Survivors of abuse in care arrived at Parliament today to hear the formal apology from the state which oversaw and inflicted harm on children.

Public sector leaders from Oranga Tamariki, the Ministry of Health, New Zealand Police, and Ministry of Education also apologised, as did the public service commissioner and the solicitor-general, at an event preceding Prime Minister Christopher Luxon’s national apology in the House.

By the afternoon, many survivors were still trying to absorb what had been said and what it meant, with some saying it was a “PR stunt,” some calling the speeches “hollow” and others not willing to believe the words until they saw action.

Abuse in state care — survivor reactions.   Video: RNZ

During his apology, Prime Minister Christopher Luxon said many survivors did not want to engage with the current compensation process — but more than 3500 were — and he signalled there would be an extra $32 million funnelled into that system “while we work on the new redress system”.

Opposition leader Chris Hipkins said he formally joined with the government in its apology, saying the day was a significant step forward.

“Today is a hugely important day for all of you, to finally hear what the Crown has failed to give you for all of these years, an apology.”

Ken Clearwater, a long-time advocate for survivors, was at the event, saying he heard some great words but it was about “what action needs to go with it”.

“Everyone’s saying the right things, but if you look at the policies and stuff we have at the moment, that’s not helping our children.”

He believed National, leader of the coalition government, was going to have to change a lot of their policies.

“So we’re apologising for what happened in the past, but the policies are still in place that are making it no different than when we were in the past.

‘Hollow words .. . dangerous’
“To have hollow words at this stage would be, would be pretty dangerous.”

He said there had to be a belief the government would look into things, “but there’s got to be a survivor voice”.

He mentioned Tu Chapman, a survivor who spoke at the event, who pointed out only having five minutes to speak as a survivor at an apology for survivors.

“So once again, the survivor voice is not forefront, and I think that that’s what they’re going to have to look at, is how they get more more of the survivor voice in whatever policies they look at.”

Another survivor, Reihana Tahau, who had been in state care in the 1980s, agreed, saying he found it ironic there was an apology on one hand while the government goes through the process of appealing Section 7AA of the Oranga Tamariki Act.

For him, he said, “that’s the opposite, that’s counterintuitive” because 7AA was helping to stop bringing children into care.

“I can’t understand why they would appeal something that is actually working.

‘Mistrust, systematic trauma’
“And for me, my mistrust and systematic trauma, I can’t help but feeling that they’re not genuine in that, because if they were genuine, they wouldn’t be taking a thing which would potentially set up another generation for trauma.”

He acknowledged the apology was a step in the right direction, but “it still feels like a PR thing”.

“I do find it hard to trust people that read off a paper, because I talk from my heart.”

He said the speech from the prime minister was “part of his job” and he did not know how “authentic that is”.

Another survivor, Nicky, also said it was a “PR stunt”, and would not provide closure.

“This is a PR stunt for the prime minister to look good.”

Ardern thanked
She acknowledged Dame Jacinda Ardern for initiating the apology.

“We’d like to thank her for starting it, but they’ve sat on things, you know, for a quarter of a century we’ve been battling.

“We’re old, we’re broken but we’re still fighting.”

She called specifically for Salvation Army orphanages to be investigated and for their charitable status to be investigated.

“The government paid them to abuse me. We want that money.

“Where did that money go? It didn’t go in our care, it didn’t go in our food, and they worked us like child labour, just like Gloriavale [a small and isolated Christian community located on the West Coast of the South Island].”

Survivors in the room muttered or called out during the speeches, reacting — but saved their strongest reaction for Solicitor-General Una Jagose.

Boos, cries of ‘shame’
As she rose to speak, she was met with boos, and cries of “shame” and “disgrace”. One woman stood and turned her back. Another shouted: “You wanted us dead.”

Another survivor, who listened quietly and intently throughout the proceedings with tears streaming at times, said he wanted to hear what the public sector leaders had to say.

He said what Jagose said needed to be said.

“I’m disappointed, because I’m a lawyer, I’m disappointed that she was howled down and I couldn’t hear all that she said.”

He said he thought Jagose would be used by the government as a scapegoat.

“Us lawyers have to speak for the people we represent, whether they’re good or bad.

“And we shouldn’t be hung drawn and quartered because we’ve been instructed to say something or do something or fight something.”

Clearwater said he could not believe she was there.

‘Nobody wanted her there’
“By the noise there, nobody wanted her there, and so that was a bad choice on the government’s part.”

