September 28, 2016
Shades of stolen generation in child policy
Maori Women’s Welfare League president Prue Kapua has called on the government to step aside and let Maori develop solutions to looking after tamariki in care.
Ms Kapua opened the league’s 64th annual conference in militant fashion yesterday, highlighting a string of recent decisions where Maori initiatives were squelched by structures imposed by a dominant Pakeha culture.
She told the more than 300 wahine at the powhiri at Orakei Marae that Social Development Minister Anne Tolley’s reform of child protection laws remove critical references to whanau and hapu that came out of the ground-breaking Puao Te Atatu report of the 1980s.
"It is a return to the days when the institutions that have not delivered care and protection can make decisions about placing our kids, all 61 percent of them, with a family they consider is safe, stable and loving, and all with no direction that priority goes to the whanau, hapu and iwi of the child or young person," says Prue Kapua
She says the result will be similar to the Australian stolen generation.
PRUE KAPUA OPENING MAORI WOMENS WELFARE LEAGUE 2016
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