Sitting date: 21 Oct 2025

REDRESS SYSTEM FOR ABUSE IN CARE BILL

First Reading

Hon ERICA STANFORD (Lead Coordination Minister for the Government's Response to the Royal Commission's Report into Historical Abuse in State Care and in the Care of Faith-based Institutions): I present a legislative statement on the Redress System for Abuse in Care Bill.

SPEAKER: That legislative statement is published under the authority of the House and can be found on the Parliament website.

Hon ERICA STANFORD: I move, That the Redress System for Abuse in Care Bill be now read a first time. I nominate the Social Services and Community committee to consider the bill. At the appropriate time, I intend to move that the bill be reported to the House by 23 March 2026.

The Government is committed to recognising and delivering a comprehensive response to the royal commission for survivors of abuse in care, and this bill builds on the significant amount of work that has been delivered in the 15 months since the release of the commission's final report. In May, the Government announced a significant investment of $533 million to improve the current State redress system as quickly as possible for survivors of abuse in care, investing in changes that have a direct impact for them. Key investments include increasing the average redress payments for new claimants from $19,180 to $30,000; providing top-up payments of 50 percent to survivors who have already settled claims to ensure consistency with increased payments—

Hon Casey Costello: Point of order, Mr Speaker. I'm sorry to interrupt the speaker at the moment, but it is really difficult to hear when members next to me are having a constant conversation on this serious matter.

SPEAKER: Yes, I'd ask members, if you have conversations, to head out to the lobbies to hold them there. The Minister will resume her speech.

Hon ERICA STANFORD: We've introduced a common payments framework so that survivors receive the same financial redress for similar experiences of abuse regardless of where in State care that abuse occurred; and we've improved system capacity to increase claims processing over the next three years. So far, agencies have paid over $11 million in top-up payments to over 900 survivors, at an average amount of almost $12,000.

This bill provides that the purpose of the State redress scheme is to recognise a person's experience of abuse in care and offer a pathway as an alternative to litigation, to provide for redress for abuse in care. Redress includes a financial payment, an apology, access to care records and legal services, and counselling or other wellbeing services. The bill will apply to redress schemes operated by Oranga Tamariki and the ministries of Education, Health, and Social Development. It will also apply to claims arising from programmes for young people run by Te Puni Kōkiri and its predecessors, and the Department of Corrections in relation to claims of abuse in youth penal institutions. The bill will require these agencies to publish their eligibility criteria for redress. The bill does not apply to claims that currently sit with school boards, faith-based organisations, or other non-State providers.

In May, the Government also stated that its intention is to introduce a new process regarding how some very serious offenders who are survivors of abuse in care access financial redress. This is to ensure that the granting of financial redress to people who have committed serious offences does not bring the State redress system into disrepute. This new process applies to survivors seeking redress who have been convicted of serious, violent, or sexual offences and sentenced to five years or more in prison. In these circumstances, 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 wellbeing supports will still be available.

This is in no way intended to diminish the abuse that those survivors suffered. 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 this scheme, that redress payments to serious offenders are considered through a separate and independent process.

This bill is not focused on lower-level offending. Many survivors of abuse and neglect in care have had interactions with the criminal justice system. The specified offences and scope of the presumption are those that fall within Schedule 1AB of the Sentencing Act 2002. This includes 42 offences that are on the most serious end of the violent and sexual offending spectrum and that attract a maximum sentence of between seven and 20 years. Not only does a person have to be convicted of one of these crimes but they also have to have been sentenced to five years or more in prison. The process will apply to all new claims made from 9 May 2025, and we expect that it will apply to around 100 claims a year. It does not apply to claims lodged prior to this date or to top-ups of pre-existing claims.

To assist in identifying survivors who are also serious offenders, all survivors lodging a new claim will be required to declare any specified convictions when applying for redress. Survivors will also need to consent to a criminal record check in order for State agencies to verify their convictions. Criminal record checks will be done when a survivor has declared a specified conviction with the requisite sentence length. Consent underpins this process and will be required before any action is done by agencies. To uphold the integrity of the system, the bill creates new offences for failing to declare relevant convictions. These offences carry a maximum penalty of $5,000.