Tu Chapman spoke on behalf of survivors at the event, and did not think the chief executives should have been at the event apologising.

“It’s like putting the cart before the horse so to speak.”

Chapman was angry the prime minister left before hearing some speeches, saying it was “tokenistic”.

“I think he should have been there to listen to us, so that he could actually, authentically and genuinely apologise to us in the House this afternoon or early this morning.

“And it might have been a little bit more meaningful, because quite right now, it just feels tokenistic.”

Another survivor said the speeches today were “very empty, hollow”.

‘Carbon copy’ speech
He said the prime minister’s speech seemed to be a “carbon copy” of when he had been there for the tabling of the report.

In regards to the solicitor-general, he acknowledged “she was able to take what was getting handed to her and listen to it”.

“She actually took it on and then spoke when she could.”

He said the others seemed to want to get over with the speech fast, “that’s not how you do apologies”.

“You take what’s coming, surely they knew there was going to be some heckling going on.”

His message to the prime minister was not to wait, “take action now”.

Survivors representing mothers and adopted children said they felt they had been missed out of the equation.

More about abuse victims
One acknowledged today was more about abuse victims, but there could be a separate apology for mothers and their children that were “taken from them unlawfully and unwilling”.

“We would like the history of losing our children told in this country.

“I’ve flown from Australia for this and for the few words that were said, I really thought it was pretty poor.”

They want a full inquiry into what happened and an apology.

Another said in regards to the apologies, there were “some people who probably needed a brandy after getting up and speaking and apologising for the departments they worked for”.

“There was one in particular who shouldn’t have been there at all, who shouldn’t represent anybody, let alone the Crown.”

Healing process
Piiata Tiakitai Turi-Heenan said today was needed as part of the healing process for survivors, “this is a start”.

She also did not think the speeches were authentic.

“The words that were authentic came from the survivors themselves.”

She said if the government was looking for answers, they will come from “sitting down with the survivors and sorting everything out with them, rather than around a table with people who have had no experience of surviving”.

On the disruption of the speeches, she said “those were emotions”.

“The focus was on silencing those emotions, but that’s exactly why we are where we are today, because they were silenced in the first place.

“You have permission to not be silent anymore.”

Heart ‘on sleeve’
Another survivor said his heart was “on his sleeve at the moment”.

He had been speaking to various MPs after the event who assured him there was support across the House to make changes.

“I believe they’re sincere, but I’m still, I’m still thinking that I might get let down, but I’m hoping I’m wrong. I’m hoping that it does go ahead.

“Where to for me from here is that I’m gonna keep on doing what I do, until further notice, until I know for a fact, well, this is real.”

Chapman added the journey was only just beginning again for the survivor community.

“Another mechanism for us now is to actually encourage our survivor community to be more intentional about their engagement with the Crown, with ministers, and hold them to account.”

The new redress scheme
The minister in charge of the government response, Erica Stanford, told RNZ Checkpoint the current redress system was not perfect but the announced $32 million of funding to increase capacity and get through claims faster would help.

While some survivors queried why redress could not be addressed sooner, Stanford said nobody expected the government would be able to “turn on a dime” and deliver something straight away.

“We will have something up and running next year,” Stanford said, but she could not commit to an exact date.

Outbursts from survivors during the apology had been expected, Stanford said, due to the amount of “raw emotion” in the room.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

An investigative journalist who was barred from attending New Zealand’s national apology to survivors of abuse in care has now been granted accreditation.

Parliament’s Speaker has now granted temporary Press Gallery accreditation to journalist Aaron Smale for tomorrow’s apology for abuse in care. He must, however, be accompanied by a Newsroom reporter at all times.

It follows a significant backlash from survivors and advocates to the initial decision.

Smale has covered abuse in care, and the Royal Commission of Inquiry into the abuse, for eight years. His work has appeared in multiple publications and websites, including Newsroom, Newshub, The Listener, The Spinoff and RNZ.

Last week, speaker Gerry Brownlee declined an application from Newsroom for Smale to report on the apology.

Parliament’s Press Gallery had asked for an explanation, as a refusal was quite rare, especially when a reporter met the gallery’s criteria for accreditation.

It was told the application was declined, with the Speaker citing Smale’s conduct on a prior occasion.

This afternoon, the Press Gallery wrote to the Speaker, requesting a more fulsome explanation.

Speaker’s about-turn
In an about-turn, the Speaker approved the application.

