After a year shoring up a future for the role, Children’s Commissioner Frances Eivers is fully focused on lifting our tamariki out of poverty. By Rebecca Macfie.

Picture a city roughly the size of Dunedin – around 126,000 people. Now, imagine the entire population of this city as children under 18.

All of them live in deprivation, routinely going without essentials because there isn’t enough money. They don’t have fruit and veges; there is little protein in their diet; they are cold; doctors’ visits are delayed; they don’t have decent shoes.

In reality, the population of desperately poor New Zealand children are not all gathered in one place, which is why it’s possible for those of us who have everything we need for a comfortable life to be blind to their existence.

“If you live in a nice area in a nice house, and you have enough food, you’ve got plenty of money, you’ve got two cars, and you go on holidays, it’s easy to forget that there are kids 20­ kilometres down the road who are starving,” says Judge Frances Eivers, the second wāhine Māori to occupy the position of Children’s Commissioner since the role was established in 1989.

In early December, Eivers released the annual Child Poverty Monitor – a richly detailed exposition on the scale and nature of deprivation suffered by New Zealand children. It contains dozens of graphs describing various degrees of poverty, school attendance and achievement, immunisation rates, and deaths from assault, neglect or maltreatment (seven every year, on average, between 1990 and 2018).

It tells a story of glacial progress in some areas, and worsening conditions in others.

There is too much information to take in, but somehow the abstract figure of 125,700 children living in “material hardship” (lacking in six essential daily items because of cost) coheres into the concrete image of a prominent city that hugs a pretty harbour, slopes up green hills and spreads across low-lying flats.

Half of this Dunedin-sized population of kids who are denied the basics are growing up in working households, and half are in homes reliant on state benefits.

And deprivation has a mostly brown face: well over a third – 37.3 per cent – of Pasifika children and 26.4 per cent of tamariki Māori are in homes where food sometimes or often runs out because there isn’t enough money.

“If you haven’t got enough kai, and it’s not healthy kai, it’s going to affect everything you do, every day,” says Eivers (Ngāti Maniapoto, Waikato). “I honestly believe that if every single New Zealander knew those statistics they would be horrified, and they would not want any child to be in that position.

“If we have to pay more taxes, let’s do that, to make sure they’ve got enough food on their table. Let’s wrap our social services around these whānau who are struggling, because we are just perpetuating another generation of intergenerational harm and dysfunction.

“It’s not okay, and everyone’s got a responsibility for this. We just need to make it a priority somehow.”

Eivers often uses the expression “it’s not okay” as we talk about family poverty; about youth offenders banished to prison-like institutions instead of being wrapped in the therapeutic support that could turn their and their families’ lives around; and about teenage ram raiders. According to police analysis, the worst ram raiders are uniformly from unstable and impoverished homes scarred by violence, not going to school, and have fathers with a history of incarceration or offending.

Eivers saw kids with stories like these as a lawyer and later as a judge in the Manukau District Court – although the rate of youth offending fell steadily in the decade from 2010. By 2021, it was down by 65 per cent.

In the Youth Court jurisdiction in South Auckland, “you’d have these young people coming through the door, and [I would] think, ‘That’s my son,’” says Eivers, who has three adult children – Eru, George and James, aged 26, 24 and 19 – with her IT consultant husband Allan Witana.

“I would just naturally try to engage with them. It doesn’t take much to get them chatting. Again, all coming from situations of deprivation, discrimination and poverty.” She would ask herself: “If I’d been raised like that, would I have been any different?”

Into a storm

Eivers doesn’t have the polish and flawless delivery of her immediate predecessor, Judge Andrew Becroft, who, as Children’s Commissioner from 2016 to 2021, was an irritating thorn in the government’s side over slow progress on child poverty, the failures of Oranga Tamariki, and the forced removal of newborn babies from Māori mothers.

But nor has she had much of a chance in her first year in the role to reveal to the public her heart-on-sleeve empathy and well-informed insights into the damage that persistent deprivation does to kids.

That’s because for much of the time since she stepped into Becroft’s shoes, she’s been entangled in a massive fight to prevent the Office of the Children’s Commissioner being eviscerated.

Eivers, 63, had spent nearly 25 years as a lawyer and 11 years as a judge when she applied to become Children’s Commissioner in 2021. The role carried significant mana and influence, thanks to the legacy of a succession of fiercely independent commissioners, including paediatrician Russell Wills, and current Governor-General Cindy Kiro. Wills was instrumental in forcing the scourge of child poverty onto the public agenda through a major inquiry in 2012 and the establishment of the Child Poverty Monitor, while Kiro advocated powerfully for the anti-smacking reform of 2007.

So effective and visible have the various commissioners been over the years that child rights campaigner Jacqui Southey, of Save the Children, described the role as akin to Superman or Wonder Woman – a “superhero” for New Zealand’s 1.2 million kids.

