With her tenure cut short, Claire Achmad talks to The Spinoff in her last week as children’s commissioner – and lays down a wero for her successor.
The office vibes more like a Montessori classroom than a Crown entity. There are toys on the floor, paintings on the walls and, hanging from the branches of a tree-shaped stand, the handwritten hopes of rangatahi who pass through these doors. Their dreams include everything from “getting rich” to “breaking generational cycles”, reminding outgoing children’s commissioner Claire Achmad of the mahi she believes remains unfinished.
Though ongoing refurbishments have meant Achmad has spent only six weeks working from this Lambton Quay office, Friday will be her last day here. In 2023, Achmad was appointed by the then Labour government to lead the newly formed Children and Young People’s Commission and its board on a five-year term. After the government abolished the board structure and returned the commission to an entity led by a single commissioner in August 2025, Achmad was given a year to remain in the role. She reapplied but was not successful, and earlier this month, former Child Matters chief executive and police detective Jane Searle was announced as Achmad’s replacement, effective from August 1.
The news that she had missed out on reappointment came at “short notice”, Achmad told The Spinoff. “I reapplied for this role because I really wanted to continue to serve mokopuna,” she said – the commission uses the term mokopuna, often defined as grandchildren, to refer to all children and young people. “I clearly have a lot more left to give.”
Children’s commissioner is the latest in a series of advocacy positions held by Achmad – before taking on the role she was chief executive of Social Service Providers Te Pai Ora o Aotearoa, having previously worked for the Human Rights Commission, Unicef, World Vision and Barnardos Aotearoa, and earning a PhD in children’s rights law in 2018. Achmad said she believed her tenure has been defined by the commitment she developed in previous roles to spending more time in the community than in a back office. Her grassroots approach has seen her travelling across the motu to marae, service providers and schools – ranging from 30 students to thousands – to hear firsthand why wellbeing outcomes for children in Aotearoa are some of the lowest in the OECD.
Which is also why the announcement of Achmad’s early exit came as a surprise to many within the youth space. A petition by youth advocates calling for Achmad’s reinstatement has so far received a thousand signatures, but has yet to move the dial on the decision. The petition’s creators, Nikita Van Dijk and Jaden Movold, wrote that the trust Achmad had built with advocates on the ground “cannot simply be replaced, nor should it be”.
There have been suggestions the outspoken commissioner – who has been critical of the current government’s youth boot camps, the proposed social media ban for under-16s and the changes to the school lunch programme – was pushed out of the role. But when asked by The Spinoff, Achmad wouldn’t speculate as to why she had missed out on reappointment. “That is something for the minister of social development to answer,” she said.
A spokesperson for Louise Upston, the minister responsible, did not answer the specific questions asked by The Spinoff. The written response said changes to the commissioner’s tenure had already been signalled by the 2025 law change. “As the minister said on July 8, she thanks Dr Achmad for her dedication and advocacy on behalf of children, leading the organisation through a period of significant change, and passionately championing children’s rights – and wishes her very well for the future,” the spokesperson said.
The public call for her reinstatement was unexpected, Achmad says, but it served as an example of “mokopuna advocacy in action”. In Achmad’s eyes, it’s evidence that she’s done her job as commissioner; the message she has tried to send to young people about making their voices heard has resonated. “They’re making the point that given this role exists to serve them, to advocate for and with them, mokopuna should have a say in how that decision is made,” Achmad said. “What heartens me is that mokopuna have felt heard by me and known that I’ve always been in their corner.”
Achmad hopes her replacement will continue that kaupapa. “My wero [challenge] to the incoming children’s commissioner is to build on the mahi that I have been doing together with the team to centre the voices and lived experiences of mokopuna,” Achmad said. “And to continue to speak truth to power and hold decision-makers, including the government, to account.”
Being children’s commissioner meant being “exposed to the light and shade of the lives of our nation’s children”, Achmad said. She’ll “never forget” her first morning in the role, being asked by a reporter to comment on the death of a young child that was being investigated by police. That call was Achmad’s first interaction in the role with what would become a defining issue of the last near three years: abuse and neglect of tamariki and rangatahi.
Since Achmad entered her role in November 2023, rates of child homicide have remained “stubbornly high”. Aotearoa has missed “so many opportunities” to prevent the deaths of 113 young people since 2016, Achmad said, with two thirds of those victims being children under the age of five. “It highlights to me how far we have to go in terms of supporting families to build on the inherent strengths they have, and the need for us to do much more at the systemic level,” she said.
The rates of child poverty have worsened in recent years, with a Ministry of Social Development report released this month putting the number of young people living in material hardship between 2023 and 2024 at 13% – up 11% from the previous decade. Achmad says child poverty is a “preventable issue”, but policy decisions have failed to put young people at the centre of decision-making. “Right now we are lacking that really bold and courageous leadership across our parliament to say, ‘we are going to not be a country where we have mokopuna who live in poverty,’” Achmad said.
As she leaves the role, her immediate concerns are focused on youth justice, and she warned that current and draft legislation could see young people worse off. Currently in front of the justice select committee is the Summary Offences (Move-On Orders) Bill, which has been criticised for proposing to allow police to move on people as young as 14. And awaiting second reading is an amendment bill that would introduce a controversial young serious offender category that would, among other things, give authorities power to send youth to military-style academies.
“If they pass, they will harm children and breach their rights, and that is deeply regretful,” Achmad said.
Once Friday comes and goes, Achmad isn’t sure what happens next. It has been “heartbreaking” to hear the “tragedies” experienced by children across the country over the last few years, “often because the very systems that exist to serve them are letting them down”. No much-needed holiday awaits: only the promise of unemployment, and the continuing drive to advocate for children.
“I think, amongst the light and shade of what I have been exposed to, I have always approached my work with an open heart,” Achmad said. “That’s the attitude I’m carrying right through to the end, and that will continue to propel me as a children’s rights advocate right into the future.”