The initial decision to decline Smale’s application was met with backlash by survivor groups and advocates, as well as politicians and Newsroom itself.

At a media conference at Parliament in July, Smale and the Prime Minister had an exchange over the government’s law and order policies, and whether the Prime Minister would acknowledge the link between abuse and gang membership.

According to Newsroom, Smale had also attended a media event at a youth justice facility in Palmerston North, and pressed Children’s Minister Karen Chhour over whether it had been appropriate to associate the memory of the Māori Battalion with the new youth justice programme.

“The Beehive was in touch with us to say they believed he had been too forceful and too rude, in their view, in those two occasions,” Newsroom’s co-editor Tim Murphy told RNZ’s Nine to Noon programme.

Murphy said that Smale had conceded he had pushed the children’s minister “a bit far”.

“But the one in Parliament, he was asking specific questions and kept asking them of the Prime Minister and I think that became irritating to the Prime Minister,” Murphy said.

‘Most informed’ of journalists
Describing Smale as “the most informed, possibly, probably of all New Zealand journalists” on the issue of abuse in state care institutions, Murphy said political discomfort should not be a reason to exclude Smale, and the ban should not stand.

“He should be there, and he should be asking questions, because he’ll know more than virtually everybody else who could be,” he said.

Murphy said Smale’s intention for his coverage of the apology itself was to write an observational piece through the eyes of survivors, and he was not intending to “get into a grilling.”

The Royal Commission Forum, an advisory group to the commission, said denying Smale accreditation was “profoundly concerning” and a damaging decision in the lead-up to the apology.

The Green Party said it was alarmed by the move, and said it set a dangerous precedent.

“As a society that values the role of the Fourth Estate, we should value the work of journalists like Aaron, because it helps us take a critical look at where we have gone wrong and how we may move forward,” said the Green Party’s media and communications spokesperson Hūhana Lyndon.

“Barring a leading journalist from an important event like this speaks to this government’s lack of accountability. It is something we might expect in Putin’s Russia, not 21st century Aotearoa New Zealand.”

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

New Zealand Prime Minister Christopher Luxon’s security detail has cut a media briefing short over protesters in Auckland.

He was holding a press conference yesterday after a walkabout with police to discuss concerns with businesses in the CBD.

Luxon was talking with media when one of his security officers could be seen coming into the business, actively looking around, before placing a hand on the Prime Minister’s shoulder and informing him they had to leave now.

An RNZ journalist at the briefing said he understood protesters were en route to the location, but the prime minister left before they had arrived.

According to The New Zealand Herald, they were pro-Palestine protesters.

Police beat teams
He was also joined by Police Minister Mark Mitchell, and Associate Police Minister Casey Costello and Retail Crime Ministerial Advisory Group head Sunny Kaushal after police added another 21 officers to their CBD beat teams this month, bringing the team to 51.

It is part of a drive to expand the number of police visible on city streets, with the Auckland team expected to increase to 63, another 17 officers joining the Wellington team, and 18 more in Christchurch.

Luxon said the expanded teams was a “great start, and more than a great start … it’s a collaborative effort and what you’re seeing here is that there’s really good join-up.”

He said with cruise ships coming back to New Zealand, it was important to do better and it was important for people to feel safe.

Patrolling Auckland was a collaborative effort, which was seen yesterday with numerous council and Heart of the City security staff also on the beat.

“Police are obviously at the heart of the whole issue, but they are working really constructively with the security officers from the different retail complexes, with the city council . . . ”

Prime Minister Luxon’s press conference cut short.   Video: RNZ News

Beat policing makes difference
Some business people Luxon had spoken to told him they had seen a difference when it came to on the beat policing.

Mitchell said it was also about having all the govenrment and community agencies working together. He said the briefing he had seen from police showed crime was starting to trend down.

“It’s only early signs, it’s green shoots . . .  I don’t have the numbers that I can give to you today but it’s numbers that police have been working on.”

Coster said it was a long-term thing that needed to be seen having a continued effect.

He said the deployment in the CBD was significant.

“Not just our beat staff, but also our public safety units, our community policing staff, and we have a tactical crime unit focused on the central city as well.”

“That’s a very big deployment, on a regular basis.”

Luxon walked through town, stopping to chat with security officers.

“It’s been really good, an announcement and then quick implementation, and you guys joined up together and you’ve been acting more as a tighter eco-system, is even better,” he said to one Britomart security officer.

