Outgoing children’s commissioner raises serious concerns about new system

As many as eight children died last year at the hands of those supposed to take care of them – but Judge Frances Eivers wasn’t asked about them when she made her last appearance in front of MPs as the children’s commissioner.

Eivers gave a high-level overview of the deficiencies in the child protection system, the lack of political will to create real change, and a failure for Oranga Tamariki and the Ministry of Social Development to share information.

She called for care and protection units – which her predecessor has described as “prison-like” – to be closed.

“Many of the concerns have been raised repeatedly, but we are not doing enough about it,” she said.

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Eivers, a former family court judge and lawyer, is highly-respected and qualified children’s commissioner.

Her failure to make the government act more quickly has raised serious concerns over whether the new system will truly be able to hold the government to account on one of its most basic responsibilities.

Her voice was among those vehemently opposing plans to dismantle her office and take away its investigative powers, raising concerns over the independence of the children’s monitor while it is housed in a government agency.

She will sit on the new board which will replace her office from July 1, and will work within the new structure that she has been critical of.

ACT, National, the Green Party and the Maori Party opposed the legislation underpinning the changes, as did Amnesty International, the Human Rights Commission and Save the Children.

ACT MP Karen Chhour, ​who sits on the social services and communities select committee and was a child of the state, said it was a “very disappointing” sign of what’s to come.

Eivers had been outspoken in her efforts to advocate for children and hold the government to account but there was so much more work to do.

“If their advocating is getting them nowhere what will happen when we have got this new system?” Chhour said of the office.

In January, Eivers said the latest report on Oranga Tamariki showed it was underperforming and a growing number of reports of concern weren’t being followed up on time – if at all.

Chhour was the only committee member to ask about the report, and was concerned about the lack of attention given to the issue.

Jane Searle, chief executive of Child Matters and a leading child welfare expert, said there were detailed reports and public debates after 4-year-old Malachi Subecz was murdered last year. However, the debate missed the underlying drivers of the failures which led to his death, she said.

“Did we really debate the real issues and what change there is going to be at a political level? I don’t think so. It is one thing for us to talk about our outrage, and another to talk at a political level to get the outcome we need.”

The overhaul also came at a time when families were under huge amounts of stress financially, and as the weather disaster and flooding also placed another burden on many.

Eivers was a fantastic advocate, she said, and how her skills would be utilised was the main question.

“I hope we will utilise it well.”