GEORGINA BEYER (NZ Labour--Wairarapa): I welcome the opportunity to speak in this afternoon's general debate. I will not be entertaining the House with my usual flair, because I have this morning been to Masterton, and only recently returned. I want to acknowledge a tragic situation that occurred there in the early hours of Tuesday morning. The murders of Olympia Marissa Jetson and Saliel Jalassa Aplin have been a shock not only, obviously, to the families involved but to the local community and, I dare say, New Zealand. I take the opportunity at this point to congratulate Detective Inspector Stuart Wildon, who has headed the inquiry to date. An arrest has been made today, and that has now been made public. I acknowledge and congratulate the police and all the people from around the region who assisted in bringing a speedy result.

But questions are being asked by the community. Wairarapa has unfortunately suffered its unfair share of child murders in the last 12 months or so---and beyond, I can say. We cannot tolerate it any more. I beseech this House and all New Zealanders to work hard and to heed some of the advice of our Commissioner for Children that we must stop the abuse and murder of our children. As a member for that area in the Wairarapa, I will definitely try to advance beyond our experience during the Lillybing inquiry, where some valuable lessons were learnt by the community, and we are closer as a result. But it is still not enough. I will be knocking on the doors of my ministerial colleagues and telling them that I want some focus on my area, that I want a task force or some sort of effort made to focus on what within the underbelly of the Wairarapa is causing these incidents to occur. We believe that we are a caring community, a healthy community in many ways. We cannot understand what social impacts are helping these things to occur and proliferate. We have to stop them. The community wants some answers, and I am prepared to work to get them.

I was very pleased to visit the Mayor of Masterton this afternoon and to help organise a preliminary meeting of all social and community services on, hopefully, the 18th of this month, so that we can have some kind of high-powered summit to look at where we go from here. I believe that we need to focus most on the families at risk in my area. There would not be more than about 30 such families, I would expect, who have some deep problems that are known to the officials and agencies that have been helping them. We must work for long-term, not just short-term, solutions. The focus has to be long-term and sustained. Hopefully, we can learn from other models and methods used in other places around the country that have experienced the same thing.

But at the end of the day we all must take responsibility. I cannot accept that Wairarapa has to wear some kind of unfair label regarding these kinds of tragedies. It is incumbent upon us all to make some real efforts. I do not see any politics coming into these matters. It should not. If we can work collectively to help those communities most in need, then I sure hope that people will put up their hands, join me and many other child advocates around the country, and say: "Come on, let's stop it."