Summarised by Centrist

Crown lawyers took legal action in the High Court to challenge a summons issued by the Waitangi Tribunal to Minister for Children Karen Chhour. The move by the Tribunal was one that ACT Leader David Seymour said made him “deeply fearful for them.”

The Tribunal had summoned Chhour to provide evidence in an urgent inquiry regarding the repeal of Section 7AA of the Oranga Tamariki Act. This section imposed obligations on Oranga Tamariki to improve outcomes for Māori children in accordance with Te Tiriti o Waitangi principles.

The summons asked the minister to provide details about caregivers’ concerns and instances where children were in unsafe conditions, which suggest repealing Section 7AA is justified.

Meanwhile, Seymour criticised the Tribunal’s actions:

“I’m worried they haven’t thought about who they’re dealing with. Karen is a Māori woman who survived the state care system. By their own standards, they bought a fight with someone of much greater mana,” he said.

He said that the Tribunal’s timing couldn’t have been worse after recent media reports about the traumatic “reverse uplift” of children from homes because their carers were the “wrong race.”

“No wonder some people thought they were past their use-by date. Perhaps they should have been wound up for their own good,” he said. 

Read more over at RNZ and Scoop

_{Image: Clayton Scott}