I don’t know how to go about it but I think this is an opportunity to press for the state apparatus to support father involvement. Fatherless children are at risk children.

Tariana Turia states “Families need to stay strongly connected so that they are able pick up on any issues that arise.” So now is the time to ask her what she is going to do to combat the Family Court to stop their culture of creating barriers to separated fathers being connected with their children.

Turia wants privacy laws reviewed

19/11/2008 10:50:54

Privacy laws may be reviewed in a bid to better protect children, in the wake of the Nia Glassie case.

Incoming Associate Minister of Social Development Tariana Turia says the Curtis brothers, who were found guilty of murdering the three year-old, come from a very fine family and the case shows that they were disconnected from their whanau. She says families need to stay strongly connected so that they are able pick up on any issues that arise.

Mrs Turia says a charitable trust in Rotorua, Tipu Ora, asked for every newborn Maori child to be referred to it, so it could track their progress until they were five-years-old. But she says hospitals in region area felt they could not do that, due to confidentiality issues.

“I believe that we’ve got to get an organisation like Tipu Ora operating really strongly and having all the children who are born referred to them so they can follow through.”

Mrs Turia does not believe the government should be taking responsibility for Nia’s murder and says the community and families are ultimately responsible for protecting children.