I am Ngati Porou through my mother, and I'm Weira — Welsh — through my father.

After spending 14 years in state care, and 25 years in social work, I consider myself an expert on what it is truly like for a child with Maori whakapapa to grow up separated from all that intrinsically belongs to them.

I was five when I was taken into state care, and 18 when I was finally able to escape it. My mother, miserable and unwell, had left us, for her own survival as well as ours, to escape my father's violence.

She was deemed to have "abandoned her children", and so my father was awarded legal custody of us.

He then applied to Social Welfare to have us temporarily placed in its care. On my fifth birthday, he took me and my two brothers (my older sister was placed with other caregivers) to a children's home, and left, promising to be back for us soon.

I waited every day for weeks and months after that, but it would be many years before I saw him again.

Over the years, other children came and went, but my siblings and I stayed in those homes. To everyone who came to visit and view the "underprivileged" children, we looked well adjusted and cared for.

But our experience contradicted appearances and we suffered things children are not supposed to: psychological, sexual, and other physical abuse over many years. It still makes me sick to say that.

I didn't bear it silently. I fought to protect my brothers and me from the abuse we experienced from adults charged with our care. I spoke out at every opportunity.

But I was never believed. I was labelled a troublemaker and my complaints were ignored. I still suffer from the guilt of not being able to do more to protect my brothers. Continue reading

• Paora Crawford Moyle is a department member of the School of Health and Social Services, Massey University.

Mrs Tolley and a delegation of officials were questioned by the committee as part of its five-yearly report.

They talked at length about the new Ministry for Vulnerable Children.

Tolley has defended her Ministry for Vulnerable Children after a UN children's' rights committee described it as "a bit strange"

Unicef NZ executive director Vivien Maidaborn, who was part of the delegation, said the panel had expressed concern about the new ministry.

Children's Commissioner Andrew Becroft, who was part of the New Zealand team, said the committee had some misgivings about the government's new approach. Continue reading

Other reasons for sanctions leading to cuts or cancellation of benefits are failing to attend seminars or not providing proof of a job search.

Minister of Social Development Anne Tolley said people were told what their obligations were when they first signed up for a benefit.
She told Morning Report anyone who was wrongly sanctioned was fully reimbursed.

"There is a process, there are things that they are required to do," said Ms Tolley.

"This is not a lifestyle - there are obligations, and the obligations can be a simple as turning up for an appointment.
"If people do not do that, that is a choice that they are making."

And Ms Tolley said there was help available for people who were struggling to re-apply for their benefit.

"I've watched the case managers working with these people, I've seen them at the counters and where they are having difficulty filling in forms there are people sitting and standing with them helping them to do it." Continue reading

This is the uncomfortable underpinning of the Police Minister's proposed register for the close monitoring of sex offenders in the community.

Anne Tolley has, however, struck the right balance in, first, piloting the monitoring system with about 300 convicted child abusers and, second, keeping the names secret.

Offenders against children present by far the greatest reoffending risk.

Other sex offenders judged likely to reoffend could be added when the system has been thoroughly tested.

The secrecy question is more problematic.

Parents want to know if a convicted paedophile lives nearby.

Expatriate New Zealander and broadcaster Derryn Hinch, twice jailed for breaching Australian child sex offenders' suppression orders, makes a strong argument for parent power.

The proposal, for officials to identify paedophiles to members of the public only on a "need to know" basis, may be too limited.

For instance, people in a workplace would probably not be told a new colleague is an offender - but what about the office family picnic or offer to babysit the kids? Continue reading.

Source: The Listener

Image: kirontv.info

Archbishop Dew said the NZCBC would support any similar investigation in New Zealand.

But the Prime Minister of New Zealand, John Key says he does not see the need for an inquiry into child sex abuse, similar to the one announced in Australia

Key says a lot of work has already been done in New Zealand to prepare a white paper for vulnerable children.

He says the level of child abuse is too high, but programmes are being put in place to address that.

New Zealand's Police Minister, Anne Tolley, says a sex offender register she is proposing would help keep track of offenders.

And Social Development Minister, Paula Bennett, says enough is already being done.

"I think the fact that we have been addressing historical abuse cases in this country, we have been doing it faster than it's ever been done, we've been fronting up to some of the liability around that and settling a number of cases," Ms Bennett said.

That includes the confidential listening and assistance service, through which people can raise allegations of abuse or neglect, or who have concerns relating to their time in state care before 1992.

"I think we've got other things in place that are addressing what, without a doubt, is cases of historical abuse."

Source

• Radio New Zealand
• 9 News
• Radio New Zealand
• Image: NewsTalkZB

An editorial in the New Zealand Herald said her actions suggested that when on top, the boot should be put in as far as possible. Her behaviour sent a strong message saying, "it was fine to wallow in the misfortune of others." "That sentiment, not 'the graphic deterrent to prevent another generation of boy racers', was the one more likely to be picked up by street racers," said the editorial.

Canterbury University criminologist Professor Greg Newbold is scathing of the car crushing laws, describing them as "vindictive, malicious, petty and an undignified way of dealing with the problem". It was "ministerial grandstanding" and using it to look as if the Government was getting tough on crime, he told NZ Newswire. "I think it discredits the Government and it brings the legal system into disrepute and engenders disrespect for the law."

The father of the boy-racer whose car was crushed has said the minister has publicly humiliated his son.

It has taken four years for a car crushing to be carried out under boy racer laws. National passed the Vehicle Confiscation and Seizure Bill in 2008. The law aimed to cut out illegal street racing by requiring a vehicle to be destroyed after a third offence.

Source

• Stuff.co.nz
• The New Zealand Herald
• TV3 News
• TVNZ News
• Image: blog.eternalvigilance.me

Education officials are clamping down on charging practices at taxpayer-funded integrated schools, with at least one school told to return a bond parents have been required to pay.

This coming term $4000-a-year Bethlehem College in Tauranga is refunding a $500 attendance dues bond it has charged all its families for years, after the Ministry of Education ruled it was unlawful.

Education Minister Anne Tolley has also expressed concern that a leasing arrangement between the school and its owner, the Christian Education Trust (CET), enables it to get around the integrated schools legislation.

The Association of Proprietors of Integrated Schools says the Ministry of Education wants its members to stop including collection fees in the attendance dues they charge for the upkeep of school property.

Collection fees range from 2% - 6% of the attendance dues, some of which are more than $2000 per year.

The association says it has legal advice the fees are okay.

It says the two organisations have agreed to seek a High Court judgement on the matter and the case is likely to be heard in three or four months.

Source

• Radio New Zealand
• Stuff.co.nz
• Image: sunlive