Timeline: the path to the resignation of Oranga Tamariki CEO Grainne Moss

The resignation of Oranga Tamariki CEO Grainne Moss followed months of scrutiny as she presided over a policy that removed vulnerable, predominantly Maori children from their mothers and placed them in the care of the state.

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* Oranga Tamariki CEO Grainne Moss resigns
* Juvenile delinquency decreases, Oranga Tamariki says there is no room for complacency
* Oranga Tamariki’s boss, Grainne Moss, under fire, but for what exactly?
* Oranga Tamariki: How far has he come and where does he have to go from here?

Here’s how his controversial mandate unfolded:

• March 31, 2017: Child, Youth and Family is integrated into Oranga Tamariki / Ministry for Children, which has its first day of operation under Moss.
• May 8, 2019: News outlet Press room publishes ‘Don’t take my baby’, an article by research editor Melanie Reid detailing a confrontation between Oranga Tamariki and midwives, lawyers and whānau over the attempt to separate a newborn baby from its mother at Hawke’s Bay Hospital .
• May 10, 2019: Moss defends how his staff handled the Hawke’s Bay case, calling their approach caring and empathetic. The Maori midwife who fought to prevent her baby from being taken to a young mother accuses Oranga Tamariki of harassment and racism in her approach.

• November 7, 2019: An internal Oranga Tamariki review of the incident finds that while concerns for the baby’s safety meant that Oranga Tamariki did the right thing to get involved, mistakes were made in the way it functioned with the family and other partners. “I think we have caused pain and damage and I am deeply sorry for that,” Moss told RNZ in an interview.
• November 8, 2019: Prominent Maori leader Merepeka Raukawa-Tait, chairman of the Whānau Ora Commissioning Agency, calls for the closure of Oranga Tamariki.
• January 16, 2020: Official figures show that Maori babies were five times more likely than non-Maori babies to be cared for by the state, and their rate of urgent admission to state care has doubled since 2010.
• January 31, 2020: Oranga Tamariki supports Ngāti Porou’s whānau-based approach to prevent more of his tamariki from entering state attention by 2025, but will not commit new funding to do so.
• February 3, 2020: The Maori-led investigation into Oranga Tamariki and chaired by Dame Naida Glavish calls for a full review of the ministry, saying there have been unprecedented human rights violations and inhumane treatment of Maori women. It says that the Crown, through Oranga Tamariki, does not honor Te Tiriti or Waitangi.
• February 24, 2020: The new team of “high” complaints of the Ministry reports that it is already reviewing 17 cases.
• March 25, 2020: The national level four Covid-19 alert block begins.