What's in a name? Well if you listen to the howls of protest about the naming of a new Ministry to take over from an old Ministry then it would seem quite a lot.
The Child Youth and Family Ministry is to be superseded by the Ministry for Vulnerable Children and that's seen Labour's Jacinda Ardern gnashing her teeth saying there's a huge risk that by having such a narrow focus, children who aren't vulnerable will be ignored.
Fair suck of the dummy, most children are rightly ignored by the system, and wouldn't want a bar of it, because they're happily looked after by their loving parents.
That said, this first world country has little to be proud of when it comes to a staggering 20 percent of our kids who are indeed vulnerable. Every second day a child under the age of 14 is admitted to hospital after being assaulted, maltreated or simply neglected. Half of them are under five with the most vulnerable age tragically being under two.
Around a dozen kids in the same age group are murdered in New Zealand every year. We've all heard the grotesque stories of abuse leading to their deaths that don't bear repeating.
