Introduction:
I oppose the Redress System for Abuse in State Care Bill in its current form. While the intention to provide redress for survivors is acknowledged, the Bill fails to uphold natural justice, Treaty justice, fairness, accountability, and meaningful restoration.
It risks becoming a mechanism that protects the Crown and minimises its responsibility rather than centring the wellbeing, dignity, and rights of survivors.
Starecare survivors at parliament 15/11/2025
This submission outlines critical flaws in the Bill, why they are unacceptable, and what changes are required to ensure a just, survivor-led, and Te Tiriti–honouring redress system.
Summary of Key Concerns:
1. The Bill prioritises Crown protection over survivor justice by placing ultimate control of the process with the State—the very system that caused the harm.
2. The process fails to meet Te Tiriti o Waitangi obligations, particularly tino rangatiratanga, partnership, and active protection.
3. It creates a rigid, one-size-fits-all redress pathway that does not reflect the diversity of trauma or individual experiences.
4. It does not provide true accountability, continuing a pattern of State avoidance by refusing meaningful admissions of responsibility.
5. It restricts access to legal justice by encouraging survivors to waive the right to civil litigation.
6. The financial redress model is inadequate, paternalistic, and retraumatising.
7. There is no independent, survivor-led governance to ensure the process is trustworthy.
Greens MP Tamantha Paul speaks to state care survivors in Wellington
The Bill Entrenches Crown Control Over Redress:
The State was the perpetrator of harm. Allowing the Crown to design, lead, and control the redress system is a fundamental conflict of interest.
Survivors cannot trust a system controlled by the institution responsible for decades of abuse, cover-ups, and denial.
The Crown benefits when compensation is minimised and accountability avoided.
An independent statutory entity, led by survivors and tangata whenua, is essential to ensure fairness and credibility.
Failure to Uphold Te Tiriti o Waitangi:
The Bill fails to meet Article 2 obligations to uphold tino rangatiratanga of Māori survivors and whānau. It treats Te Tiriti as symbolic rather than binding.
No guarantee of Māori governance, co-design, or decision-making authority.
Does not reflect a kaupapa Māori approach to healing, accountability, or justice.
Fails to recognise the disproportionate harm endured by Māori—over 60% of those abused in State care.
Continues colonising patterns by forcing Māori into a Crown-centred process.
A genuine Te Tiriti-informed system must be Māori-led, embedded in tikanga, with power shared—not tokenistic consultation.
A One-Size-Fits-All Redress Pathway Is Harmful:
Survivors have diverse cultural, p⁹sychological, spiritual, and relational needs. This Bill forces all survivors into the same pathway regardless of what they actually require.
Trauma is not linear. Healing is not uniform.
Survivors need options—restorative hui, therapeutic support, financial compensation, public acknowledgements, memorialisation, legal recourse.
The proposed system is rigid, limited, and Crown-designed for Crown convenience.
No Real Accountability or Responsibility:
The Bill allows the Crown to issue generic, non‑specific apologies rather than full transparency, responsibility, and systemic reform.
Apologies without full disclosure of facts, full acceptance of responsibility, and full commitment to reform are empty.
Survivors have repeatedly stated that meaningful accountability—naming the institutions, individuals, policies, and practices responsible—is essential for healing.
Without a legislative requirement for detailed admissions of wrongdoing, the Crown can continue minimising its role and sanitising the truth.
The Crown must acknowledge who did what, to whom, when, how, and why, and how its systems enabled widespread abuse.
True accountability requires the Crown to demonstrate how each agency will change its practices to ensure abuse never happens again.
Restricting Legal Rights Is Coercive:
The Bill is structured to pressure survivors into waiving their rights to civil action.
Survivors should never be forced to choose between compensation and justice.
The Crown benefits financially from survivors giving up the right to sue.This reproduces power imbalances rather than correcting them.
Financial Redress Is Inadequate and Paternalistic:
The Bill proposes financial redress that is capped, limited, and does not reflect lifetime impacts, including intergenerational harm.
Survivors experience lifelong trauma, health issues, lost income, educational disadvantage, addiction, incarceration, and shortened life expectancy.
Financial payments must reflect actual harm, not what the Crown is comfortable paying.
Survivors should not be retraumatised by procedural hurdles, assessments, or adversarial questioning.
NZCast Waikato with Judge Coral Shaw: former chair: Royal Commission
Lack of Independent Survivor-Led Governance:
A trustworthy system must be built and overseen by survivors—not Crown officials or departments.
Survivors have expressed clear mistrust in Crown-created processes.
The Bill contains no binding requirement for survivor governance, representation, or veto power.
Without this, the system will replicate the failures of historic claims processes.
To honour survivors, uphold Te Tiriti, and ensure justice, the following principles must be embedded:
Survivor-Led Governance Independent statutory authority not controlled by the Crown.
Survivor-majority governance board.
Tangata whenua decision-making and power-sharing.
Te Tiriti-Centred Framework:
Māori-led pathways for Māori.
Tikanga-based restorative processes.
Recognition of whakapapa harm, wairua harm, intergenerational trauma.
Full Range of Redress Options:
Financial redress that reflects real harm.Restorative and relational pathways.
Therapeutic and cultural support.Transparent access to all records.
No waiving of legal rights.
True Accountability:
Public admission of wrongdoing by every agency involved.
Systemic reform embedded in legislation.Ongoing monitoring and reporting.
Trauma-Informed, Culturally Grounded Practice:
Processes designed to protect survivor wellbeing.
No retraumatising assessments.
Whānau-inclusive options.
Conclusion:
The Redress System for Abuse in State Care Bill, as written, fails the fundamental test of justice.
It protects the Crown more than the people it harmed.
It is not survivor-led, not Te Tiriti-centred, and not adequate to address the scale of abuse and trauma endured.
State care survivor led health camps
I strongly urge Parliament to pause this Bill, return to survivors and tangata whenua for genuine co-design, and build a system that ensures truth, accountability, healing, and justice.
A redress system must restore mana—not diminish it.
He pā harakeke, he rito tangata—our people must come first.
