What's really behind the repeal of Section 7AA?

Aotearoa New Zealand is only beginning to reckon with the enormous violence and trauma inflicted on thousands of children and young people in state care since the 1940s, the majority of whom whakapapa Māori. The Royal Inquiry into Abuse in State Care has yet to be finalised but has made explicit the strained or broken whakapapa, violence, and ill-treatment suffered by tamariki under our care and protection system.

And yet against the advice of iwi, hapū, hapori and whānau Māori, and the Waitangi Tribunal, the Minister for Children, Karen Chhour, has got the Oranga Tamariki (Repeal of Section 7AA) Amendment Bill through its first reading in Parliament.

This has been a project of Chhour’s and the Act party since 2022 – a prior version of the current repeal Bill was voted down by the house without making it to first reading in July 2023. Chhour and others in Government claim they are putting children’s safety before their cultural affiliations. There’s no actual evidence – as distinct from anecdotal hearsay – to suggest section 7AA is having a detrimental impact on children’s safety.

Section 7AA outlines the responsibility of the chief executive, and the broader Oranga Tamariki system, to practically respond to the principles of the Treaty of Waitangi. For the first time in our state care and protection system, it provides a directive for the ministry to partner with Māori communities for the betterment of mokopuna. It legislates that the policies, practices, and services of the ministry have regard to the centrality of whakapapa and whanaungatanga for mokopuna, and to delegate some important decision making and supervision of children and young people to Māori and other community organisations.

It requires the chief executive to seek out and respond to invitations for “strategic partnerships” with iwi and other Māori organisations, and to share information, power and resources with those partners to reduce the number of Māori kids in care.

Section 7AA took effect in 2019 after multiple reviews into the failures of the care and protection system, consultation between iwi and community leaders with Oranga Tamariki, and sustained political pressure from Māori committed to preventing harm and neglect both in, and outside of, state care.

There is deep and well-founded fear that whānau feel towards Oranga Tamariki, a result of the long history of racism, intergenerational trauma, and heavy-handed state intervention into the lives of whānau Māori. This has prevented whānau accessing basic statutory social support and health services for their tamariki, lest Oranga Tamariki perceive those that are pōhara and in need of help as grounds for investigation.

Some whānau Māori have been so afraid that Oranga Tamariki will uplift their children that they avoid taking them to see a doctor. This is the legacy of Oranga Tamariki, of Child Youth and Family, of the Department of Social Welfare, and of the borstals and church homes. Many of those who experienced this harm are now the pākeke and kaumātua of our communities.

Section 7AA is a recognition of the Treaty in policy and practice, and commits to funding and power sharing in decisions related to the care and protection of mokopuna. It gave hope to Māori that, for the first time in 30 years, the care and protection system might finally change the way it treats tamariki and whānau Māori.

The Government announced its intentions to repeal 7AA without any consultation with Māori organisations with close connections to Oranga Tamariki. Some have rightly argued this was in direct violation of Te Tiriti o Waitangi and 7AA itself as it exists now.

What is driving Act’s desire to repeal Section 7AA when there is no empirical evidence to support the minister’s claims that children’s safety and wellbeing are being negatively impacted by its existence? This absence of evidence has been made clear in both the Waitangi Tribunal 7AA urgent inquiry held in March and the Regulatory Impact Statement prepared by Oranga Tamariki which, among other things, stated:

“Repealing section 7AA is unlikely to contribute to improvements to safety and stability. However, a repeal of section 7AA may undo some of the progress that Oranga Tamariki has made in building trust, relationships, and accountability in the communities we work with. This may worsen the safety, stability, and well-being of our children with the greatest needs.” (p.24).

The repeal of section 7AA can only damage relationships between Oranga Tamariki and Māori.

At the same time as the repeal of 7AA plays out in Parliament, Oranga Tamariki has proposed to axe 21 specialist Māori roles within the organisation as part of their cost-saving measures. This includes Māori practice coaches and advisors who support frontline social workers to work in culturally responsive ways with whānau Māori, and the Treaty response team. These assaults on relationships with Māori, on power-sharing with Māori, and on Māori expertise and cultural knowledge within Oranga Tamariki, must be understood as part of a broader and ideologically driven project.

Act has capitalised on the increasingly reactionary political discourses regarding “separatism” and “identity politics”. Chhour claims repealing section 7AA will “put children before ideology”. This rhetoric that pits “safe and loving homes” against homes within the bonds of whānau, hapū, and culture suggests that Māori homes are not capable of being safe and loving. It ignores the knowledge that being able to live as Māori and with Māori is absolutely critical to wellbeing.

When it comes to putting children’s safety above ideology, I can only say, look who’s talking. This repeal of 7AA is an extension of the wider coalition Government’s ideological attacks on Te Tiriti o Waitangi and any pro-Māori changes in public services. Act is planning a referendum that seeks to redefine tino rangatiratanga as individual private property rights, is part of a coalition that cut Te Aka Whai Ora off at the legs before it had a chance to crawl, aims to reverse the introduction of Māori wards across the country, and objected to the use of basic te reo Māori terms across public services.

How can we not see the harm that will be caused to Māori communities, from the sweeping cuts and changes to our health and social services: the reintroduction of military-style boot camps for rangatahi, the $1.9 billion injection of extra funding for prisons, the reintroduction of the so-called Three Strikes law which massively increased the prison population last decade, harsher sanctions on beneficiaries, austerity measures imposed on our hospitals, the return to no-cause evictions and 90-day trials for new employees.

Every one of these measures will disproportionately affect whānau Māori and jeopardise the safety and wellbeing of tamariki and rangatahi. The repeal of Section 7AA is ideologically driven, as it is one of few revisions of the legislation developed over decades to support Māori, and the first to explicitly recognise the centrality of Te Tiriti.

Section 7AA is an extreme compromise on the recommendations made by almost every review since 2016 and advocated for by Māori for decades: that the childcare and protection system be radically reformed, with power, expertise, and resources invested into both reactive and proactive community (including Māori) approaches to the safety and wellbeing of our mokopuna and whānau.

It was a hard-won concession made in partnership with a system that has harmed generations of mokopuna Māori. Resistance has begun in the form of the urgent Waitangi Tribunal inquiry, the launch of the Hands Off Our Babies petition by Te Pāti Māori, and pushback from the National Iwi Chairs Forum and the Iwi Leaders Group (Paewai, 2024).

With public submissions on the repeal now open, it is imperative that whānau and hapori Māori, social workers, students and educators, professional bodies, community organisations, and those who want to protect the inclusion of Te Tiriti o Waitangi and the safety of mokopuna and whānau submit on this repeal and organise against it in diverse ways. The struggle against the three-headed taniwha and their assault on te ao Māori and Te Tiriti o Waitangi continues.