I want a reckoning, not an apology event

The Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuse in Care estimated that more than 250,000 children were abused, tortured, neglected while in state or faith-based “care” between 1950 to 2019.

But instead of investigating and bringing their abusers to justice, writes Kim Mcbreen, the state used its many resources and systems “to ignore, deny, minimise and blame survivors of abuse” — and to “viciously and tirelessly” fight against the people harmed.

So what should a government apology to those people look like? 

 

The government will finally apologise to survivors of abuse in state care.

The apology will be delivered by the prime minister from the House of Representatives at 11:30am on November 12. Up to 180 people will be able to watch in person from parliament’s gallery.

It will be livestreamed online. Four venues will be provided to watch the live stream on a big screen: parliament’s Banquet Hall, plus one each in Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch. But the total capacity for all four is limited to 1,700 people, including survivors and a single support person each.

Survivors had to register online by September 30 to attend, and if numbers exceeded capacity at a venue, attendees would be selected by ballot. (Since the announcement, the New Zealand Collective of Abused in State Care Charitable Trust has organised Pipitea Marae in Wellington as a third Wellington option.)

More than 2,000 survivors gave evidence to the Royal Commission of Inquiry whose report has led to the apology. That report estimated that more than 250,000 children have been harmed under the responsibility of the state and churches.

A lot has been written since the final report of the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuse in Care was released in July, so I’ll keep this as short as I can.

If anyone wanted to design a system to enable the abuse of children, I don’t think they could do better than our state’s system. The Royal Commission estimated that nearly 40 percent of people in our “care” system between 1950 and 1999 were abused and neglected — that’s around 200,000 people. They estimated a further 56,000 were abused from 2000 to 2019.

And there is no reason to believe that it has stopped or slowed.

People have been telling the state about it for decades. It isn’t an accident that so many children have been harmed, nor that it has taken so long for the state to respond. The state simply hasn’t cared enough about children to do anything until the pressure became too great.

For decades, people have shared — or tried to share — stories of violence, neglect, racism, torture and all sorts of harm.

And, instead of proper care, concern and investigation, we’ve had minimising: It was a few isolated incidents. It would have been worse if they’d stayed in their family.

We’ve had blaming: Interviewers are planting false memories. These children were very difficult, with complex needs and behaviours. They needed discipline.

We’ve had denial: Flat out, it didn’t happen. These are damaged people. They make things up for attention.

Over and over, we’ve watched the state act swiftly to protect the reputations of adults and institutions accused of neglecting, abusing and torturing children. They can move so fast when there are reputations on the line. And we’ve heard excuses for why they can’t do anything to protect those children.

The truth is that the state has fought viciously and tirelessly against the people harmed. Elizabeth Stanley and Aaron Smale describe what happened. Our state has relentlessly denied and hidden what they have done, causing still more harm. And they have done it in our name, on our behalf.

The Royal Commission has irretrievably changed the conversation. No one can deny or minimise their findings. Survivors aren’t making it up. The state has been enabling adults to harm children. They were not isolated cases: Harming children was common, and widespread. No one can deny that the state created and oversaw a culture of harming children. Our state.

Yet for so long, people have defended the state and its systems.

Over and over, we have elected people who supported this, who covered it up, and who shifted blame. And we still are. Replace “the state” with “we” in everything I’ve written above and it’s pretty confronting.

For decades the state has fought survivors to avoid accountability. Our state, using all its many resources and systems to ignore, deny, minimise and blame survivors of abuse. Survivors, who as children were trapped in the state’s systems where they were abused and neglected.

In our name, New Zealand has been protecting people who abuse and torture children.

And now we have this apology.

I was one of the nearly 3,000 people who spoke to the Royal Commission, but I didn’t receive notice of the apology. I wonder if any of us did? I found out about it through a colleague whose job is to monitor media, including from government departments. She saw the notice to “Register your interest to attend a public apology event” on Te Puni Kōkiri’s “Information from other government agencies” page.

It’s dated September 13, 2024, just over two weeks from the registration deadline. The notice starts: “Survivors of abuse in care and their ‘plus one’ are invited to register their interest to attend a public apology event at Parliament on Tuesday 12 November where the Prime Minister will formally apologise to survivors of abuse in care.”

An “apology event”. With a “plus one”. It sounds like an apology-themed cocktail party.

Two weeks to register — are they taking this seriously?