The bill provides a "without reasonable excuse" defence where a person has a legitimate reason for providing false or misleading information—for example, if a person with cognitive impairment is unable to recall the details of their offending. While failing to declare or disclose relevant convictions is a serious matter, the availability of a defence and the maximum penalty of a fine, and not imprisonment, reflects the unique circumstances and vulnerability of many abuse survivors.

A person who is found to be in scope of this regime will be able to apply to an independent decision maker, known as a redress officer, who may overturn the presumption against providing financial redress. Modelled on similar approaches in Australia and Scotland, the redress officer will need to be satisfied that a redress payment would not bring the redress system into disrepute. The redress officer will be a statutory officer, who will be required to be a retired judge, King's Counsel, or lawyer with at least seven years' standing. When making their determination, they will need to take into account a range of relevant factors, including the nature of the offending, the length of time since the offending took place, the age at the time of offending, any rehabilitation done, and any submissions made by the person. The survivor will be able to reapply to have the presumption overturned within three years of the decision by the redress officer. This provides an incentive for survivors to rehabilitate and an opportunity for them to obtain financial redress. Survivors will continue to have the ability to seek remedies through the courts.

Finally, the bill supports more meaningful personal apologies to be made by the State redress agencies to meet the needs and expectations of survivors. The royal commission found that most survivors do not receive apologies that they feel are genuine or personal. Survivors said that many apologies felt insincere, lacked acknowledgment of the harm they experienced, and did not accept responsibility on the part of the State. The Government is addressing these concerns through its improvements to redress offerings, with a focus on personal apologies that better reflect what survivors have asked for: recognition, accountability, and sincerity. The bill includes legislative protections that enable the State redress agencies to offer more-genuine acknowledgments, including taking direct responsibility for abuse and neglect where appropriate. A common apologies policy and supporting guidance is also being developed to support redress agencies to deliver apologies that are more personal and acknowledge the abuse, harm, and neglect encountered by survivors.

I know that the Social Services and Community Committee will give the bill careful consideration, and I commend the bill to the House.

Hon WILLOW-JEAN PRIME (Labour): Tēnā koe e te Māngai o te Whare. I want to begin this contribution by acknowledging all survivors of abuse in care. It has been over a year now since the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuse in Care's report was tabled in this House, and we will soon commemorate a year since the Crown apology last November. Survivors, their whānau, their communities, advocates, and supporters all had so much hope in the royal commission's findings and recommendations, and the promise of healing, justice, and change for the better that was signalled in that apology. And now we have this bill.

Instead of taking responsibility for the harm the State caused, this Government is promising to further punish survivors, making a mockery of the Crown apology. At the apology, the Prime Minister said, "For many of you it changed the course of your life, and for that, the Government must take responsibility." Instead, in this bill, the Government is proposing an approach that would allow the State to shirk responsibility for the harm it caused to people it was supposed to be caring for.

We know that abuse, neglect, and trauma in care is connected with criminal behaviour and imprisonment. The royal commission made this connection clear throughout its reports. Experts tell us this, survivors tell us this, but the Government refuses to listen. Like so much of their response to abuse in care, once again the Government is ignoring the royal commission's findings and recommendations. The royal commission explicitly recommended that all survivors be able to access redress, including those in prison or with a criminal record. Presumptively excluding survivors of abuse in care from accessing financial redress is discriminatory, and counter to a trauma-informed, survivor-focused redress system.

The bill itself is called the Redress System for Abuse in Care Bill. This is a misnomer. If we were actually here today to begin the process of legislating for a redress system, I would be celebrating it, but I am not. The royal commission recommended a single, independent redress scheme governed by legislation that was survivor focused, trauma informed, and accessible to all survivors. And I quote, "Properly independent, it would avoid the need for survivors to approach the organisations they distrusted, an interaction many found distressing or traumatising, and it would also eliminate the inherent conflict of interest these organisations face in investigating themselves." But what survivors got was a continuation of a deeply flawed, existing historic claims scheme, with a promise of having a single entry point and a common approach to assessing payments—a promise that has not even been kept yet. As our leader said at the time, "Putting more money into an existing redress system that so many of the survivors have already said they have no confidence in just isn't good enough." 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. The bill's specifications of what a redress scheme does refers only to recognising abuse in care, with no mention of neglect, harm, or trauma, and it's definition of abuse does not explicitly include racial or cultural abuse. This bill is morally bereft. It is cynical. It is a dog whistle to their base. It should never have made it into this House, and that is why we on this side of the House utterly oppose this bill.

