Ryan Bridge: Protecting children starts in the home

The brutal death of that poor wee boy Malachi is a disgrace.

It's heartbreaking to think an adult could be so cruel to young child. Malachi was beaten, starved, thrown against walls... you name it.

Basically torture.

Now we have these debates popping up about it. Should the Minister front for interviews. Karen Chhour, herself a product of the foster care system, was criticised yesterday for attending a pre-planned lunch event to eat some lamb Parliament's lawn.

She should have, according to RNZ story, presumably been inside answering questions about why more wasn't being done about this boy's murder, which you might recall was back in 2021.

Kelvin Davis, you may also recall, came in for a hammering from the media when was Minister.

So, I think we should all be really clear, neither Karen nor Kelvin nor any politicians is responsible for the deaths of babies.

The fact he has no culprit for the death of Baby Ru in the Hutt is you could say the fault of the Police.

But ultimately, as with all these cases, fault ultimately lies with those who do the killing, and those who do the covering up. You know, the family who won't speak to Police. The partner who won't do in their other half.

They're the real culprits here.

Yes, there are things we can learn. Things we can do. Things we change.

We can change the name of the agency. We can add a red-flag system. We can appoint a Children's Commissioner.

But ultimately none of it does much good, does it?

We average around 10 or 11 kids killed by homicide ever year.

Ask OT, or CYFs before them, and they'll tell reports of abuse seem to be trending down, but they have a new thing called reports of concern which are going up.

We actually don't know if it's getting better or worse because of there's a data lag I know - incredible.

But you'd have to say, on the whole, the picture's not rosy, and no amount of stalking MPs round Parliament is going to fix it.

Any fix, surely, has to happen inside the home.

Ryan Bridge is a New Zealand broadcaster who has worked on many current affairs television and radio shows. He currently hosts Newstalk ZB's Early Edition - where this article was sourced.