John McLean: Bayly's Bonza Bill

A laudable legislative project

A Members’ Bill initiated National Party Member of Parliament Andrew Bayly has been randomly drawn from Parliament’s (actual) biscuit tin and will now progress through Parliament’s legislative process. Members’ Bills are pieces of proposed legislation initiated by individual MPs, rather than political parties.

Bayly’s Bill is the Crimes (Offence of Failing to Report Child Harm) Amendment Bill. The Bill, if enacted, will make it a criminal offence to fail, without a “reasonable excuse”, to report an assault on a child to the Police. Reasonable excuses include where someone fears for their, or another person’s, safety, or believes the information has already been reported by someone else.

Centrist: No charges laid – 1000 days since Baby Ru’s death

Ruthless-Empire Ahipene-Wall, known publicly as Baby Ru, died on 22 October 2023, just days before his second birthday.

Police said post-mortem results confirmed his cause of death was blunt-force trauma and that they believed the injuries were not accidental.

1000 days since, three adults remain persons of interest, but no one has been charged.

Heather du Plessis-Allan: Stonewalling the cops should be a crime

It’s time that we stop making excuses for why we can’t make it a crime to stonewall the cops.

And instead just do the right thing and make it a crime for every adult in the house to stonewall the cops if someone has bashed a baby to death.

This is becoming a pattern with child deaths in New Zealand. Just off the top of my head, I can give you four cases where babies have been bashed and the adults didn’t want to tell on each other:

Tim Beveridge: The responsibility should go back the families and communities themselves

I don’t mind telling you that I sort of avoided talking about this topic a couple of days ago because it’s simply grim.

But the revelations are continuing following the death of baby Ru, with the latest including that the uncle of the slain toddler has criticized Oranga Tamariki saying that he asked the agency back in December to remove the child from the family home.