Speaker 1: Kilda. I'm Chelsea Daniels and this is the Front Page,
Speaker 1: a daily podcast presented by the New Zealand Herald. Nearly
Speaker 1: three thousand experiences have been heard in one hundred and
Speaker 1: thirty three days of public hearings and more than a
Speaker 1: million documents received. It's been five and a half years
Speaker 1: since the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuse and Care
Speaker 1: was established to investigate the abuse of children, young people
Speaker 1: and vulnerable adults within state and faith based institutions. Over
Speaker 1: the years, the inquiries heard from countless survivors, government heads
Speaker 1: and church leaders. Common themes have included significant sexual, verbal
Speaker 1: and physical violence, over medicalization, isolation and unsanitary conditions. Finally,
Speaker 1: the Inquiry's final report will be released publicly today after
Speaker 1: it's presented in Parliament. Senior investigative reporter Michael Mora has
Speaker 1: been covering this inquiry since it started and joins us
Speaker 1: today on the Front Page. Michael, can you give us
Speaker 1: a bit of an explainer on what the Abuse and
Speaker 1: Care Inquiry actually is?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 3: Well, it was set up in twenty eighteen by the
Speaker 3: then Labor government to investigate allegations of historic state abuse
Speaker 3: and faith abuse. Initially, this was between nineteen fifty and
Speaker 3: nineteen ninety nine, but that time frame was actually extended
Speaker 3: in the end. Now, the first interim report from this
Speaker 3: Commission of Inquiry actually came out of the end of
Speaker 3: twenty twenty, and incredibly it estimated that about a quarter
Speaker 3: of a million people were abused in state or church care,
Speaker 3: though the report noted that the real figure is likely
Speaker 3: much much higher. So most of those abuse came from
Speaker 3: Maori and Pacifica families, disabled people, women and girls. And
Speaker 3: the abuse of behavior is harrowing. I mean it ranged
Speaker 3: from physical assault to sexual assault, restraint, cruel, inhumane and
Speaker 3: degrading medical procedures such as shock therapy being used as punishment.
Speaker 3: And when this interim report came out, and I remember
Speaker 3: reporting on it at the time, the recommendation at that
Speaker 3: time in twenty twenty was that there should be an
Speaker 3: independent redress system set up at that time. But nothing,
Speaker 3: nothing has happened, and survivors are still waiting and in
Speaker 3: fact many are dying. Chris Hipkins at the time stood
Speaker 3: up after this interim report and said he accepted the recommendations,
Speaker 3: action would be taken, and yet we have not seen anything.
Speaker 4: One of the key messages from the report is that
Speaker 4: we need to actually work with the survivors to co
Speaker 4: design a redress process that's going to work for them
Speaker 4: and one that they're going to have trust and confidence in.
Speaker 4: It's clear the previous attempts to provide redress have fallen short,
Speaker 4: so I think it's important that we do that work
Speaker 4: with the victims rather than to them.
Speaker 1: You've been covering this since its inception in twenty eighteen,
Speaker 1: but you've spoken to so many survivors over the years.
Speaker 1: What stories stick out to you.
Speaker 3: I've spoken to many many survivors, from state institutions to
Speaker 3: church groups, church homes. One of the guys that always
Speaker 3: stood out to me as a chap called Pool Zenfield,
Speaker 3: and I think he's been one of the leading voices
Speaker 3: in this ongoing saga. He was tortured at the old
Speaker 3: Lake Alice Hospital. You've probably heard of that. It's near Martin.
Speaker 3: He was given electric shock treatment for doing things like
Speaker 3: whetting the bed as a fourteen year old. But despite
Speaker 3: so many setbacks, Paul has never really given up in
Speaker 3: his quest for justice and accountability. He supports other survivors
Speaker 3: and he's just a real sort of Kiwi Batler. He
Speaker 3: even took a case to the UN Committee against Torture,
Speaker 3: which was upheld in twenty twenty, and that recommended at
Speaker 3: the time that the government investigate claims of torture. And
Speaker 3: there's you know, other people, which I think was really impactful.
