Summarised by Centrist
Historian Michael Bassett critiques the Royal Commission into State Care’s report for its lack of focused analysis, arguing that it fails to address the root causes of why children end up in state care.
“What we do need, but didn’t get, was careful analysis of why so many children and young people in particular found their way into state care in the first place, and some ideas about how that trend might be turned around,” he writes.
He asserts that family failures, particularly within Māori communities, contribute more significantly to child harm than state care.
“I’d love to see some useful analysis of why Māori in particular are so over-represented in the underclass. And it isn’t colonialism.”
Bassett emphasises that domestic violence, alcohol, and drugs are primary factors, leading to foetal alcohol syndrome and unstable family environments. He criticises politicians for not tackling these issues head-on, instead incentivizing larger families through benefits, which exacerbates the underclass problem.
“Politicians refuse to get their heads around this reality. Too often they seem to take an easy route out of the mess. Claiming that they want to end child poverty, they instead provide incentives to women to produce more children than they can cope with.”
Bassett calls for urgent action from the current government to address these societal issues. “More damage is done to children by failing families than by the state,” he quotes sociologist Jarrod Gilbert.
“Sadly, here in New Zealand, Labour hasn’t been so sensible. Carmel Sepuloni‘s ever-increasing financial incentives and 2021 changes to work obligations for beneficiaries led to a 31% increase (from 170,106 to 222,285) in the number of children in benefit-dependent homes over the last six years, with the inevitable result that our underclass keeps expanding. With the best of intentions, but their brains disengaged, our last Labour government only made matters worse.”