By the time Eivers was named for the role, in October 2021, reforms that would affect the Office of the Children’s Commissioner had been in the wind for five years. In July that year, the government had announced that a new Independent Children’s Monitor, set up as a watchdog over Oranga Tamariki’s standards and treatment of children in its care, would not, as expected, be placed within the Office of the Children’s Commissioner, but would instead be plonked inside the Education Review Office as a government agency.

Eivers finished up her work at the Manukau District Court and four days later, on November 1, 2021, started as the new Children’s Commissioner.

Nine days after that, the government tabled the Oversight of Oranga Tamariki System and Children and Young People’s Commission Bill. It outlined a convoluted system in which the new “independent” monitor of Oranga Tamariki would sit as an arm of government, and the Ombudsman would take over the handling of complaints about the child care and protection agency.

The role and powers of the Children’s Commissioner, meanwhile, significantly shrank: its complaints and investigation powers were removed, as was its role as a monitor of Oranga Tamariki, except for places where young people are held in detention. The Children’s Commissioner would no longer be able to report directly to the Prime Minister on issues relating to children.

In fact, there would no longer be a Children’s Commissioner. Instead of a singular well-known superhero, there would be a board of up to six people called the Children and Young People’s Commission.

Some, including public policy expert Jonathan Boston, deduced that children’s commissioners – not least Becroft – had been so successful in bringing children’s issues to light and thus causing embarrassment to ministers that the government thought the best option was to gut the role.

Southey quickly set up a petition to “Save the Children’s Commissioner”, which gathered over 10,000 signatures in a few weeks.

“A dangerous step”

This wasn’t the induction that Eivers had imagined. There was a huge amount to get to grips with, and quickly. The window for submissions on this far-reaching legislation was inexplicably small; her office, alongside child advocacy groups around the country, scrambled to have their say before the deadline fell.

In the end, Eivers was of one of 400 submitters who condemned the bill as a dangerous backwards step for children, particularly for the disproportionate number of Māori children who are affected by the state care and protection system. Given the endless swirling controversies surrounding Oranga Tamariki and the testimony of victims being heard by the Royal Commission on Abuse in Care, most submitters – including Eivers – argued the proposed system would actually increase the risks for children, and was incapable of delivering the independent oversight that everyone agreed was needed.

As she told the royal commission last July: “The state cannot monitor itself. No matter how many non-interference agreements we are told are in place, or assurances that it is independent, the Independent Children’s Monitor that will undertake most of the monitoring of the care system is a department agency – it cannot be independent of government … Public servants cannot speak truth to power, they are there to implement the decisions made by ministers.”

The government was removing “many checks and balances on a system that has the most feared powers of all – that is, the ability to take your child away”.

A month later, the government pushed the legislation through in the face of virtually unanimous opposition. Just two concessions were made: there would be a Chief Children’s Commissioner as the public face and chair of the new Children and Young People’s Commission, and the ability to report directly to the Prime Minister would be retained.

Eivers, as the sitting Children’s Commissioner, will be the first member of the new commission, which comes into existence in July. But there is no guarantee she will be named as the chief commissioner – that decision rests with the Minister for Social Development and Employment.

“I accept that it’s law now, and we have to do the best we can – and we will,” says Eivers. “The adults have made the decision. Kei te pai tērā [that’s fine]. However, my job is to focus on the mokopuna of Aotearoa.”

Role-model mum

That focus has been honed not just by her 36 years in law dealing with some of New Zealand’s most disadvantaged children, but from growing up as the eldest of six in a loving family in the small Bay of Plenty settlement of Te Teko.

Eivers’ mother, Jean, was raised in the Waikato railway village of Te Kawa, got UE and went to teachers’ college – all relatively unusual for a woman of that era, not least a Māori woman. She wound up teaching at Te Teko, where she met local farmer Ted Eivers.

Jean had “smatterings” of te reo in an era when there was shame about speaking the language. “Looking back as a child, I think Māori were whakamā – afraid and ashamed probably. They were made to feel that they couldn’t speak the reo,” Judge Eivers recalls. “[You would] hear people say, ‘No good learning Māori, it’s not going to get you anywhere’, and even Māori said that themselves.”

Jean was a hard worker and a leader in the community. She taught full-time, studied extramurally through Massey University, sewed the family’s clothes, and embraced visitors in the tradition of manaakitanga. “She could make something out of nothing, kai wise. And it didn’t matter how many people were sitting around the table, she would make it go. It wasn’t fancy food, but it was good wholesome food … She was creative, really forthright and quite direct, and just had a real mind of her own, and was very witty.”

After she retired from teaching, Jean became a Whakatāne district councillor. She died from cancer aged 74.

