Episode Transcript
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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 Maori 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outdated and went against the need not race directive, and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, 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 been two years and
(01:52):
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 is no
(02:13):
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 Olanga 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. Listen live
(02:35):
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