Chris Hipkins’ apology statement to state and faith-based care survivors

Kia hiwa rā

Kia hiwa rā

Kia hiwa rā ki tēnei tuku

Kia hiwa ra ki tērā tuku

Kia tū, kia oho, kia mataara

Tihei mauriora!

 

Ki te hunga kua riro ki te pō,

Moe mai, moe mai, moe mai rā koutou.

 

Ki ngā mōrehu kua tae mai – tēnā koutou. Koutou ngā mōrehu e mātakitaki mai nā, e whakarongo mai nā huri noa i te motu, tēnā koutou.

 

He tū whakaiti tēnei

ki te whakapāhā atu

ki a koutou ngā mōrehu

mō ngā tini tūkinotanga,

ngā taimahatanga me te mamae

 

Auē taukuri e

 

Can I start by first acknowledging and supporting the Prime Minister’s formal apology delivered on behalf of successive Governments that have failed you the survivors, your families, whānau, kainga, hapū, iwi, your communities and your support networks, and the nation as a whole.

I want to acknowledge all of you – those who are physically here at Parliament today, those who are watching all across the country, those who find it too painful to engage at all, and those who have died before today finally arrived.

Among the community of survivors are many intersecting communities who have jointly suffered from neglect, abuse and trauma, including torture, and have carried their scars over lifetimes and generations.

Māori survivors, Pacific survivors, Pākehā survivors, Deaf survivors, disabled survivors, survivors who experienced mental distress, and takatāpui (Māori LGBT), mahu, vakasalewa, palopa, fa’afafine, akavai’ne, fakaleiti (leiti), fakafifine, (MVPFAFF+) and all Rainbow survivors.

Today is a hugely important day for all of you to finally hear what the Crown has failed to give you for all these years. An apology.

It’s a hugely important day for us – the representatives of the Crown and its successive Governments – that we finally acknowledge the thousands of confronting experiences of neglect, abuse and trauma, including torture, and that we finally own up fully to our failings and offer our sincerest apologies.

Today – all of Aotearoa New Zealand will bear witness to the truth – to what survivors experienced, to our decades of wilful ignorance, denial, minimisation and to our conviction to end such horror and vile acts from continuing.

As the Royal Commission found around 250,000 people were abused, with an even higher number neglected.

We will never know the true number – with many people entering into state and faith-based institutions being undocumented, records being incomplete, going missing, or deliberately destroyed.

Every corner of New Zealand has been affected by this abuse. A family member, a neighbour, a colleague, a friend.

In 2018 we started the long overdue process of acknowledging the abuse that happened, and to hear from those who have had to live with the repercussions of that.

To those who shared your stories with the inquiry – thank you.

To those who’ve chosen not to recount those memories – we wholeheartedly understand.

To those who died before they were given the opportunity to be heard – rest knowing that you are heard today.

I give my thanks to all of you involved – to the Commissioners, assisting Counsel, the Survivor Advisory Group of Experts – I can name but a handful, but my gratitude goes to everyone who was instrumental in this Inquiry. This was no simple task.

I want to acknowledge that while necessary and welcomed, for many the Inquiry and associated events stir-up and exacerbate the pain and suffering. I know today is painful.

The things that I will speak about today rise from the worst of human nature. They show how immoral and reprehensible it is that we as the Crown not only allowed it to happen and ignored it, but further punished those who would speak out.

Today, I speak frankly of what happened to survivors, because I want you to hear that we have heard. That while we can never fully understand what these experiences were like for you, we have heard your testimonies.

The Royal Commission shows us that many survivors who entered state or faith-based care and institutions were forced into them due to discriminatory attitudes and harsh conditions beyond their control – racism, ableism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, and cruel attitudes towards people who simply needed support.

What these people – you, survivors and your loved ones – experienced, spans an unimaginable spectrum of horror. Horror perpetrated within a state system that allowed it, by people who you should have been able to trust – caregivers, staff, peers or other residents, police officers, medical practitioners, teachers, social workers, nurses, nuns, priests and religious ministers.

You lived without care, affection, love, and emotional support and connection

Many of you experienced psychological and emotional neglect and abuse – being institutionalised and denied your personhood

Physical and sexual abuse and violence was a common experience

Many were deprived of an education or punished for having specific needs.

For example, Deaf survivors were punished for using sign language; blind survivors were punished for using echolocation.

Survivors also experienced physical neglect – denied food, shelter, water, basic hygiene; female survivors were often denied menstrual products.

Many were placed in solitary confinement, often for long periods of time and neglected while there.

Survivors were not allowed to express who they were, and often punished for doing so.

Too many were neglected medically, yet also subject to unnecessary and invasive procedures without consent.

And some of you were tortured.

All of this at the hands of the state and faith-based institutions that were entrusted with providing care and protection to you – taonga, who should have been loved and nurtured.

Not only has this immeasurable harm and trauma hurt you, the children, young people and vulnerable adults who experienced it directly, but also your families, whānau, kainga, hāpu, iwi, and communities.

The intergenerational and collective harm caused cannot be overstated.

Survivors were often targeted based on race, sexual orientation, disability and gender, and isolated from their cultures, their language, their sense of self and from their families.

Māori survivors found themselves in a system that inherently worked against them and care settings that were blatantly racist – suffering severe racial abuse.

Many Māori survivors were made to feel whakamā – shame at having been stripped of their identity as Māori. Whakapapa and mana motuhake were transgressed, and people were severed from their whānau.

Marae, hapū, iwi lost people who would otherwise be sitting on the taumata or the paepae, passing on cultural knowledge.

Pacific Survivors were also punished for who they were, with their cultural needs and existence not only neglected, but actively destroyed.

