Questions left hanging as Minister for Social Development Carmel Sepuloni hangs up
Friday, 18 February 2022
Stuff reporter Aaron Smale attempted to interview Minister Carmel Sepuloni about the Oranga Tamariki Oversight Bill. The conversation ended with her hanging up on him. This is his retelling of what went down.
When the Minister for Social Development Carmel Sepuloni admitted she hadn’t read a report from the royal commission, it was all downhill from there.
After nearly a week of waiting for an interview with her, I finally got a call from Sepuloni as she travelled from Rotorua to Auckland on Thursday. I wanted to talk to her about a change to the legislation governing oversight of Oranga Tamariki.
Second question in, I asked if she had read the report on redress from the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuse in Care – a pertinent document for someone whose ministry was responsible for setting up oversight for Oranga Tamariki.
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She hadn’t read it. It appeared she hadn’t heard of it.
“No, that particular, ah, that particular stream of work sits with another minister.”
The only problem with that response was that the redress report specifically addressed issues of oversight of the care and protection system. At length.
One of the recommendations the royal commission made was that it should be enshrined in legislation that children in care have a right to be free from abuse.
It followed that up with another recommendation that should that right not be upheld, the Crown should be liable.
The minister was asked if those provisions were included in the bill she is responsible for. Her garbled response said it all:
“I think, you know, the thing here is that setting up, if we talk about the, the, we’re not talking about, I’m, I’m, I’m not overseeing Oranga Tamariki and how they operate, I guess that, I mean, in terms of, I’m not in charge of Oranga Tamariki.
“We’re setting up the monitoring mechanism, that will monitor the care standards, and monitor that the system is working for those children. So that’s, that’s the important differentiation here. I’m, I mean I’m not sure whether you’re trying to say that, in terms of Oranga Tamariki, I’m talking about the monitoring mechanism that’s being set up to monitor that the system is working.”
Seeking clarification, I tried again. And again. Are these recommendations, from a royal commission, going to be part of this bill?
“So, so yeah. So everything is on the table in regards to what can be included in the legislation at the moment …, but, yeah, in terms of what is down currently and what you’re talking about, I don’t (think) there’s a provision for that now, is what you’re raising, Aaron. So I’m saying everything is possible because the legislation is going through select committee.”
I quoted from lawyer and state abuse survivor advocate Sonja Cooper who said the bill should be binned and the minister should start again.
“That’s her view,” was Sepuloni’s response . A view which is based on Cooper representing thousands of victims of state abuse for more than 25 years, many of whom are teenagers who’ve only just left state care.
When asked who she was taking advice from – MSD? Of course, she replied. But MSD was in charge of the redress response to victims of state abuse, which Sepuloni’s colleague Chris Hipkins described as “a national disgrace”.
Sepuloni’s press secretary had baulked when asked for up to half an hour for the interview as there’d be a lot of questions unasked and unanswered otherwise. He relented and agreed to between 15 and 30 minutes, as she’d be travelling and would have time to talk on the way.
Seventeen minutes in (which included a pause to deal with a battery issue on a recorder), the minister started objecting that she didn’t get questions beforehand.
The journey from Rotorua to Auckland may have been a couple of hours, but the minister ran out of road.
So she hung up.