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The deaths of the two little Kahui boys caused a national outcry but has this case changed our attitude to child abuse?
The three-month-old twins died in June 2006 of severe brain damage, with some of the worst non-accidental injuries specialist paediatrician Dr Patrick Kelly said he had seen.
The tragedy prompted a call for answers about why young New Zealanders are dying at the hands of their families.
"It really did begin seem to mark the beginning of a giant change in people's awareness," says Preventing Violence in the Home spokesperson Jane Drumm.
The numbers for child abuse in New Zealand are sketchy but almost 21,000 children are known to be abused over the course of the year.
But these are just the cases that come to the attention of Child Youth and Family. The Kahui twins didn't.
"Eight babies have died since then and we've gone back to what we always do in this country, which is to be silent again," says For the Sake of Our Children Trust spokesperson Christine Rankin.
Every year at least 10 children are murdered by a member of their family and those in the front line say the Kahuis are not the exception.
"The truth is that there are cases that I hear about where I cannot, simply cannot, believe that people are capable of doing these things to their children, and they are real," says Children's Commissioner Cindy Kiro.
The grim and growing list of murdered children has propelled New Zealand into the top three in the world for child homicide.
But Kiro believes we are on the cusp of change.
"I think we are, as a society, getting to the point as a society where we will not be prepared to tolerate the rates or the kinds of child abuse," she says.
However, Rankin says New Zealand has become immune to child abuse and the onus is on society to change.
"The kids that get into the most trouble, that do our most horrendous murders, 99% of those children have been horrifically abused usually sexually and physically. We create monsters by doing this to our babies and we don't seem to understand."
