This Government torture those tortured in State care – again!
Abuse in Care victims have had different responses to compensation offers, from those who’ve taken the money and moved on, to those who feel they’re being seriously shortchanged
We have let down those the State abused and the decision by the Government to not properly fund their compensation is a sickness…
Abuse in care survivors vow to fight on after government opts against new compensation scheme
Abuse in care survivors have described the government’s changes to the redress system as an insult, a broken promise and a kick in the guts.
The government will not be setting up a new compensation scheme for survivors, as Prime Minister Christopher Luxon had indicated at November’s apology to survivors and as the Abuse in Care Royal Commission of Inquiry had recommended.
…this Government has lied to the faces of the abused…
Survivors had consistently called for the Royal Commission’s recommendations to be actioned, including the establishment of an independent, survivor-led and survivor-informed redress system for all those who suffered abuse in the past, present and into the future, whether it was committed at the hands of the state or faith-based institutions.
Keith Wiffin, who entered state care at 10-years-old and sat on the Redress Design Group which provided a report to the government in late 2023, said the work of the design group and the government’s ultimate announcement bore no similarity.
“They are poles apart,” Wiffin said.
“Today’s announcement is essentially a miniscule amount of topping up a thoroughly rotten process, governed by the very same people who have always opposed us and disrespected us.”
The key aspect of the group’s scheme and the Royal Commission’s recommendation was its independence from the Crown and the government departments responsible for abuse and the failure to protect children and vulnerable people.
“This should’ve been a day when we were celebrating something meaningful . . . like we celebrated after the apology. We should have been celebrating the implementation of that scheme in some form,” Wiffin said.
…remember, this is after the State destroyed and used despicable tactics to demean and destroy those victims of State abuse!
I simply do not believe the vast amount of Kiwis have any idea just how involved the NZ State was in not only abusing victims in their care, hiding that abuse, and then using legal tactics to undermine, attack and retraumatize those victims!
The Solicitor-General was in the middle of that process and her apology is simply not enough and the rest of the NZ Media have an obligation to hold her to account…
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- The report of the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuse in Care says of the roughly 655,000 children, young people and adults in care during 1950 to 2019, about 200,000 were abused and even more were neglected.
- The inquiry found evidence of abuse and failures of responsibility ‘everywhere we looked’, including welfare institutions, churches and other religious organisations, some schools, the police and successive governments.
- Solicitor-General Una Jagose was heckled by survivors at the Parliament apology gathering. As the head of the Crown’s legal team, she had been involved in defending the state against abuse claims.
…I find it appalling that Investigative Journalist Aaron Smale was banned from Parliament and he didn’t receive solidarity from other Journalists.
It is journalists like Aaron and columnists like Shane who our only hope to hold the State accountable…
The state knew it had abused these children and its lawyers did everything to deny justice in case it cost us too much money. What sort of country makes value judgments based on such venal logic?
How can any of us hold our heads up knowing the state hired private detectives to undermine survivors in court by besmirching their reputations?
Why has the state knowingly abused its power against those they have already harmed? The Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuse in Care investigated the Crown’s litigation strategy and described the Crown’s legal conduct as going beyond mere neutral defence of claims.
The Royal Commission accused the strategy of “causing long, avoidable delays and failing to keep claimants adequately informed of the progress of their cases”. They cross-examined witnesses to suggest that survivors should have, as children, disclosed abuse at the time it happened or somehow avoided it. They failed to disclose relevant information damaging to the Crown’s case − suggesting survivors were lying and colluding, even when they knew the survivors had been abused.
…you can not abuse 250 000 children in State Care, know that they have been abused and then implement legal tactics that use dirty under handed means to undermine those victims.
The State KNEW they had abused these kids, yet did everything to limit accountability.
We should all be ashamed and angry at how little we truly knew about what the State did to these victims in the first place and then damaged them again with a compensation process that only denigrates the victims again.
What have we become as a people for this abuse of our fellow citizens by the state can simply be glossed over?
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How many more things do innocent taxpayers who had nothing to do abuse have to fund? Really let’s be real.
Look at comparable contemporary cases in this and similar jurisdictions for torture and abuse etc, see what the punishment is, convert that to a monetary value, and pay it to victims. Cover the cost by taking the time period over which the abuse in care inquiry covered, and those who were public servants during that time period, when the public service and watchdogs of the public service and the politicians of the time, chose to turn a blind eye, should now have their their superannuation docked with an abuse in care surcharge, similar to the proceeds of crime laws – user pays or abuser pays or the enablers pays. And this surcharge be used to fund proper redress, of what can only be described as a moral abomination in a so called civilized country that respects the rule of law when it suits.
How many un-investigated files concerning the estimated 200000 children abused in care, are sitting on the police computer? Isn’t it proper that the Police Commissioner release a public statement detailing what will and what has changed, in terms of the way police deal with abuse in care. Does the Police oath need updating? And anyone who has made an abuse in care complaint to Police, which is too recent to have been included in the abuse in care inquiry, re-file that complaint directly with the Police Commissioner (the TDB could list his contact details), and if still nothing is done, then his head should also roll.
And the govt should change its decision, to not allow the redress scheme to consider contemporary and future abuse in care. I mean, with $billions more for military and speculators – what planet are they on, if they don’t want the redress system to cover abuse happening now, is completely shit for brains. Like they expect this abuse to continue, but don’t want to deal with the consequences. Anyone in the public service now, should know that there is a price to be paid for turning a blind eye, and they will be the ones paying it. The abused deserve the money more than the former public servants do, some of whom, in an ideal world, should be serving time, because they certainly haven’t lived up to the meaning of the words “public servant”.