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Precedent No Wai 2915, #A49 KEI MUA I TE AROARO O TE RŌPŪ WHAKAMANA I TE TIRITI O WAITANGI BEFORE THE WAITANGI TRIBUNAL WAI 2915 IN THE MATTER OF the Treaty of Waitangi Act 1975 AND IN THE MATTER OF the Oranga Tamariki Urgent Inquiry BRIEF OF EVIDENCE OF HOANI LAMBERT FOR THE 7 AUGUST CONTEXTUAL HEARING 30 July 2020 CROWN LAW TE TARI TURE O TE KARAUNA Pouaka Poutāpeta PO Box 2858 TE WHANGANUI-Ā-TARA WELLINGTON 6140 Waea Tel: 04 472 1719 Waea Whakaahua Fax: 04 473 3482 Whakapā mai: Contacts: Virginia Hardy / Cameron Tyson / Laura MacKay [email protected] / [email protected] / [email protected] MAY IT PLEASE THE TRIBUNAL: 1. My name is Hoani Jeremy Lambert. Ko Ngāti Kahungunu ki te Wairoa te iwi. 2. I am the Deputy Chief Executive Voices of Children and the Tamariki Advocate, responsible for ensuring the voices of children are at the centre of everything we do. I am also responsible for overseeing the design and assurance of the Ministry’s response to s7AA of the Oranga Tamariki Act and the Treaty of Waitangi. 3. I joined Oranga Tamariki just prior to its launch on 1 April 2017. Before that, I held senior management and leadership roles with the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry (now the Ministry for Primary Industries) and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade. 4. As a Māori public servant I share the drive and ambition of the Ministry to transform the way the care and protection system works to improve outcomes for Maori. I share this sense of possibility with my leadership team colleagues, our staff and our iwi and Maori partners. I feel privileged to be in this position at this particular time. 5. I have previously provided evidence in these proceedings by way of an affidavit.1 Where relevant, I have drawn on my earlier evidence filed in this inquiry. Disparity 6. As the Crown has acknowledged, the existing disparities experienced by Maori reflects, in large part, the ongoing effect of historical injustices on iwi, hapū and whānau. Today, we see that in the scale and complexity of the socio- economic disparity experienced by Māori. 7. We know from analysis and frontline experience that the children and whānau coming to the attention of Oranga Tamariki have multiple complex needs. Many of the witnesses before me have spoken about the wide range of needs. 8. Most recently we have conducted in depth quantitative analysis2 to help understand more precisely the nature of the disparities between Māori and 1 Wai 2915 #A16 Affidavit of Hoani Jeremy Lambert, dated 24 December 2019; Wai 2015 #A20 Second affidavit of Hoani Jeremy Lambert dated 25 March 2020 2 non-Māori, which is a difficult task. This analysis confirmed, as expected, that for the ten years to June 2019, ethnicity is statistically associated with differences in first time involvement with Oranga Tamariki for children in all age groups across most stages of the Care and Protection system. However, disparities experienced by tamariki Māori are less when socioeconomic and other factors are controlled for. We need to do more work to understand the more precise causes of this disparity.3 9. We are also implementing a new way of measuring disparities for tamariki and whānau Māori at each decision-making point in the system and have developed a method for measuring disproportionality. We intend to report on disparity and disproportionality as part of our annual reporting on section 7AA.4 10. As Grant Bennett discusses in his evidence, we are seeing a downward trend in care entries for tamariki Māori. The disparity between tamariki Māori and non-Māori entering care is also reducing. Additionally, for the first time in a number of years we are seeing a reduction of Māori children in care. 11. However, the Crown has a significant responsibility to take steps to address the unacceptable disproportionality that remains. Oranga Tamariki is part of a wider system that supports tamariki Māori and whānau. Partnership is required between a range of Crown agencies and Māori, including whānau, hapū and iwi, because these needs cannot be met by one single agency of the Crown alone. The intent of the Child, Youth and Wellbeing Strategy is for government agencies to work together to address these needs.5 Under the Strategy, Te Puni Kōkiri and Oranga Tamariki are leading work to increase whānau-centred approaches to improve child and youth wellbeing.6 12. Te Pūao-te-Atatū report (1986) and the subsequent 1989 legislation represented a fundamental break from the past and a radically new approach to 2 https://www.orangatamariki.govt.nz/about-us/research/our-research/factors-associated-with-disparities-experienced-by- tamariki-maori/. The analysis was for tamariki Māori compared to children of ‘New Zealand European and Other’ ethnicities (i.e. not Māori compared to all non-Māori). 