In 2019, the attempted uplift of a seven-day-old baby from Hawke’s Bay Hospital shook the conscience of this nation. A young Māori mother, still recovering from childbirth, faced the prospect of her newborn being removed by the state without prior notice. Midwives, whānau and advocates stood firm. That moment exposed what many Māori communities had long known: the child protection system was disproportionately intervening in our lives, often without meaningful regard for whakapapa, tikanga or whānau capacity.
The public outcry led to an urgent inquiry by the Waitangi Tribunal into Oranga Tamariki’s uplift practices. I was one of the major claimants. We did not step forward lightly. We stepped forward because generations of Māori children had already paid the price of silence.
Section 7AA of the Oranga Tamariki Act 1989 was not an act of separatism. It was a corrective measure grounded in Te Tiriti o Waitangi. It required the Chief Executive of Oranga Tamariki to demonstrate a practical commitment to improving outcomes for Māori children and to actively partner with iwi and Māori organisations.
As we argued before the Tribunal, “Protection of our tamariki must never mean erasure of their identity.” Section 7AA recognised that safety and cultural connection are not competing interests. They are inseparable.
The Tribunal agreed that the Crown must do better. Its findings affirmed that the state’s duty of active protection under Te Tiriti requires more than neutral language; it requires structural accountability. In other words, equity is not optional.
Now, that safeguard has been repealed.
The coalition government has framed the repeal as a move toward “putting children first” and removing what it calls race-based considerations. But let us be clear: Māori children are not a race-based abstraction. They are tangata whenua. They are holders of whakapapa, reo, and inherited identity. To pretend that removing a Treaty-based duty creates neutrality is to misunderstand both history and harm.
Before Section 7AA, Māori children were vastly over-represented in state care. That disproportionality did not arise from cultural deficit; it arose from structural inequity, poverty, systemic bias and the long shadow of colonisation. Section 7AA did not privilege Māori children over others. It acknowledged that equal treatment in an unequal system entrenches disparity.
One kaumātua told us during the inquiry, “When you take a child from their whakapapa, you do not just move a body. You fracture a lineage.” That is not rhetoric. That is intergenerational truth.
Another whānau advocate said, “We are not asking for special treatment. We are asking for our children not to be strangers to themselves.”
The repeal of Section 7AA signals more than a legislative adjustment. It signals a retreat from partnership. It tells iwi and Māori providers that the Crown can negotiate commitments in good faith and then withdraw them when politically expedient. That erodes trust not only in child protection, but in the integrity of our constitutional relationship.
This is not about shielding poor practice. Where children are unsafe, intervention must occur. But intervention must be informed by tikanga, guided by whānau engagement, and measured against Treaty obligations. Justice without culture becomes control. Protection without partnership becomes paternalism.
As someone who stood before the Tribunal, who listened to the stories of mothers and mokopuna, I cannot see this repeal as administrative housekeeping. It feels like amnesia. It forgets why Section 7AA was strengthened in the first place. It forgets the images from Hawke’s Bay Hospital. It forgets the collective resolve that followed.
Editorials are meant to challenge complacency. So here is the challenge: If Aotearoa believes in justice, then it must accept that justice sometimes requires differentiated responsibility. If we believe in restoration, then we must repair systems that have disproportionately harmed Māori whānau. And if we believe in compassion, then we must understand that identity is not an accessory to wellbeing — it is its foundation.
Our tamariki deserve safety. They also deserve belonging.
