Abuse in Care: Māori expert panel says the time has come for the Crown to step aside

Friday, 18 March 2022

Māori survivors of abuse in State and faith-based care will share what happened to them and what needs to change in a two-week hearing. (First published June, 2022)

The Māori hearing for the Abuse in Care Royal Commission of inquiry came to a close on Friday with a harsh message – step aside and free our people.

For two weeks a panel of experts in Māori experiences of state care listened as 25 witnesses came forward to share the horrors of their childhood and how those experiences continued to haunt their lives and the lives of their whānau.

So many tamariki Māori were snatched from their homes, their culture and their futures, to be placed into the care of a system that did not manaaki (look after) them.

They were placed in the care of rapists, abusers, assaulters.

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Paora Moyle is a survivor and has been an advocate for tamariki who have been abused in state care for decades.

Terrorised and traumatised, many wound up in prison cells or abandoned to poverty, with the lasting effects of their time in state care a dark mist engulfing their strength to exist in a society that expected them to live as though nothing happened.

Some have survived, some haven’t, and many continue to face the same abuses their elders faced before them.

The Crown can no longer hide behind a name change or imposter kaupapa Māori services, panel member Paora Moyle said.

“What I heard was dehumanising – human rights violations, cultural genocide, and successive governments covering this up, covering their own actions, not owning it, not doing enough – and we have this machinery that rides on the back of our whānau.

Gary Williams MNZM said the Crown must give up its control of state care.

“New Zealand Aotearoa needs to be ashamed of its human rights abuses. Take some responsibility.”

Moyle (Ngāti Porou) is a survivor and advocate for other mōrehu (survivors) of state care.

“I’m tired of the attack on whānau, of weakening them,” she said. “I want local solutions. It shouldn’t be happening at the national level because that’s arrogance, that’s white arrogance saviourism.”

She, along with the other panel members, called for the Crown to step aside and understand that by Māori, for Māori, with Māori, was the only way to end the hell that is state care for so many whānau.

Panel member Gary Williams MNZM (Ngāti Porou) said tamariki Māori were treated like criminals, then became them as adults to cope with the trauma of their childhood.

He said the state tried to turn them into Pākehā, but for the past 35 years Māori have stood up, fighting to be heard, even though they were never listened to.

Panel member Denise Messiter called for charges to be laid against those who were complicit in the torture and harm of Māori children.

But no more. Williams said the Crown must hand over the resources needed to pull Māori out of the graves it placed them in and step aside.

“Aotearoa is called a paradise, but it isn’t for lots of people, it’s a place of torture.

“It’s a place where Māori like us get disconnected from our identities and spend the rest of our lives trying to be people.

“How long will it take for you to learn that you are not the solution to the problem, you are the problem?

“I want the Government to be prepared to give up some of its power and control, we’ve had many years of doing it your way, it hasn’t worked for us to be a bit quiet and get out of the way, let’s get on with it.”

Panel member Denise Messiter (Ngāti Pūkenga ki Waiau) did not mince her words either as she called for the criminal records of those who passed through state care to be washed clean, for charges to be laid against those who were complicit in the torture and harm of tamariki Māori.

Panel member Hera Clarke called on the Crown to apologise to the survivors who shared their stories.

Messiter called for kanohi ki te kanohi (face to face) apologies to those who endured suffering at the hands of the welfare system.

She called for the return of tamariki Māori to their whānau, along with the resources to support them where they belong, and to give those who had aged out of care their whakapapa so they may return to their whenua and reconnect.

“The Crown doesn’t own whakapapa,” Messiter said. “It belongs to whānau.

“Survivors must design the restoration process, and the abusers must accept what their decisions are.

“We often hear about, ‘This is a treaty-based approach to care and protection’, that’s just more window dressing for the Crown. I’m not convinced that the Crown is in a position to develop treaty-based relationships.”

Panel member Hera Clarke (Te Aupōuri, Ngāpuhi, Ngāti Porou) called for educational grants to be provided for all mōrehu, their tamariki and their mokopuna (grandchildren) as a step towards accounting for the missed opportunities they faced in state care.

She called for apologies from the Crown, and for survivors who have been brave enough to come forward to be given the resources to help others to start to heal from the pain they have carried.

“There was no rhyme or reason that had anything to do with their living circumstances.

“The impact that this has had on many of those who shared their stories, it’s about the direct and intentional systemic and racial abuse on tamariki and whānau.”

Panel member Tupua Urlich (Ngāti Kahungungu ki Heretaunga), the first mōrehu and second youngest to present at the hearing, said each person who spoke was a mirror to his own experience.

Tupua Urlich wants the Crown to listen to survivors, not just hear their suffering as it has in the past.

“If the Crown was a person it would be the least trusted, most hated person you would want anywhere near a child.”

The lack of respect for te ao Māori, the ignorance of the whānau-centric values of Māori, the stripping of culture from tamariki and the continued dismissal of the abuse they have suffered showed the urgency needed to protect tamariki from a force that has been unaccountable for its actions for generations, Urlich said.

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“Stop killing our people. That’s what you are doing, that’s what this pain and all this trauma has done. You kill us. We may be alive, but we are dead. A lot of us can’t feel because it was never safe for us to feel.

“Every Government department fails to deliver for Māori because we have Pākehā creating systems based on Western ideologies and beliefs, and they’re supposed to deliver for Māori.

“There are a lot of walls that need to be knocked down and only the eyes of lived experience can identify those walls.”

Urlich also challenged iwi leaders to step up to reconnect tamariki and those lost to state care back to their whānau to end the cycle of isolation and lost identity.

“I acknowledge that the system does a bloody good job of making that difficult to do, but difficult is not a reason for us to not be doing it.”

The system, no matter it’s name – Social Welfare, CYF or Oranga Tamariki – has stripped tamariki Māori of their connections to whakapapa and left scars on their souls, the panel said.

The childhoods that were stolen cannot be returned, but the system that stole them can be reformed.But it can only happen with action, Urlich said.

“You [the Crown] have had hundreds of years to prove that you aren’t up to it.

“The challenge is to the commissioners now: Do not take mana away from what we have given you.”

The royal commission is due to deliver its final report, following all hearings, in June 2022.