HŪHANA LYNDON (Green): I rise on behalf of Te Rōpū Kākāriki to speak to this legislation. It's deeply concerning the way that this legislation has been pitched as if somehow it is fulfilling the recommendations of the royal commission of inquiry into abuse in State and faith-based care, when, actually, it betrays the intent and the mana of the inquiry's findings. Instead of justice, we now see the division of survivors, deciding the people who can access redress and those who are too undeserving. 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.

So I bring into the House the words of Toni Jarvis—Toni Jarvis, who was sent to Holdsworth School where he was sexually abused. He ended up in the Invercargill Borstal and later in Paparua Prison in Christchurch, because, you see, a lot of borstal and State-care boys were also in prison with him. "I changed a bit after I got out of prison, and I haven't been back for 40 years, but I've still got a lot of issues and problems with violence, and I've turned my life around, but crime is a part of my story. I didn't know what a relationship was. I often ran away from relationships. I didn't know how to be intimate because of the beatings and being sodomised."

These people who suffered in State care ended up in prison because of what they suffered, and yet now have legislation that is ignoring the call for creating a new, independent survivor-centred system as per the recommendations of the royal commission and, instead, uses a thing called "presumption" because the Government is worried about disrepute on its system that it has established, and that all we're doing is entrenching the existing Crown-based system that protected itself.

There are 200,000 survivors, and I bring to the House, again, the voice of another who was harmed in the system. This is Poi McIntyre. Poi McIntyre was in Kohitere and was treated so poorly that he was lucky to survive the violence and bullying suffered in Kohitere. It was the training ground, Poi shared, for jail. After Kohitere, as a 15-year-old, Poi ended up in youth prison in Invercargill. Serving his sentence, he experienced violence, physical abuse from staff, and fighting was so common you had to fight to survive. In the end, he spent 23 years in prison. Poi McIntyre would not be able to access redress through what we're proposing. Poi McIntyre, 23 years in custody, has been a victim of abuse in Kohitere and then, following on from that, moved through a system that abused further.

How can these survivors find justice in a system that has the haves and the have-nots? The Government is making the redress conditional because you're choosing those who are the deserving and you're parking the rest who have been impacted by the Crown, by faith-based institutions. And many of these survivors are Māori.

Now, our survivors, our morehu, deserve a system that centres the redress and the approach on what they have experienced, and it should be independent, as we've already heard. We need to take responsibility as the Government on what has occurred and not try to change the deck chairs and retain the power within the Crown, and acknowledge that independence is required because how do you assess, how do you critique, and how do you improve a system when it's yourself looking at yourself?

Survivors have gone through so much harm and they are seeking accountability. The system that has been established and the presumption that is coming will only serve to undermine the justice that should be served to these most vulnerable members of New Zealand communities. We do not support this legislation.

LAURA McCLURE (ACT): Thank you, Mr Speaker. Firstly, I want to acknowledge all the survivors. I have read quite a few of your stories now and it makes for some extremely sobering reading. The ACT Party supports this bill. I'm a member of the Social Services and Community Committee—a great committee—and I think this bill will be coming our way; I'm really interested to hear from those survivors and the public about their experiences.

Listening to the Opposition's comments about the point around the bill about those that have committed serious violent offences, sexual violence offences, and done more than five years—look, I unreservedly accept the fact that those that suffered that kind of abuse may have gone on to commit crimes; 100 percent agree. But it does not do the victims of those crimes any justice to know that, potentially, their abuser may now be getting financial compensation.

Hūhana Lyndon: Sorry to other victims.

Hon Willow-Jean Prime: Are they also victims?

LAURA McCLURE: Look, I hear that over there. But if you were one of those victims right now, of one of the other victims—

Hon Willow-Jean Prime: If you were sodomised?

LAURA McCLURE: Someone over there said, "Even if you were sodomised?" Even if you were sodomised, does that give you the right to go and do that to another person? A hundred percent it doesn't. Does that give you the right to go on and commit another violent crime? It 100 percent doesn't. Yes, it may set the scene, but that is completely unacceptable. [Interruption]

SPEAKER: That's enough.

LAURA McCLURE: It's a complete disrespect to those other victims out there. Yes, we need to support people, we need to make sure people are reimbursed. But those that have gone on to make more victims, they are complicit in this as well and that is not how we need to live our lives here in New Zealand. We need to take ownership of our issues and our problems.