An apology delivered from the place where the government is most comfortable. The survivors are expected to travel to parliament with our single support person to meet the state who abused us in their safest place, where they will be surrounded with people and things that make them feel secure and powerful.

Except we’re not really, because many survivors wouldn’t have found out in time to register, and even then, too many registered to attend in parliament. So I guess the state will turn to their ballot process to select which survivors will be allowed the opportunity to be there to receive the apology that is supposed to be for all of us.

There are still the live stream locations — which survivors also had to register to attend and which the government assures us “are not for overflow”. Of course not, that would sound like they weren’t trying to meet survivors’ needs. The live stream locations “are concurrent events.” Will the Wellington ones take the overflow from the survivors who exceeded the capacity at parliament? If those live stream locations exceed capacity “a ballot process will be undertaken.”

A ballot for who gets to watch a live stream of an apology from the state who abused us. With our plus one. Survivors harmed by the state, who risked re-traumatising ourselves by talking to the Royal Commission. And this is what we get.

Are they for real? This is 100 percent on their terms.

Many survivors have spoken out about the apology process. Robyn Dandy described expecting survivors to travel to watch the apology onscreen as “a slap in the face” and the ballot as “very insulting.” Hanz Feller described the process as rushed, the limited capacity as absurd, and the ballot as “bullshit.” Tu Chapman described limiting numbers as “pitting survivors against survivors.” Ken Clearwater said: “It’s been set up by bureaucrats and government once again, and the survivor’s voice has been missed out.” Karl Tauiri said the government apology process has “definitely let down a lot of our community.” Malcolm Richards said the government had “stopped talking to us on redress and won’t respond to what we want to see in any apology.” Many described the apology process as re-traumatising.

I won’t be there, and I don’t know if I’ll watch the live stream. I’ll be with people who love and support me, people who are working with me to undo the harm. I can’t take my whānau to the events the Crown has hastily organised “for us”. So I’ll stay home with them.

The government’s excuse is this is what survivors asked for. They cite the second recommendation in the Royal Commission’s report: “The Prime Minister should make a national apology for historical abuse and neglect in the care of the State (both direct and indirectly) in the House of Representatives.”

As if that rules out other apologies for the many survivors who can’t or don’t want to go to parliament, who can’t or don’t want to watch the apology on TV at a venue with hundreds of others and their single support person, or can’t or don’t want to travel to any of the three cities.

To reiterate, we’re talking about an estimated 256,000 people harmed from 1950 to 2019. No one can know who has been harmed, who is being harmed, all the whānau and families affected. I can’t imagine any who aren’t. So many of us, everywhere. This apology should be about us, what we choose, when and where we choose it, and with whatever support we choose. We should all be invited to receive an apology. Every single household, every whānau and family, every individual.

This should be a relentlessly humiliating exercise for the Crown and everyone who had the power to stop it and didn’t. Because it is horrific.

I know some readers will be asking if the state could ever satisfy all of us. I know some will be thinking that at least they’re doing something.

If I were designing an apology process, I would livestream every living prime minister, past and present, every minister, every state official over the last 70 years explaining what they did to enable this. How they presided over the harming of so many children. Why they didn’t stop it. What they are doing now to make sure it stops and never happens again.

I don’t want an apology, I want a reckoning. I want admissions and I want system change.

The Royal Commission found no reason to expect that anything has changed. It’s not the first or most recent report to say that. We can’t continue to do what we’re doing and claim we don’t know what’s happening in our name.

How can we accept an apology while they’re sending children to bootcamps?

I know some families aren’t safe for children, and it is no excuse for what the state does. We have plenty of examples of how we can actually protect children without enabling more abuse. There are so many reports about the system changes we need and the programmes that work for children and whānau. We must rethink our systems, putting children truly at the centre.

More than anything, that’s what I want. Not an apology while the state is rolling back the tiny progress that has been made and uses children to score political points. Not a symbolic apology while all the other recommendations of the Royal Commission, the ones requiring real action, are unmet.

For the thousands of people who were harmed, for our children, for our future.

It is the least we can do.

 

Kim Mcbreen is Waitaha, Kāti Māmoe, Ngāi Tahu and Pākehā. She is involved in several projects to end violence and support whānau, and works for the New Zealand Family Violence Clearinghouse. Kim lives with her partner and two children in a small coastal town.

See also Aaron Smale’s deep dive on section 7AA: The Crown versus Māori children.

© E-Tangata, 2024