Speaker 3: I mean, I met a man whose name I won't
Speaker 3: say because he asked me, and the story I did
Speaker 3: with him, we did not identify him. But when this
Speaker 3: all started, he told me that one day he just
Speaker 3: was in tears and his wife came upstairs and said,
Speaker 3: what's going on. And at that point, decades and decades
Speaker 3: after his abuse, he disclosed to his wife what had happened.
Speaker 3: And he had been raped every week for a two
Speaker 3: year period by a Marius brother known as Brother Giles.
Speaker 3: And this story really hit me hard, and it was
Speaker 3: hugely impactful because I sat down with this guy, a
Speaker 3: grown man who has his own kids, who was in
Speaker 3: tears recounting and publicly revealing for the very first time
Speaker 3: exactly what he had endured as a boy. And that
Speaker 3: was so significant because this was abuse that he had
Speaker 3: buried and tried to forget for decades, and he opened
Speaker 3: up about it.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I went into Kewinos too. There are very few
Speaker 5: of us who have actually made it out unscathed. There
Speaker 5: are very few of us that can look back at
Speaker 5: our childhoods and be happy about them. The whole process
Speaker 5: has shown us what things like boot camps and criminalizing
Speaker 5: young people that it shows us the pathway that young
Speaker 5: people take when they're put into situations like that from
Speaker 5: people in authority.
Speaker 1: I guess over the years there have been some key moments.
Speaker 1: One that comes to my mind is when Gloria Vale
Speaker 1: leaders fronted the inquiry. How rare is such a move
Speaker 1: for this notoriously secretive sect.
Speaker 3: I guess, well, Gloria Vale's leader, Howard Temple, never likes
Speaker 3: to ready be seen in public, nor does he like
Speaker 3: to comment publicly on anything. So yes, he was forced
Speaker 3: to come before the Commission, just like he was forced
Speaker 3: to come before the Employment Court during a recent case
Speaker 3: taken by Leavers against the leaders there. So that is
Speaker 3: incredibly rare. There were a lot of key moments.
Speaker 4: You know.
Speaker 3: It wasn't just Gloriavale's leader. I remember hugely significant apology
Speaker 3: from place. It was the former Commissioner Tom Fitzgerald who
Speaker 3: turned up at the Commission of Inquiry and essentially said
Speaker 3: sorry for multiple botched investigations into allegations of abuse and
Speaker 3: torture at Lake Alice Hospital. And that related to investigations
Speaker 3: between two thousand and two and twenty ten where police
Speaker 3: not only failed to investigate complaints thoroughly, they lost key
Speaker 3: witness statements given to them by survivors, and they just
Speaker 3: did not commit enough resources to the case. Now, when
Speaker 3: a police front and apologized publicly, you know that there's
Speaker 3: been a pretty monumental stuff up.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and I mean, and that's just one of the
Speaker 1: apologies that we've seen over the years. Hey, it's also
Speaker 1: seen apologies from church leaders from just about every denomination.
Speaker 1: How have survivors you've spoken to reacted to those apologies?
Speaker 3: Yeah, well, look, you're right. I mean, I clearly remember
Speaker 3: Cardinal John Joe of the Catholic Church stepping up and
Speaker 3: apologize and acknowledging that Catholic church systems and its culture
Speaker 3: allowed children to be abused. And that was a hugely
Speaker 3: significant day. I think that a lot of these apologies
Speaker 3: fall on deaf airs. Some of these survivors have been
Speaker 3: raising these concerns for decades and have not felt listened to.
Speaker 3: They have not felt believed. So the apologies I think
Speaker 3: for many ring hollow. What they want to see is
Speaker 3: actual action. You know, it's a bit like Lake Alice.
