Tragedy and hope: the final abuse-in-care report

The final report of the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuse in Care, tabled in parliament on 24 July, is a monumental achievement. It is a repository of immense tragedy and grief – and a storehouse of hope.

The product of nearly six years’ work, the report’s 16 volumes cover accounts of survivors’ suffering in state and faith-based care between 1950 and 1999.

The volumes also detail the avoidance, obfuscation and delays by those responsible for enabling, concealing and minimising that abuse.

The report will indict successive governments for the prejudice, callousness and political calculation that rendered people in care largely invisible, and their lives dispensable.

It will also put it beyond doubt that New Zealand’s laws, public policies and state institutions enabled that abuse.

Reform can not be delayed

Out of the resulting pain, the commission’s report will be an insistent demand for change.

While its focus is historical, the report also has a transformational purpose. Systemic abuse in out-of-home care continues, and we can see from its interim reporting that the commission is clear the responsibility for putting an end to it lies with the government.

The commission’s terms of reference asked it to analyse New Zealand’s histories of abuse to inform its recommendations. These will aim to ensure abuse that happened in the past, and which continues in the present, will cease in the future.

It will take years to implement all the commission’s recommendations. But some things should and can happen immediately, including monetary compensation. Transforming the country’s out-of-home care model, however, will require new institutions, new funding models, new accountability practices, and new staff recruitment and training methods.

There is no reason to delay starting these necessary reforms. Since 2019, the government has had 13 interim and auxiliary reports from the commission. It received draft versions of the final recommendations on November 30 last year, and the final full report nearly a month ago.

All this material has been analysed by the Crown Response Unit, which the government set up to coordinate its work with the royal commission.
Survivors deserve to see their struggles result in urgently needed reforms. For example, the government could (and should) commit to setting up the independent redress entity the commission prescribed in its December 2021 report.

That report also recommended a nationwide investigation into potential unmarked graves and urupā at residential care sites. And it asked the government to remove the statute of limitations on claims for abuse against children, as has happened in Australia.

The receipt of the final report would be an opportune moment to announce progress on those measures.
 

Ending the care-to-crime pipeline

Appropriate out-of-home care is a matter of fundamental human rights and an obligation under te Tiriti o Waitangi. It is also a crucial area for social investment.

At present, there are thousands of young New Zealanders in out-of-home care. Like all citizens, these human beings are of immense value to the country. But the trauma they have experienced can also make some of them a risk.

One of the most profound failures in Aotearoa New Zealand’s chequered history of social policy is the ongoing “care-to-crime” pipeline. New Zealand’s gang culture, for example, flowed in part from the horrors of residential care.

In short, as the commission argues, the state put children in care, and then the circumstances of care put those children on a path that led through prison into Black Power and the Mongrel Mob.

The final report is a singular opportunity for brave and transformative public policy that will block that pipeline at its source. Yes, it will cost money. But spending today may mean future generations reap the benefits tomorrow.

The cost of doing nothing is easy to see. Presently, the government is spending billions on the penal system, including a major expansion of Waikeria Prison. Continued failures in out-of-home care will add billions more to the future costs of healthcare, housing and social support.

Those monetary costs merely compound the human suffering caused by abuse in care. The government must accept the cost-benefit analysis and make the required investment in financial and human capital.

Audacious hope

On 12 November,  when Prime Minister Christopher Luxon finally offers the public apology for this “shameful part of our history”, survivors and the wider public will be hoping to hear how this government will lead change.

We will not want to hear more announcements about future announcements, or ongoing consultations and committees. That only condemns survivors to further delays and uncertainties.

New Zealand’s credit with survivors is in short supply. They have become familiar with obstruction and delay, with pledges for change followed by more of the same.

To hope for real leadership – inclusive, transformative and far-sighted – is perhaps audacious. But audacity is necessary. Survivors and future generations deserve no less.