Court orders Children’s Health video removed

Tim Murphy is co-editor of Newsroom. He writes about politics, Auckland and the media. Twitter: @tmurphynz

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Taken by the state

UPDATE Judge Orders Newsroom To Remove Melanie Reid Documentary About Oranga Tamariki Taking Children From Foster Parents In ‘Reverse Swap’ From Our Website

A High Court judge has ordered Newsroom to remove from this site a documentary video about social workers from Oranga Tamariki taking children out of their foster home “for good”.

In Wellington High Court, Judge Francis Cooke also ordered Newsroom to remove two other articles, one that was a full-text story on the documentary’s findings and another that reported on the reaction of the Minister for Children, Kelvin Davis, to the story, and to delete a photograph that appeared. on a fourth floor.

At the urging of the government’s top attorney, Attorney General Una Jagose, granted the provisional injunction until a full hearing can be held in fifteen days, meaning the content will remain removed until at least then.

During the urgent hearing of the urgent conference call on Friday afternoon, Crown Law alleged that the video “Children’s Health: The New Wave of Trauma” He violated the Family Court Law by publishing information identifying the tamariki involved.

The move followed discussions between Jagose and Newsroom that began late Thursday over what she and her staff claimed were aspects of the documentary that identified the children. The newsroom did not accept that the video identified the tamariki, but agreed to make two minor changes and was told that Crown Law would re-review the video and communicate again.

However, on Friday morning, Crown Law provided the newsroom with “ a memorandum in anticipation of an unannounced request for a court order restricting continued publication ” and said it had agreed with the Superior Court a urgent telephone hearing at 2.15 pm

The ‘no warning’ aspect of this legal action could be seen as ironic, given that Oranga Tamariki was found after a independent writing documentary in 2019 having been misusing the “no warning” aspect of his movements in Family Court to obtain orders to separate the children from their parents without alerting them.

The video shows the children moving through Oranga Tamariki two years after social workers placed them in what would be their “forever home” in a district of the South Island. The children’s ministry change of mind on approved adoptive parents appears to stem from its reaction to criticism that it had previously taken too many Maori babies from their families. The documentary examines their tactics to complain and act against adoptive parents and then quickly return the children to a previously unknown whānau on the North Island.

Jagose’s original approach to Newsroom read: “I do not intend to suppress your reporting of this story and to acknowledge the importance of the media in our democratic society. Newsroom is free to criticize Oranga Tamariki but cannot publish identifying information about children in the form what this documentary does “.

Before publication, the Newsroom had pixelated all images of the children where their faces or identities could be seen and does not accept that they are identifiable in the broad ways that the Crown Law informally states.

The newsroom briefed Wellington’s attorney, Tim Castle. This site believes that the measures used to conceal identities were extensive and comprehensive and questions Crown Law’s attempt to build a ‘cumulative’ case that the children could be identified. We will argue strongly, in the public interest, for the restoration of the documentary.

Newsroom Investigates editor Melanie Reid said the Crown Law action represented a sad day for journalism.

“The reason that Oranga Tamariki has been able to operate in a structurally racist way, and too often” not in the best interests of the child “or whānau, is because it exists in the shadows and is based on having total control. There is a imbalance of power in exchanges between OT, tamariki, whānau and the caretakers. We have challenged that power and have been temporarily closed. “

Last year when First documentary of the writing On air, Oranga Tamariki threatened to take legal action against Newsroom, but did not proceed.