Speaker 3: I mean, some of the horrific abuse that occurred there
Speaker 3: and the lack of accountability that we've seen, and you know,
Speaker 3: let's be clear about what the Commission has determined about
Speaker 3: places like Lake Alice. I mean, this was mass torture
Speaker 3: of vulnerable children, and the really disgraceful thing was that
Speaker 3: complaints and concerns raised at the time went nowhere. And
Speaker 3: so for so long survivors have felt that they know
Speaker 3: we're not listened to. So the apologies, as I said,
Speaker 3: rang hollow, at least at this point. You know, they
Speaker 3: have found a place in the Commission, which has done
Speaker 3: lengthy and an extraordinary inquiry in my view, into what
Speaker 3: really went on.
Speaker 1: Why has it taken nearly six years to get from
Speaker 1: the inception to the final report.
Speaker 3: There's been lots of back and forth. Like I said
Speaker 3: at the beginning of this chat, there were changes to
Speaker 3: the timeline. Initially it was like we're going to investigate
Speaker 3: between nineteen fifties to nineteen ninety nine. Then there was
Speaker 3: concerns from survivors that that doesn't actually consider what's happening
Speaker 3: right now, and so the scope of the inquiry changed.
Speaker 3: There have been various people who have come and gone
Speaker 3: from the Commission's leadership structure, and I think that the
Speaker 3: amount of work has been underestimated by the Commission. There
Speaker 3: have been thousands of written statements, thousands of hearings from
Speaker 3: people in person turning up to tell their stories in person,
Speaker 3: and it's been very disappointing for survivors that it has
Speaker 3: been pushed out and pushed out. You know, we were
Speaker 3: expecting to have the final report out well before today
Speaker 3: in saying that we have got to this stage and
Speaker 3: it is a huge day for thousands of survivors.
Speaker 2: Well, it's exposed, I think, just the extent of abuse
Speaker 2: and that it's gone right across all aspects of state
Speaker 2: and faith based care. You know, now we have about
Speaker 2: two thousand active claims. A lot of those clients now
Speaker 2: are in their early to mid twenties, some sadly are
Speaker 2: in their teams. It's certainly not something of the past.
Speaker 2: It is you know, it's still very much something that
Speaker 2: is happening now and I think, sadly, will continue into
Speaker 2: the future, and with.
Speaker 1: Faith based institutions, they weren't originally included.
Speaker 3: Were they No, they were not originally included, and so
Speaker 3: that was another add on, and there was a lot
Speaker 3: of advocacy and pressure to ensure that they were included,
Speaker 3: and in fact, some of the most depraved defending has
Speaker 3: come from some of these faith based institutions. One place
Speaker 3: that comes to mind is Maryland's School in christ Church.
Speaker 3: This was described by survivors as a state supported church
Speaker 3: run brothel for pedophiles. I mean, it was particularly infamous
Speaker 3: because many of the victims were disabled, and we learned
Speaker 3: a lot about what the church did at the time
Speaker 3: if priests got found out that they were molesting children,
Speaker 3: and that was not to call the cops. It was
Speaker 3: to shift them to another place where they would continue
Speaker 3: abusing other children. The police went called, there was no investigation,
Speaker 3: and this was a pattern that occurred time and time again.
Speaker 1: Is there a redress process in place at the moment
Speaker 1: or are we expecting to learn more about that?
Speaker 3: Yeah, so there is a redress process at the moment.
Speaker 3: So a lot of survivors I've spoken to have entered
Speaker 3: into this redress process with agencies like the Ministry of
Speaker 3: Social Development or with the Ministry of Health, and they
Speaker 3: will go to their lawyers and the lawyers will make
Speaker 3: a claim for some compensation. The problem with this is
Speaker 3: that it is very very drawn out. In fact, I
Speaker 3: spoke with a leading lawyer in the Serius Sonya Cooper,
Speaker 3: who has thousands of clients from state abuse, and she
Speaker 3: said the average time it takes to have some form
Speaker 3: of compensation or payout is about six years. So it's
Speaker 3: incredible ready, and you can imagine that people are actually
Speaker 3: dying before they get any form of redress. So that
Speaker 3: is in part where survivors can get redress get compensation.