So I support this bill. I support the redress system and the framework that we're setting up here, and there are checks and balances in place like other countries have done as well. I commend the bill to the House.

Hon CASEY COSTELLO (Minister of Customs): Mr Speaker, I rise on behalf of New Zealand First to speak in support of the Redress System for Abuse in Care Bill. I'm hoping that, through the course of this debate and through the select committee process, we will find common ground, which is to ensure that we recognise the victims of abuse in State care, and that we are developing a redress system that is trying to meet the delivery that is achievable within an effective time frame that is acceptable to the victims.

This redress system, as it's been characterised in this House, is not depriving anyone of redress. It is said, very clearly and succinctly, that this will provide a different framework under which those that have committed serious violent and sexual offences will be dealt with in a slightly different process. It is a reality that when you are the victim of that serious violent and sexual offending, 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. I think that when we drive emotive speeches that are suggesting that we are depriving anyone of their right to be heard, it is unfair to the victims and unfair to the work that has been done by a large group of people to develop a system that is trying to deliver a positive outcome.

The widespread abuse of children, youth, and vulnerable adults in State care is one of the darkest periods in New Zealand's history. Many of these New Zealanders were ignored, silenced, or forced to deal with a convoluted and uneven system, during redress, for decades. This bill is attempting to modify and clarify a redress system to address the concerns that have been reported. It is a matter of trying to deliver a consistent approach that is easily accessible and survivor focused. In that approach, we have to recognise that there are anomalies that will need to be considered in this process. The anomalies that need to be considered will be difficult to navigate, but let's be clear to the House and to those that are listening that this is not removing the right of redress. It is providing a system where those that have been convicted and have served serious sentences for violent offending and sexual offences will be put through a slightly different framework.

I just think it's really unfortunate that when we heckle in this House, when we hurl abuse at each other as we're making speeches, we are not presenting this House in a proper light. We are not presenting this issue in a respectful manner. This is the House for debating the issue, this legislation will go to select committee, it will be considered, and it will be put forward to produce a redress process that is accessible, consistent, and fair. We cannot ignore the fact that, in amongst those victims, there are those who have caused victimhood. This is not about a recounting of those that have had a terrible life and about committing petty crime; this is about recognising that those who have committed serious offences of a violent and sexual nature need to be treated slightly differently.

I hope that, through the course of this debate, we will remove some of this emotive narrative and go back to the point that we are trying to achieve. There is no perfect answer in this space. We are dealing with lives that have been damaged, and we are working through the process by which the State can redress. I commend this bill to the House.

TĀKUTA FERRIS (Te Pāti Māori—Te Tai Tonga):

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This bill is a betrayal of survivors, plain and simple. It weaponises redress and turns what should have been healing into another form of punishment. It says that some survivors deserve compassion and others do not. That is not justice; that is control. The abuser has no grounds to criminalise the survivors for their abuse—the State's abuse—and deny them redress. Those who survived the violence of State- and faith-based care know this truth. 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 that basis is to deny responsibility for the harm that the Crown and the Church caused in the first place.

The Government says it wants to prevent the redress system from being brought into disrepute, but it was the State and its agents who shamed this country; not the survivors. The disrepute lies in decades of silence, denial, and delay by consecutive Governments and their agencies. Let's be clear: this bill breaches the most basic principles of human rights and natural justice. It discriminates against a class of survivor based on their criminal record, punishing them twice for a system that failed them first. It undermines Aotearoa's obligation under international human rights law, including the convention against torture and the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, both of which require the State to provide redress to all victims of institutional abuse, without discrimination.

Survivors have spent years fighting for truth, for acknowledgment, for redress that restores dignity; this bill strips that away. It is not what survivors have fought for. It's not what was promised. It is not justice; it is re-traumatisation sanctioned by legislation. The path to healing does not come from exclusion or moral judgment; it comes from accountability, compassion, and courage. The bill lacks all three. Parliament must reject it and, instead, return to a redress model designed with and for survivors, one grounded in equity, dignity, and justice. Instead of confronting that history, this Government has chosen to re-write it, to draw a line through the names of the very people it failed first. One in three children placed in residential care by the State ends up in prison later in life. That number is 42 percent for mokopuna Māori. Māori account for 67 percent of the children in State care and 81 percent of those who were abused in those institutions. These are the people who are now being excluded by this bill.

