New Zealand delivers historic apology to victims abused in state care

Prime minister says government must take responsibility after inquiry found at least 200,000 people were abused

New Zealand prime minister Christopher Luxon on Tuesday made a "formal and unreserved" apology in parliament for decades of abuse and torture of thousands of children and vulnerable adults in the state's care.

An independent inquiry in July found that the country’s state agencies and churches failed to prevent, stop or admit the "unimaginable" abuse of at least 200,000 people, many of them Maori, between the 1950s and 2019.

"It was horrific. It was heartbreaking. It was wrong. And it should never have happened," Mr Luxon addressed the parliament in Wellington and a public gallery packed with about 200 survivors.

"Today I am apologising on behalf of the government to everyone who suffered abuse, harm and neglect while in care," he said as he apologised to all the survivors on behalf of the country's previous governments as well.

Mr Luxon said the vulnerable people "should have been safe and treated with respect, dignity and compassion" in foster and church care along with state-run institutions such as hospitals and residential schools. "But instead, you were subjected to horrific abuse and neglect and in some cases torture," he added.

The findings by the Royal Commission – the highest level of inquiry that can be undertaken in New Zealand – capped a six-year investigation that followed two decades of similar probes around the world amid a public outcry for nations to reckon with authorities’ transgressions against children placed in care.

The inquiry found the results to be a “national disgrace".

Of 650,000 children and vulnerable adults in state, foster, and church care between 1950 and 2019, nearly a third endured abuse, while many more were exploited or neglected. The inquiry detailed a litany of abuses, including rape, sterilisation and use of electric shocks, which peaked in the 1970s.

Children were removed arbitrarily and unfairly from their families and the majority of New Zealand’s criminal gang members and prisoners are believed to have spent time in care, the injury found.

The report singled out churches, particularly the Catholic Church, stating that as many as 42 per cent of those in faith-based care by all denominations were abused.

The Catholic Church said in a 2020 briefing to the commission that accusations had been made against 14 per cent of its New Zealand clergy during the time covered by the inquiry.

"For many of you it changed the course of your life, and for that, the government must take responsibility," Mr Luxon said on Tuesday.

“These gross violations occurred at the same time as Aotearoa New Zealand was promoting itself, internationally and domestically, as a bastion of human rights and as a safe, fair country in which to grow up as a child in a loving family,” the inquiry heads wrote, using the country’s Maori and English names.

“If this injustice is not addressed, it will remain as a stain on our national character forever,” they wrote.

Mr Luxon said his government had completed or started work on 28 recommendations from the inquiry and will provide its full response early next year.

He said a National Remembrance Day would take place on 12 November next year and work will begin to remove memorials like street names, public amenities, and other public honours of proven perpetrators.

Instead, the country would honour the victims, many of whom were buried in unmarked graves at psychiatric and other sites that were places of care in New Zealand.

Additional reporting by agencies