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Children's Commissioner pushes for closure

The Children's Commissioner has backed a call for the closure of New Zealand's large care and protection residences and the eventual abolition of the four youth justice detention centres.It comes after a report for the Human Rights Commission found that the use of seclusion in the youth justice residences reviewed had doubled since 2016, while seclusion in the care and protection residences reviewed had declined slightly.It is a follow-up to a previous report in 2017 by the s...

The Detail: Reducing child poverty is more complicated than

Last week, the latest Child Poverty Monitor report revealed 235,000 children – about one in five kids – live in poverty.In some senses, including those raw numbers, the statistic is shocking.But it also represents progress.Children’s Commissioner Judge Andrew Becroft says the numbers are tracking in the right direction – particularly when it comes to the overall level of incomes.But in other senses, little progress is being made.Link to article: The Detail: Reducing child ...

'Colonial noose' — Māori Party's Rawiri Waititi

Despite the ultimatum, Waititi says he will continue his stand against ties.  Last Thursday, Waititi promised the Māori Party's "unapologetic Māori voice will be heard and that our Māori cloak is felt and is present in every piece of legislation and bill passed in this House".  At the end of the speech, he spoke of his tipuna who was wrongly convicted and put to death for Anglican Priest Reverend Völkner in Ōpōtiki in 1865.  Rawiri said in the H...

Valuable land confiscated from Māori

Land taken from Māori by the Crown in Te Reureu, Manawatū, is estimated to be worth between $250million and $770m today.Tiwana Tibble of Ngati Pikiahu made the valuation at a Waitangi Tribunal hearing at Te Tikanga Marae at Tokorangi, north of Halcombe, on Wednesday, as part of the Ngāti Raukawa iwi confederations treaty claim.This week of hearings is focused on the Te Reureu area, which borders the Rangitīkei River, but is part of a case relating to the historical purchase of the Rangitīke...

Taranaki iwi representatives

Three Taranaki iwi representatives will be invited for the first time to participate in regional civil defence management meetings from 2021 onwards.The decision, after a long debate at the Taranaki Regional Council (TRC) civil defence emergency management (CDEM) joint committee meeting on Thursday, was heralded as a “forward thinking” move, which would be looked on with interest by the rest of New Zealand.The committee, chaired by regional councillor Tom Cloke, included the mayors and chief...

‘How we halted a reverse uplift

One couple's harrowing story of being caught in Oranga Tamariki's machinations but managing to hold off - for now - a 'reverse uplift' of their whānauWe are a professional couple of Māori/Pacific Island/European heritage who have whāngai cared for many of our younger siblings, nieces and nephews over the decades. In late January 2019 we received a call from extended whānau who were desperate to find a permanent home for a baby and toddler.The two tamariki had already been through three whān...

Good intentions are not enough:

I read Lawrence Patchett's novel The Burning River when it first came out late in 2019.A year later, I’m brave enough to contribute to a public conversation about Pākehā writing, so that Māori don’t always have to do the work of responding, and so that Pākehā have access to an alternative perspective.Critiquing the fundamental decisions of a novel about identity makes a review pretty personal. I’ve held off commenting for so long because of this, but it begins to feel someth...

Anne Salmond:

Stuff’s apology for the inequitable treatment of Māori and tikanga Māori by Stuff and its media predecessors is so powerful, writes Dame Anne Salmond, because it recognises the Queen’s promise of equality and mutual respect for different tikangaIn 1992 and 2010, as an anthropological historian, I was asked by the Waitangi Tribunal to explore understandings of Te Tiriti o Waitangi when the document was signed (or not) at Waitangi, and other places around the country.In 1992, I had the privi...

Apologies issued, cultural sites vested in 'long overdue'

The Crown has made a“long overdue" apology to a Bay of Plenty iwi as part of an $11-million treaty settlement.Ngāti Rangitihi is a Te Arawa iwi based in and around Rotorua, Kaingaroa and Matatā.Among the reasons for the Crown's apology were aggressive land purchases, failure to protect the “defiled, degraded and polluted” Tarawera River, and failing to stop Ngāti Rangitihi from becoming virtually landless by 1900.The deed of settlement of the iwi's historical Treaty of Waitangi claims w...

NZMA sign off Sustainable Māori trades training

A new trades and training campus will be set up at Auckland's Hoani Waititi Marae to help more Māori and Pasifika into skills-based education.Representatives from both Hoani Waititi and trades and training agencies met at the marae to formalize the partnership.The plan for the facility comes after NZMA recorded a 320 percent hike in trades enrolments and a need for more education pathways for Māori and Pasifika.Education options from early childhood to Tertiary level are already available at H...

Research reveals Māori and Pasifika

The study, Glass ceilings in New Zealand Universities: Inequities in Māori and Pacific promotions earnings, was led by Dr Tara McAllister at the research centre Te Pūnaha Matatini and published in Mai Journal today.It builds on previous research which found that only 4 percent of New Zealand professors are Māori and Pasifika make up only 1 percent.This new study, which examined the promotions and earnings of 17,174 academics from all eight New Zealand universities between ...

