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