John MacDonald: Tutt-tutting and more reports won't save lives

Canterbury Mornings with John MacDonald

You might be thinking the revelation that at-risk kids in New Zealand are no safer than they were three years ago, when a 5-year-old boy was beaten, burned and murdered by his carer, has nothing to do with you. But think again.

Where this has all come from, is a report by the Independent Children's Monitor as to whether the care system in this country has improved since Malachi Subecz died after being abused for months by his “carer”, Michaela Barriball.

She’s in prison. When she was sent away, she was told it would be for, at least, 17 years.

And when that Malachi's story emerged, there was a lot of the tut-tutting and ‘this can’t happen again” talk. But it has happened again. More kids have been injured, more kids have been killed.

The Chief Children's Commissioner Claire Achmad said on Newstalk ZB this morning that an urgent response is needed, But based on past performance and experience, I don't think that will happen.

Because, if we were really serious, we would have done something before now.

We would have done something before this report came out, telling us that at-risk kids are no safer than they were when Malachi was murdered. No safer, despite all the reports and the words and the reassurances that things will change and the serious faces. No safer.

And one of the reasons for that, is the so-called care and protection system in this country.

After Malachi was murdered, a review was done and it came up with 14 recommendations to try and improve things and make kids safer. Guess how many of them have been acted on? One. The other 13 are gathering dust.

If I was to summarise what those recommendations were, a lot of them were about getting all the different government departments and agencies working better together, sharing information, and making sure kids like Malachi don’t fall between the cracks.

And let’s face it, that was never going to happen.

I don’t know if you’ve had experience of how government departments work —I have— and the last thing they do is share information and co-operate with other government departments. They protect their patches and their budgets and all they care about is jumping when the government minister in charge of them says jump.

In recent years they've been banging-on about this thing they call an “all of government response”. Probably one time that actually came close to working was during COVID, rest of the time: if it’s not their department, it’s not their department.

Which is why I have very little faith that our care and protection system is going to get any better than it is now. Where we have, as the Chief Children's Commissioner said this morning, one child on average dying every five weeks from homicide.

But the system isn’t the only problem. You and I - we have to up our game too.

Because we treat care and protection of at-risk kids the same way we treat pretty much everything else in this country. We get someone in to do it, we contract it out. Out of mind, out of sight.

You know: “We’re too busy dealing with our own stuff. We don’t have time to sort out deadbeat parents and caregivers.” That’s the attitude, isn’t it?

But if we keep on having that attitude - that it’s up to the State to sort it; and if the State continues to completely fail these poor little kids; then we can write as many reports with as many recommendations as we like, but nothing is going to change.

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