‘A broken promise’: Abuse in care survivors left reeling after Government announcement

The accusation came on a day which Keith Wiffen said should have been one of celebration. Instead, for many survivors, it was another day of sorrow.

Wiffen, who was abused as a child at the Epuni Boys Home, has been instrumental in revealing the scale of abuse in care. He was also on the Government’s Survivor Design Team, but said it was clear the Government had not taken survivors’ advice.

“There was an opportunity to do something great and good and they have failed miserably… Today should have been a day of celebration and it’s turned out to be a monumental disappointment.”

He said the redress scheme needs to be completely independent of the Government.

On Friday, Wiffen was one of many survivors who contacted Stuff to voice their deep disappointment after the Government announced it was not establishing an Independent entity to manage compensation and redress for survivors.

The announcement, made by Abuse in Care Response Minister Erica Stanford, confirmed $774 million was being budgeted to provide redress and support to survivors of abuse in state care.

But it missed two key points: Any further update on how survivors of faith-based care would receive redress, and how the Government would establish an independent redress system.

During the Government official apology to survivors of abuse in care in November, Luxon told those survivors: “I want to assure you it is our intention to have a new single redress system operating next year.”

But on Friday, Stanford said: “The Government was faced with a difficult choice: do we spend more time and money on setting up a new scheme, or do we provide more to survivors now through the current redress process?”

She said setting up an Independent system would have been costly and could have further delayed redress for survivors. Friday’s announcement would have caused “mixed emotions”, she acknowledged, but she said believed she’d made the best choice considering the time frames and costs for other options.

The new funding promised to speed up the process for assessing claims, increase the average payout, and provide top ups of 50% to survivors who have already settled with the Government.

With the new funding coming in Budget 2025, she said the average payout for survivors would increase from $19,180 to $30,000.

But Wiffen said that was “topping up an existing rotten process”.

He said the survivors should be at the centre of any redress scheme, but having Government entities in charge was further traumatising. For victims of faith-based abuse, he said they were being sent back to the abuser with “a begging bowl”.

Murray Heasley, of the Network of Survivors of Faith Based Abuse and their Supporters, called the announcement “mind-numbingly depressing”.

“It’s no surprise that faith-based has been entirely ghosted from any consideration,” he said.

Stanford said the Government would have an update later this year about redress for faith-based survivors, who did not feature in Friday’s announcement.

But Heasley said many faith-based survivors felt ignored.

“Faith-based survivors feel that they have not been listened to at all,” he said.

“There doesn’t appear to be any prospect of the independent redress process we suggested being established, and instead, they are thrown back on the tender mercies of the very institutions that abused them in the first instance.

“Where is the justice? Where is the transparency.”

Ihorangi Reweti-Peters, a young survivor of abuse while in the care of Oranga Tamariki, said he tuned into Stanford’s announcement but left feeling “very, very sad. And very, very angry.”

“The prime minister, in his apology speech to survivors, said there would be one new single redress system operating this year. Obviously, that is another broken promise by this Government,” he said.

He said that system was needed both to ensure independent and transparency, but also because many survivors had faced abuse across multiple Government facilities – such as in schools and in the health system. He said it was cruel to make them deal with each department individually.

Luxon defended not establishing an independent redress entity.

“It takes time to put a new redress system in place. It costs a lot of money, and you’ve got to be able to guarantee that you can get a better result than what you’re doing right now,” he said.

Dilworth survivor Neil Harding said it was always going to be difficult for one Government to pick up the tab for abuse that had occurred since the 1950s.

But he said turning away from a survivor led model was re-traumatising.

Harding suggested one way around this would be to provide top-ups to survivors as part of each budget.

“It’s bad enough that you don’t provide a collaborative process but when you pretend it is…. then don’t listen, it’s another example of survivors not being heard.”

He said some survivors were battling mental health and addiction issues and the longer it is left unaddressed, the worse it gets.

“Who are these people, what are their qualifications to turn around and say they know more than survivors and what right do they have to do that?”

The Government is currently facing a legal challenge at the High Court, with Lake Alice torture survivor Malcolm Richards alleging its decision not to set up an independent system – like a tribunal – is a breach of international law.

Stanford said this new funding in Budget 2025 would be used to increase redress for the survivors who experienced the most egregious abuse and boost capacity to administer the redress.

She said the Government would be able to reduce wait times, up from 1350 claims to 2150 claims per year from 2027. That system would also be able to better support survivors, and connect them with more support services, she said.