Children's Commissioner calls for action

Child poverty advocates are calling for action after a new report revealed one in every five children in New Zealand is living in income poverty - and COVID-19 could make it worse.The Child Poverty Monitor released their annual report on Wednesday in partnership with the Office of the Children's Commissioner, the JR McKenzie Trust and Otago University.The data reveals that over 13 percent or 150,000 of Kiwi children experience material hardship. This means they live in households unable to affor...

Auckland park first to get bilingual signage

The renaming of Crum Park in Titirangi to Tahurangi/Crum Park marks the start of a joint venture between the local iwi, Te Kawerau a Maki and Auckland Council, through a programme called Te Kete Rukuruku.The programme aims to restore indigenous place names throughout local parks in Tamaki Makaurau, as a way of sharing traditional indigenous knowledge and storytelling.Tahurangi/Crum Park is the first of 23 parks to have signs in both te reo Māori and English.Link to article: Auckland park f...

Davis demands formal review

Oranga Tamariki has been asked to carry out an internal investigation into an uplift after officials failed to satisfy the Children's Minister's demands for an explanationChildren’s Minister Kelvin Davis has ordered Oranga Tamariki to conduct a formal case review of the uplift documented in a Newsroom investigation, after officials gave him unsatisfactory explanations for the actions displayed. News of the ministerial demand comes after a High Court judge ordered Newsroom to remove a...

Carers:

Numerous foster carers have contacted Newsroom since our investigation last week highlighted a change in the children's ministry policy to take back tamariki from even 'forever care'Oranga Tamariki’s change in policy to place tamariki back with whānau and Iwi has prompted a flood of messages from foster carers saying the way the agency is activating this legislation is far from child centred and is like being at the end of a swinging pendulum.Newsroom’s latest investigation O...

Māori Language Commission

The Māori Language Commission has welcomed Stuff's “new, courageous direction” following the release of its project Our Truth, Tā Mātou Pono.Over several months, about 20 journalists and a production team reviewed 160 years’ worth of reporting, and on Monday, Stuff issued a public apology for the way the organisation has portrayed Māori and Māori issues.In a statement, the Māori Language Commission has welcomed the unprecedented, new direction taken by t...

Our Truth, Tā Mātou Pono:

Our Truth, Tā Mātou Pono is a Stuff project investigating the history of racism. Part one has focused on Stuff and its newspapers, and how we have portrayed Māori. Georgia Weaver looks at the history of the Southland Times and the challenge from mana whenua.Te Rūnanga o Ngāi Tahu is putting its people back on the Southland map, helping to make their presence visible again across our landscape.It is cultural mapping of Māori place names, their meanings and connection to ...

Kelvin Davis and Oranga Tamariki:

Link to article: Kelvin Davis and Oranga Tamariki: 'There will be a handover of power to Māori' - NZ Herald...

Oranga Tamariki -

The service has not got much credit for the good outcomes for many of the children brought to its attention. There must have been many successes but the overall impression has been that the agency can't get a thing right. Maybe it just goes with the territory.Very quickly the narrative is changing. Now we hear the agency has a shocking record of removing Māori babies from their mothers and not exploring ways and means of helping the mothers keep their babies, or allowing the wider whānau to pr...

Most memorable books of 2020:

Link to article: Most memorable books of 2020: Māori wisdom, art, anger and apocalypse - NZ Herald...

Oranga Tamariki 'will not get it right' until power sits with Māori

The new Assistant Māori Children's Commissioner is questioning how much longer New Zealand will tolerate Oranga Tamariki not providing care to children.In an interview with Newshub Nation on Saturday, Glenis Philip-Barbara said Aotearoa is "waking up" to the fact that Māori  have solutions not only for their own social issues but for the country as a whole - and it's time Oranga Tamariki got with the program.She says the organisation has had problems for three decades, and it's time for t...

Oranga Tamariki

Since the release of a Newsroom Investigates video showing Oranga Tamariki uplifting children from their carers after two and a half years, Newsroom has been inundated by stories from other foster parents and caregivers who have been affected by the agency’s practices.A foster parent* who experienced similar treatment to the family in this Newsroom Investigates video says she feels broken-hearted watching the documentary because it feels all too familiar.Oranga Tamariki placed a child into her...

‘Two wrongs

The sad tale of four young children placed 'forever' in the care of two foster parents, but after a change of policy at Oranga Tamariki finding themselves taken from their home again into a new and unknown world. Melanie Reid and Bonnie Sumner report.“I told you I’d find you a new place to live. This is your forever home. You’ll never have to leave again.”It was March 8, 2018 and these were the words of an Oranga Tamariki social worker to three little girls sitting in the lounge of their...

Kelvin Davis to

Children’s Minister Kelvin Davis has asked Oranga Tamariki to “please explain” its actions after a Newsroom investigation into Māori children being taken away from Pākehā foster parents who had provided them with a permanent home.Davis told Newsroom he had watched most of the video - a change from his predecessor Tracey Martin, who refused to watch a previous Newsroom investigation into a child uplift - and had already called Oranga Tamariki officials into his office on T...

Oranga Tamariki chief

There are strong signals the chief executive of the children's ministry's time in charge is over, just days after another damning report on its 'unfixable' failings. The head of Oranga Tamariki, Grainne Moss, is believed to be leaving the role after a year of widespread controversy and public inquiries into her ministry's unlawful uplifts of Māori children.Moss, who has been in the job for four years after suddenly departing her previous role in the private sector, had the support of ...