Perspective with Heather du Plessis-Allan: Why have we had such a bad run of child abuse incidents?

I want to talk about kids being bashed by their families.

We've had a really bad run of it - I don't know if you've realized - in the last few weeks. As far as I can see, just in the last 8 weeks, we've had the toddler in the suitcase, and we've had the baby in the bin in Auckland.

We've also had a 2-month-old go to hospital with serious injuries that happened today, we've had a 3-month-old taken to hospital in Wellington in June, and we've had a 6-month-old critically injured at a Foxton Beach house in July.

Suze: Colonisation Is Not the Reason for This

“Faces of Innocents: High rates of child abuse among Māori can be traced back to colonisation, academic says.” Waikato Associate Professor Leonie Pihama, director of Te Kotahi Research Institute at Waikato University and director of Māori and Indigenous Analysis makes this claim. But is it true?

David Farrar: Ginny blames baby murders on the Government

Radio NZ reports:

Labour’s spokesperson for prevention of family and sexual violence, Ginny Andersen, said the death of two children in the first week of this year is a reminder that New Zealand needs to closely look at frontline services for vulnerable families.

Two men are in custody facing murder charges in separate cases – the death of a child in Hamilton and another child in Auckland. …

Mike Bain: What called you to action in 2024?

Throughout 2024, New Zealanders engaged in numerous protests, each driven by a deep sense of urgency and passion. Kiwis took to the streets, voicing their concerns and demanding change. Yet, as the year progressed, it became evident that these efforts often fell short of achieving their intended goals.

Marches against the Treaty Principles Bill culminated in a massive hīkoi to parliament in November. Despite the fervour and energy invested in these protests, the issues at hand remained unresolved: the Treaty Principles Bill advanced and the societal impact of these protests seemed minimal.

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:

Bob McCoskrie: Raised voice a form of child abuse?

A new study came out last week that claims that Shouting at children or using a raised voice can be as damaging as physical or sexual abuse. It raises a couple of important issues. Let’s check it out

So according to media reports, new research published in the journal Child Abuse & Neglect claims that parents who shout at their children or call them “stupid” are leaving their offspring at greater risk of self-harm, drug use and ending up in jail. They say that talking harshly to children should be recognised as a form of abuse because of the huge damage it does. The authors say “adult-to-child perpetration of verbal abuse … is characterised by shouting, yelling, denigrating the child, and verbal threats”.

David Bell & Hugh McCarthy: What they did to the children

Children, as any parent knows, are not small adults. Their brain is growing and being acutely shaped by their environment and experience. Social skills and values are learnt from those around them, with teamwork, risk-management, personal boundaries, and tolerance being learned through play with other children. Their immune system is imprinting environmental contact into a set of responses that will shape health in later life. Their bodies grow physically and become adept at physical skills. They learn both trust and mistrust through interaction with adults.

Point of Order: The latest $314.4m. of spending announcements.....

...... include goodies to recognise tourist-sector bosses who are kindly to staff

Point of Order tallied $314.4 million of spending in the latest ministerial statements posted on the government’s official website.

This includes a lump of money to – yes, really – help identify businesses in tourism and hospitality which treat their staffs well and to fund the social engineers who will enhance the industry’s “cultural competency”.

Point of Order: Govt highlights benefits for Tauranga in funding deal.....

.....but (in smaller type) beneficiaries learn they must repay the debt

Geography, ethnicity and your occupation will determine the extent to which you might benefit from the latest hamper of goodies to be distributed by the Beehive.

But be warned. Being a beneficiary may result in levies being imposed.

NZCPR Weekly: Political Agenda Endangers Lives

Dear NZCPR Reader,   

In this week’s NZCPR-Weekly newsletter, we investigate the dangerous separatist agenda that claims institutional racism and colonisation are to blame for Maori child abuse and highlight the real problem, our NZCPR Guest Commentator former Judge Brian Giesbrecht shares his first-hand experience of the disastrous impact on children when Canada allowed tribal authorities to gain control of child protection services, and our poll asks whether you believe priority status on hospital waiting lists should be based on clinical needs or race.

*To read the newsletter click HERE.
*To register for the NZCPR Weekly mailing list, click HERE.  

Theodore Dalrymple: The sanctification of George Floyd

When I first saw the mural of George Floyd with large angel wings, I assumed that it was a satire on his sanctification – effective, perhaps, but not in the best of taste. Shortly afterwards, however, I realised that the mural was in earnest: the picture of the mural in the newspaper included a man genuflecting before it and the caption said that he was making a ‘pilgrimage’. Apparently, St Peter can no longer cope alone at the Pearly Gates: he need bouncers too, Heaven having become something like a nightclub.

