State abuse survivors who have been jailed for five or more years for serious offending will have to go through a special process to access redress. Photo: RNZ
Legislation making it harder for state abuse survivors with a history of serious offending to access redress has passed its first reading.
The Redress System for Abuse in Care Bill sets up the legal framework for redress, following the Crown's formal apology for decades of harm.
It offers morehu (survivors) a financial payment, apology, access to care records and legal services, and counselling or other well-being services.
However, those who have been jailed for five or more years for serious violent or sexual offending will have to go through a special process.
"This is to ensure that the granting of financial redress to people who have committed serious offences do not bring the state redress system into disrepute," lead minister Erica Stanford told the House this afternoon.
"A serious offender will need to apply to go through an additional process administered by an independent decision maker who will determine whether they receive financial redress.
"This is modelled on very similar frameworks that apply to redress systems in Australia and Scotland. Other forms of redress, such as an apology and well-being supports will still be available."
Stanford said the government expected this special process would apply to about 100 claims each year.
"This is in no way intended to diminish the abuse that those survivors suffered but as we stated in the formal apology, the harm that was inflicted on people in state care has caused lifelong harm and changed the course of people's lives.
"However, this government thinks it's really important to maintain public confidence in the scheme that redress payments to serious offenders is considered through a separate and independent process."
ACT MP Laura McClure said it was not fair for those victimised by state abuse survivors to know their abuser could get financial compensation.
"Even if you were sodomized, does that give you the right to go and do that to another person? 100 percent it doesn't. Does that give you the right to go on and commit another violent crime? 100 percent it doesn't."
New Zealand First Minister Casey Costello said the special process did not mean survivors convicted of serious crimes would miss out.
"It is a reality that when you are the victim of that serious violent and sexual offending that you will feel aggrieved if the state pays significant financial redress to your offender.
"That is not saying in this legislation that there will not be redress. It is saying there is a process to be applied."
Labour, Greens and Te Pāti Māori put up fierce opposition
The redress bill is progressing to Select Committee with support from government parties, while opposition parties have slammed the bill as cruel.
Labour MP Willow-Jean Prime described the legislation as "morally bereft", "cynical" and "a dog whistle" to the government's base.
"Survivors have every right to feel disappointed and ignored by this government. The much-trumpeted redress announcement in May this year ignored every recommendation the Royal Commission made about a redress system.
"It totally ignored what survivors wanted and expected. Instead, we have a cynical, poorly constructed bill, inaccurately named the redress system, that does little but enable the government to once again avoid responsibility for the wrongs the state committed against children, young people and vulnerable adults."
Green Party MP Hūhana Lyndon said the bill betrayed the intent and the mana of the Royal Commission of Inquiry's into Abuse in Care's recommendations.
Lyndon raised the testimony of Toni Jarvis, who told the Royal Commission crime was a part of his story, having been abused in state care and later incarcerated.
"These people who suffered in state care ended up in prison because of what they suffered, Lyndon said.
"Instead of justice, we now see the division of survivors; deciding the people who can access redress and those who are too undeserving, and that's really heavy on the heart when you think about the generational impact of abuse in state care on our whānau, on our whaikaha, on our takatāpui, on te iwi Māori, Pasifika, those in our community who remain harmed at this time."
Te Pāti Māori MP Tākuta Ferris said the bill betrayed survivors.
"The system broke them long before any laws were broken. Many of those convictions were born out of the trauma inflicted by the very institutions this bill now seeks to protect.
"To deny redress on their basis is to deny responsibility for the harm the Crown and the church caused in the first place."
The Responding to Abuse in Care Legislation Amendment Bill - introducing changes to improve the care system - passing its third reading this afternoon
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