Dr Liz Gordon: Gloriavale: the sequel

I have been going on about Gloriavale for years. When I launched a campaign a few years ago to force the closure of Gloriavale School, the most common response was: ”aww…. Leave them alone, they are not doing any harm” etc.

For clarity, I was calling for the closure of the school because it taught a loony creationist curriculum, thought boys and girls should leave school at fifteen and educated girls to cook and do the laundry (plus babymaking, lots of lots of it) and boys to work on the farm.

I thought if the children could just go to their local state schools, they would be able to avoid the indoctrination into the ‘only’ lifestyle in favour of making their own choice. But sects such as Gloriavale do not like choice. The Education Review Office was, at the time, as useful as a chocolate teapot in declaring that the school produced the education demanded by the school community and supporting its continuance. No thought for the children.

It now appears that I was simply ahead of my time. Dire forces are converging on Gloriavale, which may lead to significant changes in how it operates. While the Charities Commission has allowed the Trust to continue to operate for now, I think the end is coming, at least of the present form of the organisation.

Most importantly, the Royal Commission into abuse in state care is rightly casting its beady eye on the sect, after various allegations of abuse over the years. Second, the Teachers Council (the Education Review Office is still defending its approach) is investigating issues around the sexual abuse of a male child at the school.

Other potential investigations include the fact that Gloriavale makes a large profit but does not pay the staff who run its enterprises. They are workers, whether they cook, launder, farm or engage in other businesses. It is time that MBIE began to look into their business practices. I believe that such an investigation is underway. It needs to move faster.

We cannot look carefully at Gloriavale and then deny that modern slavery is taking place in Aotearoa. Those people are ideological slaves, kept in place by firm structures of distancing, lack of opportunity and daily indoctrination. They work for nothing, own nothing and if they leave they have nothing and are ostracised forever.

I am not at all opposed to the notion of people living and working together in relative isolation from the rest of the world. But such a community must be idyllic. It must educate its members, liberate them, support and nurture them and encourage them to reach their potential for their own good and that of others.

Located on the shores of beautiful Lake Brunner, Gloriavale is in a fabulous setting. But the controlling, misogynist culture of the place, the distorted religion and distressing indoctrination into Old Testament gender roles has no place in Aotearoa today.

The establishment of Aotearoa, including politicians, has supported them for too long. There is no place for the current model of Gloriavale in the Aotearoa of the future. The time has come to stop tolerating an institution that owes more to the 18th century than the 21st.

Dr Liz Gordon is a researcher and a barrister, with interests in destroying neo-liberalism in all its forms and moving towards a socially just society.  She usually blogs on justice, social welfare and education topics.