Speaker 1: Kilda. I'm Chelsea Daniels and this is the Front Page,
Speaker 1: a daily podcast presented by The New Zealand Herald. Church
Speaker 1: leaders are continuing to publicly apologize to survivors of abuse.
Speaker 1: The Presbyterian Church is the latest to address it in
Speaker 1: two public apology events. The first was in Dunedin at
Speaker 1: the weekend and the next is in Auckland this Saturday.
Speaker 1: It's the latest in a series of public apologies from
Speaker 1: church and public sector leaders after the Royal Commission of
Speaker 1: an Inquiry into abuse in care. Over five years of investigations,
Speaker 1: the inquiry heard nearly three thousand survivor accounts of abuse
Speaker 1: and neglect. The more than one hundred and thirty recommendations
Speaker 1: focused on creating a new independence redress system, strengthening the
Speaker 1: care system, and holding institutions accountable. Today on the Front Page,
Speaker 1: lawyer Amanda Hill has represented abusing care survivors and it's
Speaker 1: with us to explain how the process is working and
Speaker 1: how it's not. First off, Amanda, tell me how you
Speaker 1: think the redress scheme is going so far?
Speaker 2: Well? I guess one of the challenges is that there's
Speaker 2: no single redress game. There are many different schemes some good,
Speaker 2: some bad, some ugly. There is a lot of talk
Speaker 2: and work her own redress, but there's a big gaping
Speaker 2: hole in the middle, and that's the government's decision not
Speaker 2: to proceed with the Royal Commission's key recommendations around independence game.
Speaker 2: So if I were standing back and looking at the biggest,
Speaker 2: biggest problem with redress or or the biggest lack of progress,
Speaker 2: that would be the government decisions around that, and so
Speaker 2: everything else sort of pales in comparison to that. But
Speaker 2: I also acknowledged that there's organizations who are doing their
Speaker 2: best without that government support.
Speaker 1: So if that independence scheme would have gone ahead, it
Speaker 1: would just be a blanket rule or a blanket thing
Speaker 1: across all of them. But at the moment, what we've
Speaker 1: got is different readress schemes for different institutions, and different
Speaker 1: whether they be state based or faith based.
Speaker 2: Yes, So the idea behind the independent scheme, which the
Speaker 2: Royal Commission called was to provide a sort of a
Speaker 2: single scheme that dealt with abuse and state care, faith
Speaker 2: based care, schools, everything, and that they would be buying
Speaker 2: from faith based organizations so they'd become part of that scheme,
Speaker 2: which meant that there was transparency, independence, accountability. Everyone knew
Speaker 2: what the rules were, but with the decision not to
Speaker 2: proceed with that, what the government's done is trying to
Speaker 2: even up as the various processes within government which are
Speaker 2: wildly inconsistent, and to trying to do a bit of
Speaker 2: work inside their own house, but leaving faith based organizations
Speaker 2: to forge your head on their own. So we still
Speaker 2: have lots of different things going on.
Speaker 1: Has the horse bolted in that respect? Is it too
Speaker 1: late to put that in place now?
Speaker 2: Not at all, Not at all. I think there will
Speaker 2: always be an opportunity for a single independent scheme, and
Speaker 2: the current situation in terms of state matters is very patchy,
Speaker 2: but there will always be an opportunity to bring and
Speaker 2: put it to me to a finally, so while we're
Speaker 2: pretty gutted with the decisions right now, there will always
Speaker 2: be work to try and bring that about.
Speaker 1: What are some of the roadblocks that survivors are finding
Speaker 1: themselves up against.
Speaker 2: There is still, i think a real lack of belief
Speaker 2: around the scale and nature of abuse and care. There
Speaker 2: is still real difficulty around access to records. Although there's
Speaker 2: been quite a lot of good work in that space,
Speaker 2: there is still a real lack of understanding of what
Speaker 2: good redress looks like. And in New Zealand the compensation
Speaker 2: levels in particular punishingly low, and that's partly reflective of
Speaker 2: the role of acc which means that you can't sue
Speaker 2: for general or compensatory damages, but it is a really
Speaker 2: the approach is often superficial, not always understanding what the
Speaker 2: impact on survivors is, not understanding that abuse has lifelong impacts,
Speaker 2: and just sort of thinking that a few pass or
Speaker 2: something up and hand it over, that's done, whereas what
Speaker 2: we know is that redress is a journey rather than
Speaker 2: an event.