Te Pāti Māori affirm our commitment to the survivors, ki ngā mōrehu, and to our mokopuna who are currently incarcerated by the State. We will implement the 81 of the 183 recommendations from the Whanaketia report. We will end the State care of mokopuna Māori. We will establish an independent mokopuna Māori authority, co-designed by survivors. We will empower the rights of mokopuna. The right to care for, love, and grow mokopuna Māori must be reclaimed by whānau Māori to enable genuine healing to begin.

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JOSEPH MOONEY (National—Southland): Thank you, Mr Speaker. I rise to speak on this Redress System for Abuse in Care Bill at its first reading. "The bill provides that the purpose of a redress scheme operated by a State agency is to"—firstly—"recognise a person's experience of abuse in care;". I want to take the opportunity to acknowledge all of those survivors of abuse in State and faith-based care that we are aiming to address. Although we cannot change the past, we can try and recognise it in the present and help them into the future.

The first is to "recognise a person's experience of abuse in care;". The second is to "offer an alternative to litigation to provide for redress for abuse in care, including the provision of 1 or more … financial payment …: an apology: counselling or other well-being support.". This bill does something else as well, which you've heard from some other speakers today: it also legislates that a survivor of abuse in State care, convicted of serious violent or sexual crimes and sentenced to five years or more in prison is not automatically eligible for a financial payment of the redress scheme. Instead, these survivors can apply to have their financial redress considered by an independent decision maker. That is to ensure those payments to serious offenders do not bring the scheme into public disrepute, which is important because it's important that we take the public with us on this challenging journey, to address this.

In terms of the redress officer, it establishes that it must be an independent person, appointed by the Minister, who is either a retired judge, a King's Counsel, or a lawyer with at least seven years' experience, and who also understands the criminal justice system and the findings of the royal commission into historical abuse in State and faith-based care. So these will be very experienced people. The redress officer's role will be to assess claims, where the presumption against the claimant applies, and decide if it should be overturned.

I myself have worked in criminal courts and prisons around New Zealand, and I do know that the victims often become the victimisers. I understand the challenge of the balance that we are seeking to strike here, and it is a challenging one—it is. Like I said before, it is important that we keep the public with us, to ensure this scheme is not brought into disrepute.

As speakers before me have said, this does not rule out payments, but it does mean there will be a mechanism for those convicted of serious offences, and I'll just cover a list of some of them now—there are many of them—it's sexual violation, attempted sexual violation, assault with intent to commit sexual violation, sexual connection with consent induced by threat, sexual connection with a dependent family member under 18 years, sexual connection with a child, indecent act on a child, sexual connection with a young person, indecent assault, exploitative sexual connection with a person with significant impairment, compelling indecent act with animal, murder, attempted murder, manslaughter, wounding with intent to cause grievous bodily harm, strangulation or suffocating, aggravated wounding, discharging firearm or doing a dangerous act with intent to do grievous bodily harm, using firearm against law enforcement officer, poisoning with intent to cause grievous bodily harm, kidnapping, aggravated burglary, aggravated robbery, and a number of others. So they would have to be convicted of one of those offences, and they'll have to have served more than five years or more of imprisonment. That's quite serious, and it's something that deserves some more attention. But like I said, that does not automatically preclude them; they can apply.

We'll have time to discuss this further in select committee, but the redress officer will need to take a number of things into account, including the nature of the person's offending, the term of imprisonment imposed in that person's sentencing, the length of time since the relevant offending took place, the person's age at the time of the relevant offending, any rehabilitation undertaken by the person, any information put forward by the person, any submissions made by them, and any other matter the redress officer considers relevant.

This is a carefully balanced piece of legislation, and I look forward to hearing submissions at the select committee, which I chair, from people with an interest in this matter, which is one of significant interest to New Zealand and New Zealanders. I commend the bill to the House.

Hon WILLIE JACKSON (Labour): I think that this kaupapa is such a heavy kaupapa. Despite the initial signs from the Government that they were on board, it has actually ended up being one of the biggest disappointments that we have seen from this Government. That's sad, because there's no doubt there has been a very much bipartisan type of approach to this. No one really wants the Government to fail with regards to this kaupapa, because if the Government fails, then people are affected, and there have been so many people who have been affected by this kaupapa.