There are stories of Pacific survivors who were told they didn’t belong in this world – that they had no identity.

For Pacific survivors, it was not only being actively dislocated from their kainga, communities and church, but also the harm experienced in various institutions that breached the va’a, resulting in shame, isolation and an inability to fully embrace life.

Pākehā survivors were similarly removed from their families and actively isolated from them, often for nothing more than being poor.

Pākehā survivors have suffered lifelong dislocation and disconnection from family and community. Their identity and mana also diminished.

Certainly, the horrors they experienced, cannot be overlooked.

Deaf survivors were seen as lesser and forced to communicate orally. They suffered under audism and ableist attitudes and were punished if they were caught using Sign Language.

Education centres for deaf New Zealanders like Van Asch College and Kelston School for the Deaf should’ve been safe spaces. Instead, they became a hellscape for students where physical and sexual abuse were rife. Students were constantly belittled, othered and made to feel inferior.

Disabled survivors were shut away, stigmatised and devalued for being disabled. They faced all types of abuse and extreme neglect. In their interviews with the Inquiry, disabled survivors said that “abuse and neglect caused them to lose their sense of self, their personhood – the ‘essence of being human’ – and connections to their families, communities, cultures and language”.

Mentally distressed survivors were shut-away in institutions, and experienced the full spectrum of abuse, neglect and trauma that were par for the course in these places. Nothing they experienced was therapeutic or addressed their specific needs.

Rainbow survivors were forced into institutions and psychiatric wards engulfed in homophobia, where they were mislabelled with different mental health illnesses.

Conversion practices were rife as a means to “cure” or “fix” survivors, including the use of electric shocks.

One such institution that used electric shocks and hurt, broke and tortured those who passed through their doors was the Lake Alice Psychiatric Hospital – a name now synonymous with extreme trauma and a shameful part of New Zealand’s history.

The horrors committed there and in similar places remain some of the darkest in our nation’s history.

Churches and other faith-based entities were also spaces where many New Zealanders suffered. They abused their power to harm people entrusted into their care.

Priests, ministers and other religious leaders – those who should’ve been trusted, devolved into monsters behind closed doors. And it is they, who must equally be held to account.

Successive Labour Governments, Ministers, Ministries, and state institutions had a role to play in this neglect, abuse and trauma, including torture.

They allowed the systems they governed to continue to place children, young people and vulnerable adults in care unnecessarily, and then to hurt them when they were there. When survivors tried to raise the alarm, representatives of Labour played a role in ignoring, punishing and shaming survivors – drowning them out so that they could never be heard.

This was wrong.

Today, I want to tell you, on behalf of successive Labour Governments – we also formally and unreservedly apologise for the neglect, abuse and trauma, including torture, that took place in state and faith-based care.

We apologise for ignoring you. For punishing you for speaking out. And for leaving you unsafe and unheard.

Today, I want to confirm that we hear you. We hear all of you. We are sorry we took so long, but we finally hear you.

To each and every one of you who endured all that suffering, to your families, your children and mokopuna, your kainga, your hāpu, your iwi, your communities – we see your scars and we hear you. And we are sorry.

You should have been safe, protected, and believed. You were not. And that is the ultimate injustice that we as representatives of the Crown must also bear the burden of.

I am also sorry that the last Labour Government did not act more quickly to put in place an independent redress system.

We, the Government and representatives of the Crown owe a huge debt to you.

Redress has taken far, far too long, to the point where many have already died, or fear they might do so before getting any compensation.

Redress has to be kept out of the court system – it’s an investment into our people.

I have said it before and I’ll say it again – it is a national disgrace that we took so long and I apologise for this.

Today, I want to confirm that for the serious matter of redress and compensating our survivors – we’re taking politics off the table and will commit to finally paying back this debt.

We welcome the Government’s action to streamline this process and stand ready to work together to get this done as quickly and efficiently as possible.

I am under no illusions that neglect, abuse and trauma in State care still happens today. For this apology to have any credibility, we must take concrete actions to stop this.

One of the many things that sticks with me from reading the report is that survivors emphasised time and again that they do not want what happened to them to happen to another person, ever again. For many, this is an important part of seeking justice.

I acknowledge that we have enormous work to do. The Inquiry and this apology must be a turning point.

A point from which to embark on a pathway for us to not only right these historic wrongs, but also to fundamentally change our care system. Change it so that State care is rarely necessary.

When I met with Keith Wiffin to discuss my speech, he said to me, “The best prevention for abuse in State care is to keep people out of it in the first place.” and I wholeheartedly agree. But when people are in care, it should be a safe and warm space for all, as it should always have been.

This change will take time, but know that Labour is committed to it.

We welcome and support the Government’s commitment in beginning the work to improve safeguards for those in state care. There’s so much to do, and this is a good start.

We also support the Government’s move to work with local authorities to honour unmarked graves and remove the name of proven perpetrators from public places.

For the guilty who remain nameless, we encourage the Government to ensure all is done to hold those and all perpetrators to account.

Certainly, Labour is looking closely at all the recommendations and ensuring we do right by our survivors.

I acknowledge that for some, perhaps many of you, there will never be healing. My hope is that this apology today offers some relief – that your fight to be heard has resulted in a formal apology.

Now is the time to forge a new pathway forwards.

The Royal Commission sets out survivors’ dreams for the future – he māra tipu, a garden of growth – where “every child, young person and adult is loved, safe and cared for in a manner that supports their growth and development into a thriving contributor to society.”

This is my dream too, and I hope that together we can achieve it for generations to come, never again repeating the mistakes of the past.

Tena koutou, tena koutou, tena tatou katoa.