Ted, who died in 2015 aged 86, was a gentle man who believed children could do no wrong. Eivers recalls him working “all the hours of daylight” on the farm during her childhood. He was a Pākehā of his era in many ways – keen on rugby, racing and beer – but was deeply respectful of Māoritanga. The family attended marae events at Te Teko, though because they weren’t Ngāti Awa, they weren’t involved in marae life.

After high school at Edgecumbe College and a Rotary exchange to Japan, Frances Eivers studied at the University of Auckland. She and Jean would be in tears every time she got on the bus back to the city after the holidays, but she found her community and away-from-home whānau in the university Māori club.

When she became a judge in 2009, Eivers chose to have her swearing-in at Te Teko’s Kokohinau Marae, rather than at the local courthouse. “Ngāti Awa did that for me,” she says. “The people of Te Teko raised me in the Ngāti Awatanga, so I feel very connected to that place … The people there nurtured me, and every day our farm is framed by their maunga tapu.”

Innovative approaches

Community, whānau, love, trust, education, a secure home: Eivers had what a child needs to thrive. But over the years, she has seen the damage that the absence of these things does to tamariki.

She has also worked within innovative systems that can begin the process of healing and renewal for such young people. At Manukau, she sat on Rangatahi Courts, the first of which was set up in Gisborne in 2008 by Judge Heemi Taumaunu (now Chief District Court Judge). Taumaunu has described these pioneering courts – there are now 16 – as bringing young offenders “into the bosom of the marae, so that they can feel what these marae have to offer”.

More than 60 per cent of those appearing in the youth courts are of Māori descent.

Eivers says for rangatahi who have lost connection with their iwi and whānau and don’t understand their own culture, there is a “huge sense of whakamā” about attending a marae. The procedure starts with a pōwhiri, with lawyers, police, social workers, whānau, kaumātua and kuia in attendance. There is discussion, often there are tears, and waiata are sung. Practical problems in the child’s life are discussed and solutions sought.

“It gives the opportunity to say, ‘Why isn’t this happening?’, ‘Can we make it happen?’ And everyone will just talk about it and involve the young person and the whānau.

“I’ve had different naysayers come up to me after several months of this and say, ‘I never thought this would work.’” One policeman told her: “I just can’t believe how well it works – I’m telling every single person I work with how amazing it is.”

There are also two Pasifika youth courts, which sit in community centres and Pasifika churches in Auckland.

“It works because it’s getting into the community, working with that community, whether it’s iwi or it’s Pacific elders in Māngere, Ōtara, or Avondale. There are plans put together, and [young offenders] are held to account before the court … It’s a privilege and an honour to be there with those kids and their whānau. I just loved that work.”

Low-hanging fruit

Initiatives such as these show that things can be different for disadvantaged young people – as they must be if New Zealand is to turn the intergenerational tide of harm.

“I applaud the fact that Jacinda Ardern brought in the Child Poverty Reduction Act because that set targets for not only her government, but subsequent governments,” says Eivers. “Okay, it’s slowly getting there, but for these kids who are living [in poverty] right now, it’s going to impact on them for the rest of their lives. I just don’t understand how we can’t lift them out of poverty more quickly and just really focus on getting whānau the support they need.

“We can only fix it by everyone collaborating and providing that total wraparound service. It’s not just MSD [Ministry of Social Development] – Health has a big job here, Education has a big job here.”

The causes of deprivation might be complex, but many of the small steps towards easing the burden of disadvantage seem blindingly clear. “Why can’t we make public transport free for school-age children, so they can jump on a bus and go to school?” she asks. We do it for those over 65, she argues, so why not kids?

Three years after the start of the Covid-19 pandemic – during which many students have been expected to keep up their studies online – she has met with tamariki in South Auckland who don’t have access to the internet. “They can’t survive in this world without that.”

Then there is our outrageously unaffordable housing and the calamity of kids being raised – in some cases born – in motels. Eivers says she and her staff have been in communities where locals have told them there are empty houses. “People just can’t afford to rent them. So therein, to me, straight away, is a solution. Pay the rent on that house, put a family in there, and not only that, put the support around them. [If] they’ve been living in a motel, that in itself must be exceptionally traumatic … so help them get back on their feet again. Find solutions that are there now, but also look to the future – how can we make sure every single person has not just a home, but a good home?”

Simplistic? Heard it all before? Some will undoubtedly say so, but as Eivers made clear when releasing the Child Poverty Monitor report, it’s all a matter of choice as to how New Zealanders want the country’s mokopuna to grow up.

“Without making significant change, we are currently forcing the next generation to pick up the pieces left by our policy choices – limiting their opportunities to thrive and perpetuating poverty in Aotearoa New Zealand. This is not fair and New Zealand must do better.”