The new Children's Commissioner, Judge Andrew Becroft, has a preference for the newly-announced name for what was Child Youth and Family, to be a Maori name.

The nation's children need to be protected and cherished but when will the Government and their highly paid representatives realise that it is the parents, grandparents and whanau who are the problem. The children are merely the consequences of dysfunctional parenting.

Millions of dollars annually are being squandered by culturally, politically-correct health, welfare and educational facilities without any proof of positive outcomes for children and tamariki.

All children that come to the recognition of any agency doctors included, with symptoms of deprivation, malnutrition or abuse, should be recorded with the health department and the families be investigated immediately, not it six months' time.

A name change is not the answer to deprivation. Tough Love and consequences for the parents is.

MJ Anderson, Pyes Pa.

Editor's note: The Government has announced the new department, named the Ministry for Vulnerable Children, Oranga Tamariki, will begin operating by April 2017.