A damning report into child removals by Oranga Tamariki sets the stage for tough Waitangi visit for New Zealand PM

Jacinda Ardern will face the anger of Māori leaders when she visits Waitangi this week after a report branded her government’s child services agency “inhumane” over its removal of children from Indigenous families.

“There’s been unprecedented breaches of human rights,” said Naida Glavish, the head of a Māori-led inquiry into the practices of New Zealand’s child services agency, Oranga Tamariki.

The investigation, which began six months ago, is one of five being conducted into the organisation, sparked by a documentary in 2019 that depicted social workers’ repeated attempts to seize a Māori baby from its mother shortly after birth.

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The report details what families describe as racial profiling, widespread fear among Māori families that their children will be taken away, and abuses of power by social workers. It details incidents in which armed police, with dogs, were sent to seize babies from their families.

It is the first for decades conducted by Māori into a system in which Māori are vastly over-represented.

Glavish said the inquiry, which spoke to about 1,000 families, showed last year’s documentary about the attempt to take a child into custody was not an isolated case. It included claims that women’s babies were taken into custody over cleanliness of their homes, their past records even though they had changed their behaviour, and the gang affiliations of former partners.

It also accused the agency of not allowing extended Māori families to care for children – an established cultural practice – when relatives thought that was the best option.

“For us here there is no way that we are actually going to allow it to continue,” Glavish said. “We’ve reached a stage where enough is enough.”

That meant challenging Ardern on her pledge to do better by Māori, and her urging of Māori leaders to keep track of her progress, that she made in a 2018 speech at Waitangi marae.

“She did make a statement here ... that she expects us to hold her to account and that’s exactly what’s happening now,” said Glavish.

Waitangi Day commemorates the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi, intended to be a document of partnership between Māori leaders and the British crown when the country was colonised. But breaches of the treaty by successive governments and inconsistencies in translation have caused conflict.

Māori children make up about 65% of children in state care – Māori comprise 16.5% of New Zealand’s population – and figures released by the country’s children’s commissioner in January showed they were still being removed from their families at much higher rates and at younger ages than Pākehā, or New Zealanders of European descent.

Glavish added that five Māori leaders would meet Ardern and other ministers to discuss the issue next week. Along with other Māori leaders and groups, she urged the prime minister to dismantle Oranga Tamariki in its entirety and allow Māori communities to develop their own solutions to care for children.

That goal has always been at odds with the views of Ardern and her government, who believe there will always be cases where a state child services agency is necessary. The prime minister told TVNZ on Monday that she accepted there was more work to do on the agency but that progress had been made.

“We have put a huge boost into the support for the organisation so that they can start doing things differently,” she said, adding that Oranga Tamariki was not perfect.

Oranga Tamariki would “now take time to work through the report,” said Grainne Moss, the agency’s chief executive, in a statement.

She added: “While all New Zealanders want to see fewer children in care, Oranga Tamariki has an absolute obligation to protect children at risk.”

The agency was created in 2017 as part of an overhaul of the care and protection system, which had come under fire for its record with children and families.



