Pervasive, systemic, ‘nothing short of horrific’: state care abuse scale finally revealed

Wednesday, 24 July 2024

Watch the report being tabled in Parliament on the livestream above.

The most complex and long-running public inquiry in New Zealand’s history has detailed a litany of pervasive and systemic abuse involving beatings, rapes, torture and neglect of hundreds of thousands of young people in care — abuse which was either ignored, covered up or enabled for decades, and which could bring widespread law changes and compensation in its wake.

The Royal Commission of Inquiry into abuse in state care and faith-based institutions delved into some of the darkest but well-known corners of New Zealand’s network of state and non-state institutional care facilitates, such as the St John of God-run Marylands School in Christchurch, Lake Alice Hospital, Epuni Boys Home and the now barely believable John da Silva-run boot camps on Great Barrier Island.

In its nearly 3000 page report, the Commission paints a picture of a system where damaged children and young people entered, and even more damaged young adults emerged.

On Wednesday a visibly shaken Prime Minister Christopher Luxon and lead minister Erica Stanford made special mention of victims of Lake Alice Hospital, where Luxon said the experiences of survivors amounted to torture and were “nothing short of horrific”. Those victims would be deliberately prioritised in redress discussions.

Luxon said: “I think many … just don’t think abuse on this scale would ever happen in New Zealand. We’ve always thought that we were exceptional, and the reality is we’re not.”

The Government, following the report’s official tabling in Parliament on Wednesday afternoon in front of crowds of survivors and their supporters, will now consider 138 recommendations from the Royal Commission, as well as 95 from the interim report released in 2021.

Chief among them is the establishment of a redress authority, which could see payments to survivors and their families — possibly rivalling similar payments made to victims in Australia, which to date total $A1.4 billion ($1.56b).

Ministers are prioritising the redress recommendation, and will give an update in November. Luxon said he “hadn’t given thought” to what a final figure might look like.

The Government will also face uncomfortable questions about its own past, as the report sensationally reveals for the first time a secret parallel investigation into claims that politicians and civil servants were involved in a paedophile ring in the 1980s - including that children were transported to central Wellington for abuse.

One of the allegations of abuse by a central government politician, unnamed in the report, was being investigated by police last year but progress had been “hindered” by difficulty locating evidence, according to the report.

Overall, the inquiry called the allegations of organised abuse by politicians and senior civil servants “deeply suspicious” but it could not substantiate the claims.

To that end, the Commission also recommends the creation of a specialist police unit to criminally investigate and prosecute abuse claims and which the inquiry said should proactively pursue cases.

Luxon said, given the report took six years to compile, “the response cannot be rushed. It needs to be considered with respect and care … We are going to do it right. We are going to do the best we can around redress.”

The minister responsible for coordinating the Crown response, Erica Stanford, said the Government would be prioritising decisions around redress. More complex recommendations that involved major legislative and organisational change would take longer.

The inquiry found at least 200,000 people were abused in state or faith-based institutions between 1950 and 1999 — and the true scale may never be known. If all survivors were still alive this would account for 4% of New Zealand’s current population.

The nearly 2400 submitters described to the inquiry sexual and physical abuse, medical experimentation, torture including electrocution, rape, assaults, seclusion, starvation, restraint, slave-like labour and psychological torment including humiliation and isolation. Māori and the disabled were disproportionately targeted.

Luxon said he had read every personal account detailed in the report, and was horrified at the scale. Stanford, appearing tearful, said the stories of unwed mothers who were deliberately underfed to ensure easier labour and smaller babies had struck her the most.

The report details disturbing instances of staff pitting children against one another, and encouraging peer-on-peer abuse and humiliating rituals.

Sexual abuse was common, with abusers grooming children, and, in some cases, the inquiry was told abusers organised the sexual abuse of survivors by trafficking them to members of the public.

The report said successive government ministers and heads of government agencies who were responsible for the law and policy settings had turned a blind eye; that the state and leaders of faith-based institutions knew, or should have known, about the abuse.

Many institutions were specifically identified for the pervasiveness of abuse, including Auckland boys’ homes Wesleydale and Ōwairaka Boys’.

Other named institutions included the Lake Alice Child and Adolescent Unit, Marylands School and Hebron Trust, Te Whakapakiri Youth Programme on Aotea Great Barrier Island, the Kimberley Centre near Levin, Kelston School for the Deaf in Auckland, and Van Asch College in Christchurch, as well as “Catholic institutions in general”.

Few responsible agencies and leaders escaped notice, with the inquiry laying blame at the feet of successive ministers, the Superintendent of the Child Welfare Division, the former Department of Education, the former Department of Social Welfare and its successors, as well as successive police commissioners, and Public Service Commissioners. Few escaped scrutiny.

The Government has made a start on at least one of the recommendations, with the Prime Minister set to publicly apologise in November. Luxon and Stanford would not on Wednesday lay out timelines around its other moves, except to say it would give an update in November.