3 Link Evidence Centre analysis – ‘Factors associated with disparities experienced by Tamariki Māori in the Care and Protection System’… 4 https://www.orangatamariki.govt.nz/assets/Uploads/About-us/Research/Latest-research/Disparity-and disproportionality-in-the-CP-system/Measuring-disparity-and-disproportionality-in-the-CP-system.pdf 5 https://childyouthwellbeing.govt.nz/resources/child-and-youth-wellbeing-strategy 6 https://dpmc.govt.nz/sites/default/files/2019-11/child-youth-wellbeing-strategy-4180838_4180837.pdf 5834062_2 3 child protection and care that recognised the need to approach Māori families within a Māori cultural context.7 13. However, the aspirations of the report and the 1989 Act were not fully realised, particularly for Māori. The evidence for this is sufficiently laid out in the Expert Advisory Panel’s Final Report “Investing in New Zealand’s Children and their Families” (EAP report) of December 2015. Establishment of Oranga Tamariki 14. In 2017, the EAP was used as a blueprint for establishing the Ministry. The current system was found to be wholly inadequate for a number of reasons, including being totally ineffective in preventing further harm, as shown by high rates of children and young people coming back into the system. The EAP suggested a new operating model for Oranga Tamariki including Early Intervention, Intensive Intervention, Care, Youth Justice and Transitions. 15. Upon establishment Oranga Tamariki focussed on fixing the core system architecture (children in care, youth justice) and setting up the transitions support service which supports young people to transition successfully from statutory care and youth justice to adulthood.8 Now that we have made progress in those areas, our focus is moving to supporting whānau earlier to prevent entry into care. 16. Under s 7AA our organisational outcomes framework includes an end goal that tamariki Māori are thriving under the protection of their whānau, hapū and iwi. Bringing a child into care should only be a last resort and if a child comes into care they should, wherever possible, be placed within their whānau, hapū or iwi. Oranga Tamariki and the Treaty of Waitangi 17. Section 7AA establishes additional duties for the Oranga Tamariki chief executive in relation to the Treaty of Waitangi. These duties are in addition to the Crown’s broader responsibilities under the Treaty. The implementation of s 7AA has supported a fundamental shift in the way the organisation thinks 7 Puao-te-ata-tu: The report of the Ministerial Advisory Committee on a Māori perspective for the Department of Social Welfare (1988), p17, para 21. https://www.msd.govt.nz/documents/about-msd-and-our-work/publications- resources/archive/1988-puaoteatatu.pdf 8 See https://orangatamariki.govt.nz/about-us/reports-and-releases/cabinet-papers/implementing-the- operating-model/ 5834062_2 4 about how it improves outcomes for tamariki and whānau Māori. Specifically, it has challenged the organisation to think about the rights and interests of whānau, hapū and iwi as part of its core work. My experience across the organisation is that staff see this is a serious commitment that will lead to change. Clear expectations, accountability and measurement of section 7AA 18. At a system level, we have developed five mana tamaiti objectives that embody the 33 whānau, hapū and iwi references in the Oranga Tamariki Act and reflect the definition of mana tamaiti (tamariki) by reinforcing the importance of whanaungatanga obligations and responsibilities inherent through whakapapa. We have also developed a set of nine initial measures for the mana tamaiti objectives. 19. We have five s 7AA Quality Assurance Standards to be met by our staff when developing operational policies, practices or new services (delivered by us or by our partners).9 These standards also incorporate key principles of the Treaty of Waitangi such as kāwanatanga and rangatiratanga, active protection, partnership and equity. Focus on early and intensive intervention 20. Early intervention provides an opportunity for a whānau centred, community- led approach to meet the needs of tamariki and whānau. 21. We are working with the Whānau Ora Commissioning Agency, TPK and ACC to co-design a whānau-led early intervention prototype that aims to support whānau to shift from crisis towards stability and resilience, and in doing so reduce the need for future involvement in the care, protection and youth justice systems. The Crown plans to do more cross-agency work with iwi and communities to support them in developing whānau-led prototypes and community planning approaches that respond to local needs. This is part of work being delivered under the Child and Youth Wellbeing Strategy.10 9 https://orangatamariki.govt.nz/assets/Uploads/About-us/Report-and-releases/Quality-Assurance- Standards/Section-7AA-Quality-Assurance-Standards.pdf 10 This work is being led by the Child Wellbeing Unit at the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet, with Oranga Tamariki working alongside.
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