George Floyd was not a saint; in fact, he was a bad man, and being killed by a brutal policeman does not change a man’s life from bad to good. 

He was a man of many convictions – criminal convictions, that is, not political ones – and at least one of his crimes was of deep-dyed malignity. Along with five others, he broke into a pregnant woman’s house and held her at gunpoint while his associates ransacked the house for drugs and money. This is not the kind of crime that results from a sudden surrender to temptation. It was premeditated and planned, albeit not very intelligently or successfully.

Karl du Fresne: On Ihumatao, child uplifts, the media and a few other things

We live in excitable times. It’s hard to recall a time when politics was more febrile and overheated.

I don’t mean in Parliament, where it’s more or less business as usual (in fact surprisingly civilised, considering the intensity of the debates raging outside), but around the fringes – in the mainstream media, and more particularly in online forums – on issues that include race, gender, sexual identity, equality, climate change, women’s rights, freedom of speech, immigration and poverty.

For this we can blame several factors, all of which are inter-connected and feed into each other.

Open Letter to CYFS: How you let our whanau down a million times over

Dear CYFS,

A letter on how you have let my whanau down, a million times over. Names have been changed to protect the children's identity.

For me, it all started in 2003. But really, if you think about it, it started before that. When the mum, who was 18 had a baby and never stopped taking drugs. Not for the pregnancy and not after he was born. Let’s call him Leonard. Leonard was a lovely boy, such a cute kid with big brown eyes and curly hair. Like any normal boy he loved zooming his cars around the room and riding his “big boy” bike.

NZCPR Weekly: Addressing Child Abuse

Dear NZCPR Reader,   

This week we highlight some changes that need to be made if the Government is to get on top of the child abuse crisis, our NZCPR Guest Commentator, Bruce Tichbon outlines the way forward for family law, and this week’s poll asks whether you believe that the sole parent benefit needs further reform.

*To read the newsletter click HERE.
*To register for the NZCPR Weekly mailing list, click HERE.  

Lindsay Mitchell: How much CYF resource is wasted?

New data shows a significant drop in substantiated findings of child abuse:

Jeremy Sammut from Australia: Hard conversation about Aboriginal culture and child protection

Conservative social commentators have indulged in 'divisive grandstanding' by linking Aboriginal culture to the abuse and neglect of Aboriginal children, according to Ngiare Brown, the deputy chairman of the Prime Minister's Indigenous Advisory Council.

These claims suppress the hard conversation we need to have about Aboriginal culture and child protection.

Lindsay Mitchell: CPAG research flawed

Recent research by the Child Poverty Action Group (CPAG) is flawed.

CPAG's analysis of Child Youth and Family child abuse data claimed, "The data suggests there is no correlation between benefit receipt and child maltreatment". This despite earlier Auckland University research finding, "Of all children having a finding of maltreatment by age 5, 83 percent are seen on a benefit before age two".

I asked the Ministry of Social Development for the data supplied to CPAG and was given the number of substantiated cases of child abuse and the 0-17 year-old population for each CYF site office. These show that CPAG's calculations are incorrect. For instance, their report states, '...the proportion of 0-17 year olds who were victims of abuse in Papakura was not 4.0% but 0.40 of 1%.' (p9)"

Lindsay Mitchell: Complaints about ECE care

In my article Vulnerable Children bill: Will it make a difference? published a few days ago, I wrote:

Today abuse is split into four categories; emotional, physical, sexual and neglect. In 2012 emotional abuse made up 56 percent of substantiated findings, physical – 15 percent , sexual – 6 percent and neglect, 22 percent. Child, Youth and Family record data about the nature of substantiated findings. Unfortunately information about the relationship between the offender and victim is not available.

Lindsay Mitchell: Child abuse rates in the beneficiary population: MSD cover-up by omission

Warning: laborious statistical workings below...

I've hesitated to label a new Ministry of Social Development factsheet a "cover-up" but having chewed over it for a few days I've decided that's exactly what it is. For the first time MSD has examined a "birth cohort ever present in New Zealand" and the overlapping contact with the benefit system, care and protection or youth justice services in the years to age 17. They used 1993.

Lindsay Mitchell: CPAG research inconclusive at best

New research from the Child Poverty Action Group, who are campaigning to increase benefit levels, finds there is,

 "no evidence of an association between benefit receipt and distinct substantiated rates of child abuse."   

And later under 'Conclusion', "...benefit income does not appear to be related to rates of child abuse."

How did they arrive at this?