Abuse survivors and family hikoi to Parliament on Wednesday as the Abuse in Care inquiry was due to be made public. Photo: RNZ / Calvin Samuel
Warning: This story and video includes graphic details of abuse.
First, an apology. Then change.
Survivors of abuse in care say it needs to be fast and far-reaching, after the final report of the six-year Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuse in Care was published on Wednesday afternoon.
It recommended a total overhaul of the care system, and a better way of providing redress for survivors.
At nearly 3000 pages, and weighing 14 kilograms when printed out, the report is damning, finding widespread abuse and neglect have permeated state and religious care for decades.
It contains survivor stories that are truly horrific.
Children at Whakapakari Camp were set to digging trenches. Combined with the violence, the rape, the waved guns, the intimidation from those in charge, many of them truly believed they were digging their own graves.
Disabled children at Kimberly were raped and abused. Racism was overt across the board.
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon admitted what happened at the Manawatū Psychiatric Hospital Lake Alice amounted to torture.
On Wednesday, survivors packed the public gallery at Parliament, spilling out into the banquet hall, as politicians apologised and promised change.
Labour leader Chris Hipkins said he wanted every New Zealander to read it; Minister for Children Karen Chourr was in tears, hands shaking as she spoke -- and she wasn't the only MP crying; Māori Party co-leader Debbie Ngarewa-Packer demanded: "What's changed?"
Everyone who spoke acknowledged the collective fault of successive governments in allowing this abuse to go ahead, and ignore and bury stories from survivors.
Indeed, the report found: "Political and public service leaders spent time, energy and taxpayer resources to hide, cover up and then legally fight survivors to protect the potential perceived costs to the Crown, and their own reputations."
Luxon announced a formal apology would be issued at Parliament on 12 November, and the minister responsible for the government's response, Erica Stanford, would establish a working group to review the recommendations.
But Green Party co-leader Chlöe Swarbrick said the apology should be taken to the people.
"Many survivors told us that they believe that this apology should have happened on their terms and in their turf, not in this institution which has caused so much harm. I hope that is the Government's next step, to come to survivors, not to continue to ask survivors to come to us."
Survivor and community worker Denise Messiter agreed, saying that while the experience at Parliament would be the start of a journey for many, "the healing happens at home".
"But I do think the perpetrator needs to own the damage, and the harm, and I do believe that the right place for it to land is here," she said.
"This is the place that owns all of the mamae, all of the trauma."
The report's recommendations included:
- Public apologies from government officials, and religious leaders around the world, including the Pope
- An independent body, Puretumu Torowhānui, in charge of redress and care for survivors
- Fully funded investigations of unmarked grave sites, and a review of all previous cash settlements for the survivors from Lake Alice
- A ban on pain as punishment
- $10,000 for children of those who were in care, to stop intergenerational harm continuing
- Establish a new Care Safe Agency
- Another review in nine years' time
The report said: "Many of the factors that contributed to abuse and neglect during the Inquiry period are not confined to the past. They are present today and continue to put people at risk of harm."
It said it saw no room for Oranga Tamariki in the future of the care system.
Frances Tagaloa, co-chair of the survivor experiences board, said an overhaul was long overdue.
"It's been very hopeful, listening to all the politicians across the various parties supporting the recommendations, supporting the final report, acknowledging survivors... but we need to see action, now."
She said naturally, there would be mistrust in the government. "Survivors have been abused by the state, and now the state is going to make decisions about what's the best way to move forward," she said. "That's why we had all our hopes in this final report... it's like a taonga."
She said the government had had all the information it needed for years, and action had been disappointingly slow.
"Us as survivors came forward with a lot of difficulty shared our stories, because we need to see prevention. We don't want this to happen to anyone else."
More important than apologies was a system to compensate survivors.
"Yes, we want the apology, but we need the redress system."
Stanford said recommendations around redress for survivors were ambitious, and the government still needed to work through what was possible.
The report, makes 138 recommendations, including a better system for redress.
Stanford told Morning Report the redress interim recommendations included setting up a survivor-led group to look at designing the redress system.
Their report, delivered in March but not yet released publicly, was challenging, innovative and complex, she said.
"It's very New Zealand...they've just been very ambitious and they've made sure that no matter where you are and what community you are, because a lot of Māori for example were affected by abuse in state care, and so... in that way it's very unique and very challenging and very wide ranging."
The most important thing was that the redress process was survivor-led, she said.
Other survivors, too, wanted action.
"All the parties need to unite together and do this, instead of trying to score points with each other and votes," said survivor and artist Catherine Daniels.
"It's not about points, and it's not about votes. You're talking about people's lives."
Paora Moyle said they carried with them people who had died before they could see this day.
"[The government's] got a road map now that is so friggen detailed," they said. "And I think that survivors being here today will hold them to account."
Hohepa Taiaroa said it was good to see the politicians who spoke were in agreement about the need for change.
"For me, this is the day of tears. More of enjoyment than sadness - enjoyment that we can hand this over to the government now. This is their ball."
The report details widespread, orchestrated sexual abuse at Anglican schools, children being locked in solitary confinement in Anglican children's homes, sexual abuse by Anglican priests, and forced labour at homes for unwed mothers.
The Anglican church has apologised and admitted it failed to properly respond and investigate the abuse.
Among its recommendations was that the church seek a formal public apology from Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby.
If survivors wanted them to, the church would write to him and ask him to apologise, Archbishop Philip Richardson told Morning Report.
The apology given by the Archbishops of Aotearoa New Zealand was the most senior apology they could offer here, he said.