Speaker 1: Budget twenty twenty five saw seven hundred and seventy four
Speaker 1: million dollars put aside to improve the state abuse redress scheme.
Speaker 3: Is that enough?
Speaker 2: It's hard to tell because it really depends on where
Speaker 2: that money is going. There is a backlog of claims
Speaker 2: within the Administry of Social Development and Ministry of Education,
Speaker 2: so some of that is just about getting work done
Speaker 2: that hasn't been done yet. It's not necessarily about when
Speaker 2: I say improving, they may not making people work wait
Speaker 2: five years because that's the current wait time. And some
Speaker 2: of it is lifting up some compensation which has been
Speaker 2: very low, lifting them up to a slightly higher level.
Speaker 2: So how that money is it has passed up is
Speaker 2: probably I don't have the information around what that's been
Speaker 2: applied to, but I know there have been top ups
Speaker 2: for some people who have resolved their claims, particularly with
Speaker 2: social development, that's been really good for them. But when
Speaker 2: your top up sort of only takes you to a
Speaker 2: reasonably low amount, that's still you know, when you stand
Speaker 2: back and look at the bigger pictures, it's still pretty hard.
Speaker 2: But there is I call it tinkering. I think a
Speaker 2: lot of the work being done is tinkering. When you're
Speaker 2: trying to improve something that's so badly broken, you sort
Speaker 2: of go, well, what's the cost of just actually starting again?
Speaker 1: And I mean one of the major questions to come
Speaker 1: out of the inquiry as well, I suppose, is how
Speaker 1: do you quantify someone's abuse?
Speaker 2: And you can't. You can't. What you often hear from
Speaker 2: particularly organizations where abuse has been perpetrated, is no amount
Speaker 2: of money can fix this harm. But the end of
Speaker 2: that sentence really needs to be but we'll give it
Speaker 2: our best shot. And often that's not what's happening. And
Speaker 2: so this thing of amount of money can fix the
Speaker 2: harm means that they don't really put an effort and
Speaker 2: to try you can't. There are some ways you can quantify,
Speaker 2: and so when you look at things like assessing perhaps
Speaker 2: someone's lost opportunity, lost wages, that the loss of potential
Speaker 2: earning scheme through ACC is one of those measures we
Speaker 2: look at. You know, have you been able to parents,
Speaker 2: have you been able to hold down a job? Do
Speaker 2: you have mental health, a drug, alcohol issues? Again, it
Speaker 2: hard to quantify, but it has been done. You look
Speaker 2: overseas and there are plenty of jurisdictions where it's been done.
Speaker 2: So it's not like we're starting from scratch. There is
Speaker 2: a whole jurisprudence around us.
Speaker 1: How is it for survivors being able to access their
Speaker 1: redress payments reliably? And you mentioned a five year wait
Speaker 1: time at the moment, why is it taking so long?
Speaker 2: Clartly? One of the challenges will always be with the
Speaker 2: state processes is it is the state investigating itself? There
Speaker 2: is it's MSD looking at you know, did its own
Speaker 2: staff members cause harm? And there's not really any motivation
Speaker 2: to do that quickly. So there's been a dragging of
Speaker 2: feet over a long period of time, there have been
Speaker 2: multiple changes to processes. There's been so many different ways
Speaker 2: that redress has been administered, in some clunkier than others.
Speaker 2: But really there's just not been the resourcing, the staffing,
Speaker 2: or the motivation to resolve claims quickly, and so they're
Speaker 2: built up because I think the state never realized or
Speaker 2: recognized just how many victims there were, whereas the Royal
Speaker 2: Commission was very clear that a huge number of people
Speaker 2: in state and based care were of use.
Speaker 1: One name that comes to mind when thinking about the inquiries,
Speaker 1: of course, lake Alice. As of last month, Arenz reported
Speaker 1: one hundred and forty one people have been ruled eligible
Speaker 1: for the Lake Alice redress scheme, with one hundred and
Speaker 1: two of those opting to receive a one hundred and
Speaker 1: fifty thousand dollars payment. Some have decided to go to arbitration.
Speaker 1: Can you explain to us what that means?
Speaker 2: Sure? I guess. The first thing to note, though, is
Speaker 2: that this Lake Alice process is limited to people who
Speaker 2: were in the Child in Adolescent unit run by Doc
Speaker 2: seven Leaks and who suffered ect in an unmodified format
Speaker 2: lecterer of shock therapy or the use of a drug
Speaker 2: called peraldehyde. So this is a very targeted group of
Speaker 2: people rather than the larger group of Lake Alice or
Speaker 2: other psychiatric institutions. So it's a it's a microcosm really,
Speaker 2: and it came about because of the United Nations finding
Speaker 2: that what happened there was torture met the definition of torture.
