OPINION: Lindsay Mitchell.
One thing children who get murdered never seem short of is names. The latest example is Catalya Remana Tangimetua Pepene, the four-year-old Kaikohe child who recently met a violent death.
Late 2023 it was Taita toddler, Ruthless-Empire Souljah Reign Rhind Shephard Wall. Or in 2016, 14 week-old Richard Royal Orif Takahi Winiata Uddin. Examples abound.
What they were definitely short of is love and care. That is what lies at the heart of New Zealand’s high rate of child abuse and neglect. Not material poverty. Not a lack of money.
It’s a fact ex Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern either willfully or naively chose to ignore. Her solution to the plight of too many suffering children was greater wealth redistribution. Inventing new payments for families with babies, lifting benefit rates and installing families in motels were three major policies designed to alleviate poverty. But the mayhem goes on. The Salvation Army Social Policy Unit recently summarised the trend:
“Violence against children is increasing. The number of children admitted to hospital with injuries because of assault, abuse or neglect increased sharply in 2024 to the highest number in at least a decade. Violent offending against children also continued to increase and was at levels much higher than five years ago.”
In her heart Ardern must surely understand that what every child needs, above anything else, is at least one dedicated parent or caregiver who puts their child first every time. Who puts the child’s needs above their own. As a mother, it must be obvious to her.
No New Zealand child is at risk of death from war, widespread disease or starvation. With the kind of extensive social system provided by charities, non-govt agencies and the state, a child death should be rare.
So we come back to the question of why do these children – only the tip of the maltreatment iceberg – die?
Because nobody has been their determined stalwart. Their uncompromising champion and defender.
Throwing money at people who become parents willy-nilly, who lack any financial or emotional wherewithal, who can’t look after themselves let alone a demanding, time-intensive baby, is nothing more than a salve to the conscience of people who have misdiagnosed the problem. Led by the likes of Jacinda Ardern.
This is what Ardern’s famous form of kindness and compassion actually looks like. Lecturing well-heeled members of society about how they need to walk a mile in the shoes of the poor and down-trodden, and graciously stump up tax for her to apply bigger and better band-aids on a suppurating sore.
It’s no coincidence that these children often come out of communities where addiction, and the associated violence, is rife. Only the addict thinks the solution to his or her problem is more money.
I would never question Ardern’s deep love for her own child. What I would ask is why does she think she can persuade other parents to care in the same fashion and to the same degree simply by putting more money in their bank accounts every week?
Poor families throughout the country do a fine job by their children in spite of their low incomes. Unskilled immigrants, refugees, those who have seen real poverty make their children the very centre of all they do. They care for them and are ambitious for them.
They don’t load them up with meaningless, social-media inspired monikers which do nothing but reflect the immature fantasy worlds their parents inhabit.
So while we endure the massive media-hype around Ardern’s biography, and most detractors focus on her horribly hypocritical claim to a compassion-driven Covid response, remember, her main reason for entering politics was to help children.
Not only did she fail, but she may have made matters worse.
