizations were
getting in the way of the quality and efficacy of
the services being provided. And all of that makes sense
to me. The ingrained belief in our children's social workers

(00:44):
that kids are always better off if rehome with farno
or family always seemed counterfactual to me, because in many
cases the abuse directed at the kids was at the
hand of farno or family themselves, people that have been
raised by other people in their family, but at their
own parenting. So why would we give the kids back
to the people that raise the people who can't raise

(01:05):
the kids. It often seemed to me that children were
being thrown right back into the very cauldron we were
trying to help them escape from. And there have been
generations of examples, haven't there. Let's not forget baby Ru.
I haven't mentioned Ru's name for a while. He was
murdered in October twenty twenty three. Nobody has been charged
for killing him. There was anger then and anger now

(01:27):
when the police who were there when he suffered, or
sorry when the people who were there when he suffered
did not cooperate with the police. They were there, they
say nothing. Those people were and are Rosie Modonga, her partner,
Dylan Ross, and Ru's mother Storm Wall. They were, and
they are Ruse Farno. What happened people, It's being two

(01:52):
years and two Christmas is what happened two birthdays. The
uplifting of kids is a very serious thing, to be
housed in safe places with good people, but the history
of Oranga tamariki suggests that too many of the supposed
saviors are in fact predators hiding in plain sight. There

(02:13):
is no easy answer to this, which is why I've
spoken about this for decades. And the only thing we
can have is strong vigilance by our agencies, by Oranga tamariki.
And the only thing we can hope for is that
good people come forward to help the kids that have
been abused. For more from Early Edition with Ryan Bridge.

(02:34):
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