Speaker 2: So it's the first thing. It's a smaller group the
Speaker 2: process for those people either, but there's a pathway. Effectively,
Speaker 2: arbitration doesn't mean something's failed. That means that they get
Speaker 2: to choose. And so the first pathway, as you say,
Speaker 2: a payment of one hundred and fifty thousand dollars. That's
Speaker 2: an expedite in payment, so that happens quite quickly, and
Speaker 2: that comes with an apology and some help with services
Speaker 2: and things like that. If people want to take a
Speaker 2: more individual approach, they and those meetings have occurred now
Speaker 2: with an independent arbitrator who's a retired High Court judge,
Speaker 2: and that means that they get to meet someone and
Speaker 2: talk about their experiences and have a more personalized and
Speaker 2: tailored approach, which suits some survivors they want to go
Speaker 2: down that road. Others they and particularly this cohort. They're
Speaker 2: often sick, they're very old, they need the money for
Speaker 2: whatever reason, and digging through those memories is hard. So
Speaker 2: this option of either a fairly fast approach recognizing that
Speaker 2: you meet the eligibility criteria, or the arbitration where you
Speaker 2: may receive a higher amount but you go through this
Speaker 2: process that provides it some tailored options for survivors.
Speaker 1: And I understand the deadline for the expedited pathway is tomorrow, Tuesday,
Speaker 1: September thirtieth. What does this mean?
Speaker 2: So my understanding is that because this was a time
Speaker 2: limited process and that was a decision made by Cabinet,
Speaker 2: that if someone hasn't registered with the Crown Response Unit
Speaker 2: by the thirtieth of September, then that payment won't be
Speaker 2: available to them. There's a couple of steps that need
Speaker 2: to be taken to be eligible for that scheme. So yes,
Speaker 2: there will come point where some people who haven't been
Speaker 2: involved in that process may miss out.
Speaker 1: That doesn't seem fair at all.
Speaker 2: It isn't fair to the people who have been involved
Speaker 2: in One of the challenges sometimes is that the expectation
Speaker 2: that survivors will put their hand up to go through
Speaker 2: this process and that they will have the ability to
Speaker 2: engage within this case government. There's been a lot of
Speaker 2: help given to survivors. Myself and other lawyers are appointed
Speaker 2: as panel lawyers, and there's been some really good support provided.
Speaker 2: But again they have to come to the scheme. The
Speaker 2: scheme doesn't come to them. The state. They know the
Speaker 2: names of the people who are in the child adolescent unit,
Speaker 2: so there's no proactive reaching out to people. And that's
Speaker 2: where the challenges lie. Because what we know is that
Speaker 2: some of the people from the Callis are some of
Speaker 2: the most damaged survivors that I've ever met, and they've
Speaker 2: suffered so much harm and their ability to engage with
Speaker 2: schemes to ring government is a scary thing when you've
Speaker 2: been harmed so badly, and to re engage with government
Speaker 2: and to put yourself in that position again is a
Speaker 2: really hard thing. So there are real challenges around that.
Speaker 1: And so if people haven't come forward, of those who
Speaker 1: haven't come forward already as of tomorrow, is government kind
Speaker 1: of relieved of any responsibility.
Speaker 2: That's a really good question, and that's a bit of
Speaker 2: an unknown to be honest, And I think if there
Speaker 2: is another cohort of survivors you know, the Minister may
Speaker 2: have to make some decisions there. Because this scheme is
Speaker 2: running for a particular time, I cannot have designated that time.
Speaker 2: The Arbat's job is is time limited. And what happens
Speaker 2: after that, I think it remains to be seen, But
Speaker 2: that may be a political decision more than anything else.
Speaker 3: Today, I'm apologizing on behalf of the government to every
Speaker 3: everyone who suffered abuse, harm and neglect while in state care.
Speaker 3: To they make this apology to all survivors on behalf
Speaker 3: of my own and previous governments. You deserved so much
Speaker 3: better and I am deeply sorry that New Zealand did
Speaker 3: not do better by you. I am sorry that you
Speaker 3: were not believed when you came forward to report your abuse.
Speaker 3: I am sorry that many bystanders, staff, volunteers and careers
Speaker 3: turned a blind eye and failed to stop or report abuse.
