This Supplementary Order Paper amends the Oranga Tamariki Amendment Bill (the Bill). ACT agrees with the sentiment of the Bill’s partial repeal of subsequent-child provisions, but believes the threshold for triggering these provisions is being raised too far.

While the Bill currently provides that the murder or manslaughter of a child would trigger subsequent-child provisions, this SOP would amend the Bill to ensure that having been sentenced to a prison term of at least 3 months for a violent offence against a child in one’s custody would also meet this threshold.

This SOP also amends clause 5 of the Bill. The replacement of “ill-treatment or neglect” with “concerns about safety or well-being” is a needless and imprecise dilution of accurate language in the Oranga Tamariki Act 1989. The amendment would retain the original language in the heading to section 17 as well as adding “concerns about safety,” while removing the vague reference to “well-being” from the Bill.