In early March 2026, the Auckland Coroner’s Court heard harrowing evidence regarding the 2020 death of ten-month-old Poseidyn Hemopo-Pickering. The details are enough to break any heart: a ‘meth-fuelled’ lead-up to the death, inconsistent parental accounts, and medical experts stating the baby’s head injuries were consistent with being ‘swung like a cricket bat’. The mother admitted to heavy methamphetamine use throughout her pregnancy and the days preceding the tragedy.
Despite the gravity of this inquest, which highlights a catastrophic failure of child protection and the devastating impact of P on New Zealand families, the media landscape feels curiously weighted elsewhere.
On the same day these horrific details emerged, Radio New Zealand (RNZ) and other national outlets dedicated significant real estate to a different tragedy: the death of five Hector dolphins. We heard from local and national experts, deep-dives into fishing bycatch regulations, and impassioned pleas for conservation funding.
While the loss of an endangered species is undoubtedly a blow to our biodiversity, one has to ask: where is the same national fury for Poseidyn? Where is the ‘expert’ panel investigating why, years after his death, we still have one of the highest child abuse rates in the developed world?
The most chilling realisation for anyone following the Poseidyn inquest isn’t just the past, but the present. The court heard of a ‘fractured’ family life where methamphetamine was an ‘escape’. If there is another child in that family—a sister—the silence surrounding her welfare is deafening.
Is she safe? Is she being monitored by Oranga Tamariki? Is she still living in the shadow of the same ‘meth-fuelled’ environment that claimed her brother?
Journalism is meant to be a mirror to society. When we spend more energy mourning the accidental death of marine life than we do questioning the ongoing safety of a vulnerable girl in a known drug-environment, that mirror is cracked.
We can track a dolphin’s migratory patterns with state-of-the-art GPS, yet we seem to lose track of the children living in our most dangerous homes. It’s time our national broadcaster, and our country, re-aligned its priorities. A dolphin’s life is a tragedy; a child’s preventable death, and the potential peril of his sibling, is a national disgrace.
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