Speaker 1: I see that the Presbyterian Church is publicly apologizing in
Speaker 1: Auckland this weekend. They did so on Dunedin last weekend,
Speaker 1: and I've noticed the church use the phrase holistic redress.
Speaker 1: Is that different to redress? Can you explain to me
Speaker 1: what that means?
Speaker 2: Sure? I think and that often means different things to
Speaker 2: different organizations. So there's no single approach. But I guess
Speaker 2: when we talk about redress it responds to all of
Speaker 2: the harm rather than an element of redress is compensation.
Speaker 2: It's money, but redress can also means an apology. It
Speaker 2: also means making sure someone can access independent legal advice,
Speaker 2: so often paying legal costs, counseling or other support. I
Speaker 2: know for for some schemes, access to facilitators to help
Speaker 2: you navigate your entitlements with ACC for example, ACC is
Speaker 2: an enormous barrier for survivors. It's incredibly difficult to navigate
Speaker 2: lifelong help with parenting or with all sorts of things.
Speaker 2: So when I talk about redress or healing being a
Speaker 2: journey rather than an event, that that's what I mean.
Speaker 2: As supply of services over time is really really important.
Speaker 1: And so the holistic part of it could mean any
Speaker 1: range of things.
Speaker 2: Yes, yeah, whatever, And this is what a good redress
Speaker 2: responds to the survivor in front of view, That responds
Speaker 2: to their needs and what they want, and it's a
Speaker 2: conversation rather than going here's your money, see you later,
Speaker 2: you're done. There is much more to be gained through
Speaker 2: holistic redress than a fairly transactional approach.
Speaker 1: Have any other faiths set up their own redress process
Speaker 1: and if so, what do they look like? How do
Speaker 1: they compare?
Speaker 2: Different churches or faith based organizations have different processes and
Speaker 2: have for many years. The Salvation Army has had a
Speaker 2: process so many years and that was often run one
Speaker 2: person out of the Salvation Army. Again, those challenges of
Speaker 2: investigating your own people and the lack of independence there
Speaker 2: during the Royal Commission. It caused some organizations to give
Speaker 2: themselves a hard block and to revise what they were doing.
Speaker 2: Some have done that better than others, but so every
Speaker 2: organization has a different approach, and it's often in a
Speaker 2: state of flux. So it's changing a great deal when
Speaker 2: I think a lot of organizations were waiting for the
Speaker 2: final report of the Royal Commission Fanikia, which was a
Speaker 2: shot last year and to took a lot out of that,
Speaker 2: but lots of them were waiting for the state to
Speaker 2: implement an independent scheme and just had gone, right, we'll
Speaker 2: hang in there until this is going to happen. And
Speaker 2: now without that, I think they are looking at their
Speaker 2: own schemes and making steps. That is a wide range
Speaker 2: of responses and wide range of schemes.
Speaker 1: How does the redress compare between state based and faith based?
Speaker 1: Is it better on either side or do both sides
Speaker 1: have kind of positives and negatives?
Speaker 2: It varies wildly, And this is what I mean about
Speaker 2: the lack of consistency. You know, there are some organizations
Speaker 2: that sort of don't easily fit. So when I think
Speaker 2: about really good redress schemes, you look at something like
Speaker 2: deal With. Deal With School up in Auckland, there was
Speaker 2: an independent inquiry and discovered in a culture of sexual
Speaker 2: abuse at the school over many years, an extraordinary number
Speaker 2: of boys in the school sexually abused over a long
Speaker 2: period of time, and deal With instituted a process that
Speaker 2: was independent of the school. And nothing's perfect, but it
Speaker 2: was a pretty good process and the compensation paid by
Speaker 2: deal Worth was far and away above anything that the
Speaker 2: state had ever Often at the other end, some Catholic
Speaker 2: orders very very limited redress, almost grudging, I think it
Speaker 2: is probably a word to use, and other organizations not
Speaker 2: engaging at all. So it's hard to compare because they're
Speaker 2: so different. But to give you an example, someone who
Speaker 2: had experienced sexual abuse a deal Worth could receive compensation
Speaker 2: of so two hundred thousand dollars. Someone in state care
Speaker 2: who had experienced the same abuse and potentially abuse for
Speaker 2: a longer period of time might get thirty or forty
Speaker 2: thousand dollars. That's what that difference looks like.
Speaker 1: In terms of these institutions, I'm sure, and you've spoken
Speaker 1: to a lot of survivors as well. Does it feel
Speaker 1: like if we pay this person this lump sum, this
Speaker 1: will all go.