He also greeted pedestrians as he made his way up Queen Street, some shouting expletive expressions of shock at seeing him.

Murray from Queen’s Arcade on Queen Street said the situation had improved.

“It’s nice to see the police around the lower city CBD,” he said.

“We’re all working together, it’s going to be difficult. We kind of expect the council to do their part in this too with some of the projects, perhaps, homeless people that cause us a little bit of grief, and are a nuisance to themselves and the public,” he said.

He said rough sleepers were still an issue, and that pedestrians felt intimidated by them.

‘We expect churches to face up’
Earlier, speaking to reporters, the prime minister said churches behind the faith-based care institutions needed to be “fully responsible and accountable”, and destruction of records “doesn’t sound right”.

Yesterday’s standup followed the release of the Royal Commission’s report into abuse in care this week, a massive 16-volume report still being digested by the survivors and the public.

“We expect the churches to face up to their responsibility,” Luxon said.

The report noted the president of the Law Society had advised the head of Presbyterian Support Otago to destroy records of children in its care to protect the organisation’s reputation.

Frazer Barton told RNZ Morning Report yesterday he had advised Gillian Bremner to “destroy them at an appropriate time — that’s not ‘go ahead and destroy them now’”. The files were destroyed in 2017 and 2018.

Luxon said he had not been briefed on that but the government wanted to ensure records were available – including being available to survivors.

“I haven’t seen what he’s particularly briefed or asked,” Luxon said. “All I’m focused on is actually responding to the recommendations, working with the survivors, making sure that churches are held responsible for the abuse that they’ve caused as well.”

Asked to comment on his reaction to hearing that records had been destroyed, he said “it doesn’t sound good, it doesn’t sound right, it doesn’t sound what we’re asking churches to do.”

He said the churches should front up and be held accountable.

“We’re asking for them to be fully responsible and accountable.”

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

The umbrella term Pacific Islander or Polynesian has been criticised as degrading and insensitive.

Researcher Dr Seini Taufa, who is a New Zealand-born Tongan, said the names were not indigenous terms and were insulting.

Dr Taufa is research lead for Moana Research and Senior Pacific Advisor for the Growing up in New Zealand Longitudinal Study.

She has given evidence to the Royal Commission into Abuse in Care’s Pacific inquiry being held in South Auckland.

Dr Taufa quoted author Albert Wendt:

”I am called a Pacific Islander when I arrive at Auckland Airport. Elsewhere I am Samoan.”

Dr Taufa said lumping everyone together robbed people of their true identity.

‘Constructed by palagi’
”We did not name ourselves Pacific Islanders, we did not name ourselves Polynesian. These are terms that were constructed by palagi within a colonial context.”

She said preconceived ideas around being called a Pacific Islander or Polynesian influenced the way Pacific people self identify.

”While the umbrella term Pacific is useful when making global comparisons, it’s futile when applied to actual people and groups of people who consider themselves not Pacific or Polynesian, but Samoan, Tongans, Fijians, Cook Islanders and so on.”

Dr Taufa said that in a New Zealand context Pacific people had been marked for as long as they had settled in Aotearoa whereby the Pacific embodiment was interpreted differently from context to context.

”On the rugby field and among the All Blacks, Pacific male bodies are celebrated. In a crime and punishment context, Pacific male bodies are associated with racist discourses of violence, rape, gangs, fear and danger,” she said.

”Pacific people thus construct their identities and live their lives at the intersection of positive histories, language and culture and negative and stereotypical ideas and beliefs produced by the dominant group.”

Dr Taufa said many abuse survivors experienced racism and discrimination first hand.

Told he wasn’t Samoan
“One young man asked about his ethnic background responded with Samoan, but was told by someone in authority that he wasn’t, as he was born in New Zealand.

”As a young boy who relates being Samoan to Christianity, to family and to his mother, he is forced to adopt an identity that doesn’t belong to him — a New Zealander — and, with it, the trauma of what he was exposed to in state care as a New Zealander.”

She said it spoke to the power held by a dominant group.

”To label another with little consideration of the detrimental nature of such actions.”

Dr Taufa said the importance of ones ethnicity should never be doubted.

”I hope that it raises questions amongst those in the system to be more cautious of how they record, how they document and the fact that it can and has, through our survivor voices, had an impact on their well being.”

Dr Taufa said there were inadequacies of ethnic classification and data collection in New Zealand, both past and present.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz