Prominent Māori leaders who called for the power Oranga Tamariki exercises in respect to tamariki Māori to be devolved to iwi and hapū have backed the Waitangi Tribunal's recommendations that the Children's Ministry stays.
File image. Photo: Oranga Tamariki
Following an urgent inquiry into the troubled Children's Ministry, the Tribunal called for a Māori transition authority to work out how to eliminate the need for Māori to go into care.
It's already been well established there are far too many Māori children in state care, with the most recent figures showing they make up over half.
The tribunal has said it is the result of Oranga Tamariki not allowing Māori to have rangatiratanga over their kāinga, guaranteed to them under the Treaty of Waitangi.
Glenis Philip-Barbara. Photo: RNZ / Dom Thomas
Assistant Māori Children's Commissioner Glenis Philip-Barbara said it made sense.
"For as long as anyone can remember the Crown has consistently created policy based on the idea that Māori would be better off being assimilated into living with Pākehā while simultaneously rejecting the value of te ao Māori.
"So this is, of course, inherently racist."
The Office of the Children's Commissioner went further than the Tribunal in its review of Oranga Tamariki, saying nothing short of full devolution would work.
Philip-Barbara said they had advocated for by Māori, for Māori approaches and it was not "helpful at this stage to make overarching statements about wholesale devolution".
National Urban Māori Authority Lady Tūreiti Moxon has been vocal in her desire to set up a "Mokopuna Authority", that would look after tamariki in need, instead of the Children's Ministry.
However, she was pleased with where the Tribunal had landed.
"That's a way we have to go because if we continue to do what we have been doing all along with Oranga Tamariki, it's going to take years and years to get it right because it is extremely broken and no matter how you want to fix it up, it's not going to be an easy fix."
Whānau Ora chair Merepeka Raukawa-Tait said it was clear from the report findings that Oranga Tamariki had systemically removed Māori children from their families.
"On the flimsy of excuses I might add but it does also highlight that there was legislation and policies in place that actually worked against the welfare of the child and certainly the involvement of parents in having any say on what might happen to their children if they were taken into care," Raukawa-Tait said.
While there would come a time when Oranga Tamariki no longer existed, it wouldn't happen overnight, she said.
In the report, presiding officer Judge Michael Doogan said his concern was that a Māori authority would risk "commercialising kinship".
This echoed concerns from some claimants that a replacement authority would simply change the faces of those running it, but not how it operated or, in their words, turning a white bureaucracy into a brown one.
Minister for Children Kelvin Davis has already ruled out abolition of Oranga Tamariki, but said he was open to establishing the transition authority.
"Oranga Tamariki needs to devolve more power and decision-making towards Maori. We'll work out how that is going to best happen, so I'm not taking anything off the table."
He was waiting on the findings of the Ministerial Advisory Board that was looking at the relationships Oranga Tamariki had with whānau, social work practice, and the organisation structure, and is due to report back in June.
In a statement, Oranga Tamariki acting chief executive Sir Wira Gardiner said the recommendations required serious consideration by the government.
The organisation had already acknowledged early on in the inquiry that disparities for Māori existed but work was already well underway to address them, he said.