Speaker 3: There are schemes and systems in place with these government
Speaker 3: departments to organize those compensation payments. However, what has always
Speaker 3: been called for is that there is some form of
Speaker 3: independent body which oversees this redress. That has been a
Speaker 3: key thing. It's a bit like the Catholic Church's body
Speaker 3: for investigating complaints, which is the National Office of Professional Standards.
Speaker 3: That is a church run operation. Now there's inherently some
Speaker 3: concerns about survivors about that, and they would like to
Speaker 3: see the investigative body taken away from being church controlled
Speaker 3: and actually being an independent investigative body and for complaints
Speaker 3: and investigations to be conducted independently. And the same with redress. Again,
Speaker 3: we know that the interim report recommended an independent redress system,
Speaker 3: so we'd be pretty sure that that would be the
Speaker 3: same recommendation today.
Speaker 6: Look, survivors, especially of my era, are dying at an
Speaker 6: ever increasing rate, and they have waited far, far too
Speaker 6: long for redress, and we need to do that to
Speaker 6: be able to move on and focus on the terrible
Speaker 6: rates of abuse that are still happening.
Speaker 1: Now.
Speaker 6: We have to deal with both. They don't sit in
Speaker 6: isolation to each other. The best way to stop abuse
Speaker 6: and care is to keep them out of there in
Speaker 6: the first place. So that means resourcing our communities of
Speaker 6: all cultures to be able to look after their own.
Speaker 1: There's been a lot of talk about how to actually
Speaker 1: quantify someone's trauma as well with the redress.
Speaker 3: Hey, oh absolutely, and a lot of this is kind of,
Speaker 3: you know, providing evidence from when you were a child,
Speaker 3: any records that can be found, and this is in
Speaker 3: part why it takes so long. If you go to
Speaker 3: the Ministry of so Development and the lawyer makes an
Speaker 3: application to get all the records. It takes some time
Speaker 3: to get all those records, and then you have to
Speaker 3: kind of build the case. And there's lenk the interviews
Speaker 3: that take place about a man or a woman's life,
Speaker 3: how that has gone, what difficulties they've faced, How could
Speaker 3: that be attributed? Is that attributed to the abuse that
Speaker 3: they occurred? So all those sorts of things you need
Speaker 3: to be considered.
Speaker 1: Prime Minister Christopher Luxen is expected to deliver an apology
Speaker 1: on behalf of the country in November, but what should
Speaker 1: be the next steps after that?
Speaker 3: Survivors would hope that action begins well before November. This
Speaker 3: is an incredibly dark chapter in New Zealand where survivors
Speaker 3: were silenced, some claimed cover ups of complaints, and this
Speaker 3: has impacted the most marginalized groups in society. We had
Speaker 3: church leaders who befriended families to get access to and
Speaker 3: sexually abused chill children. And it's about time we faced
Speaker 3: up to this. It's about time the church authorities face
Speaker 3: up to this and the government and we see some
Speaker 3: sort of tangible action because that's the concern from survivors.
Speaker 3: It's time for accountability and action. And the important thing
Speaker 3: to remember is that survivors have come out and done
Speaker 3: this to prevent it happening again, and as we know
Speaker 3: that the abuse is ongoing at the moment, there's no
Speaker 3: shortage of stories of concerns about the functions of agencies
Speaker 3: like ordering a tamadiki. So I guess the next steps
Speaker 3: in terms of what survivors would want is real action
Speaker 3: and real accountability.
Speaker 1: Now, thanks for joining us, Michael. That said, for this
Speaker 1: episode of the Front Page. You can read more about
Speaker 1: today's stories and extensive news coverage at enzadherld dot co
Speaker 1: dot z. The Front Page is produced by Ethan Seles
Speaker 1: with sound engineer Paddy Fox. I'm Chelsea Daniels. Subscribe to
Speaker 1: The Front Page on iHeartRadio or wherever you get your podcasts,
Speaker 1: and tune in to Morrow for another look behind the headlines.