Speaker 2: I think it feels like that to some organizations. But
Speaker 2: I think what I've seen over time is that when
Speaker 2: people and often I've seen this and people coming and
Speaker 2: new to some organizations, when they meet survivors and they
Speaker 2: see them face to face and they hear what happened
Speaker 2: to them, and they hear what their adult life has
Speaker 2: been like, and that you know, a lot of my
Speaker 2: clients have huge challenges as adults and they see this
Speaker 2: person in front of them, and sometimes, you know, survivors
Speaker 2: will bring photos of what they were like when they
Speaker 2: were kids. And that's really impactful for organizations because it's
Speaker 2: real easy to see this person in front of you
Speaker 2: as someone who is a challenge to how you do things,
Speaker 2: and lots of organizations want to be organizations that are
Speaker 2: doing great things in the community that are helpful, they
Speaker 2: are doing the right thing, they're morally upright. And to
Speaker 2: have this person saying you're yourself hurt me and your
Speaker 2: organization never stepped into help or even worse, in terms
Speaker 2: of some of the Catholic organizations, you're you and you
Speaker 2: move the priests to somewhere else. And that is really
Speaker 2: hard for organizations to hear. But some of them have,
Speaker 2: to their credit, recognized that you can't just package it
Speaker 2: up and send it on its way, and that you
Speaker 2: have to be more accountable. And that's to their credit.
Speaker 2: But I think we've got quite a long way to go.
Speaker 1: And in terms of public apologies, I suppose different survivors
Speaker 1: will feel different things about public apologies, but what are
Speaker 1: some of the thoughts and feelings that you've heard from
Speaker 1: survivors about them.
Speaker 2: We also, keele, survivors are not a homogeneous group, and
Speaker 2: in your right, it means different things to different people.
Speaker 2: And I think when I think back to the apology
Speaker 2: delivered in Parliament, and I was at Parliament for that,
Speaker 2: and there was a range of emotions from people feeling
Speaker 2: like a sort of release them from a lot of
Speaker 2: the hurt the fucking mar in my mind, that they've
Speaker 2: been caring for years, that they felt that that sort
Speaker 2: of brought that to an end for them in a way,
Speaker 2: and others perhaps a bit more cynical, perhaps going right, Well,
Speaker 2: an apology is empty without meaningful action with it. And
Speaker 2: at that point the government will say we're looking at readress,
Speaker 2: we're looking at what we can do. But there wasn't
Speaker 2: anything concrete with the apology. And I think people have
Speaker 2: been let down by those organizations so often just wanted
Speaker 2: to sort of go okay, well you said sorry, Now
Speaker 2: what does that look like? So yeah, the full range
Speaker 2: of responses there.
Speaker 1: And lastly, Amanda, if you could change one thing tomorrow
Speaker 1: without any no qualms about money or legal processes or
Speaker 1: laws or legislation or time or anything, what would it be.
Speaker 2: I would implement the Royal Commission's recommendations to bring in
Speaker 2: a single independent scheme. It would bring in all of
Speaker 2: the different organizations into under one roof. It would mean
Speaker 2: that's if IRIS didn't have to go to three or
Speaker 2: four different organizations because they were replaced in different places
Speaker 2: as kids. I would make sure it was consistent and
Speaker 2: transparent and accountable and there was a one stop place
Speaker 2: where people could go and if we have it all there,
Speaker 2: The Royal Commission has presented this and we just need
Speaker 2: to implement it.
Speaker 1: Why isn't it happening?
Speaker 2: Political will? I think, isn't there? There is some work happening,
Speaker 2: But like I say, it is picking low hanging fruit.
Speaker 2: It is tinkering. It's not acknowledging that the state. And
Speaker 2: someone said this. I think it was a High court
Speaker 2: judge that this many years ago. The abuser cannot be
Speaker 2: the save yet you cannot fix your own house. It
Speaker 2: has to be taken out of the organizations dealt with independently.
Speaker 1: Thanks for joining us, Amanda.
Speaker 2: No problem, think you everything.
Speaker 1: That's it for this episode of The Front Page. You
Speaker 1: can read more about today's stories and extensive news coverage
Speaker 1: at enzadherld dot co dot nz. The Front Page is
Speaker 1: produced by Jane Ye and Richard Martin, who is also
Speaker 1: our editor. I'm Chelsea Daniels. Subscribe to the Front Page
Speaker 1: on iHeartRadio or wherever you get your podcasts, and tune
Speaker 1: in tomorrow for another look behind the headlines.