It touches the hearts of people all around the country, particularly our people—particularly Māori. I myself have seen so many cases of redemption in te ao Māori, as have my whanaunga and others here in the House, Māori in particular. We have seen people turn their lives around from their torturous beginnings in life, through no fault of their own. I won't give any names today; I might later on. But I look at them and I look at how they affected our lives and I think we tangi for them. There's so much sorrow and sympathy.

So my colleague Willow-Jean Prime talked about the disappointment, because no one is born evil—no one is born evil. No one should be penalised for ever and a day. My mother, I think I've said before, spent 20 years, the longest serving Parole Board member in this country, appointed by the National Government—appointed by the Rt Hon Jim Bolger, actually, who we're going to honour on Thursday.

Jim and them, they look for answers from Māori communities. Māori communities talk about redemption. They talk about giving people an opportunity. Sadly, this bill just penalises them. I know they're not being written off, but people who have been victims of the State are still being penalised by the State, and that's the problem with this bill. They're still being penalised by the State, and there is no let-up, there is no relief for them.

I can give you stories of some of the worst people around who drive our bus at the marae, who teach Māori to our kids, who work with Māori and Pākehā in our community. Sadly, this bill is—I hope that we can get to the bottom of it when we go through the committee stage. There is so much to work through here, and people who deserve another opportunity are looking at this and thinking that this is a cynical attempt by the Government to once again avoid responsibility for the harm it's caused.

So, obviously, you're going to get an angry response from many of the victims out there. It makes a mockery of the apology from the Prime Minister, which I accept was sincere on the day. Many of us accepted that, but it does make a mockery of the Prime Minister, because he did say for many of you what happened changed the course of your life, and for that the Government must take responsibility. Well, this is not showing responsibility; this is just showing a complete misunderstanding of what survivors have gone through.

What's more, the royal commission recommended that survivors who are in prison or have a criminal record should not be unduly penalised—clear as a bell—but, sadly, this bill penalises those people. So my hope—our hope, on this side of the House, and I'll give the Government the benefit of the doubt. There may be some hope there that we can traverse this and work through this, because justice has to be given to survivors who serve their sentences and are working to heal and contribute meaningfully to their families and whānau. The whole point is that they cannot and should not be punished twice. Kia ora, Madam Speaker. Kia ora tātou.

PAULO GARCIA (National—New Lynn): Thank you, Madam Speaker. I rise in support of the Redress System for Abuse in Care Bill. The bill implements the recommendations of the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Historical Abuse in State and Faith-Based Care to, firstly, recognise the experience as a person of abuse in care, and, secondly, to offer an alternative to litigation to be able to provide that redress. I commend this bill to the House.

HELEN WHITE (Labour—Mt Albert): I first want to start with a statement about the victims of violence under the categories that have been excluded in this legislation. Absolutely nothing excuses the violence to the people who have suffered the acts that happened in that context—nothing. Having said that, it is incredibly important that nothing ever excuses violence, and in this case, we know that there was incredible violence visited upon New Zealanders who were in care, and we were responsible for that. We take responsibility for that as a Government. That's our job. As a Parliament, we take responsibility.

My concern with this law is it will do the opposite. It shirks responsibility for cruel acts, for things that harmed people so, so absolutely deeply that it set their lives absolutely askew. These were damaging acts. And we know that because we asked people to inquire, and they inquired deeply, and they came to a recommendation to us as a Parliament. They went through all the harrowing stories, and they said, "Our recommendation is we need to treat everybody who has had these things happen to them the same way because we need to recognise what happened was wrong."

So it is very important we honour the recommendation in this case, and I appreciate that there will be people in the public who need to be brought on that journey. They need to be told "We are doing this because what happened was wrong. We need to stand by not only an apology but by our sense of ownership of what happened. That is our obligation." And we need to say, "Look at this royal commission, look at what it has found. We need to tell the stories, and we need to take responsibility."

It's our job in this country to lead, not follow. We shouldn't be worried about public opinion before we've had a chance to have that conversation. If I had seen a law here that suggested that all the money that was going to be set to the victim of some terrible abuse was going to be given to the victim of the victim, well then you might have an argument. We might be able to discuss that in a different way. But that's not what's being proposed here.

What's being proposed here—and this is particularly for Minister Costello, who seems to be saying something quite different—is a presumption, a presumption that people in this situation have no right to redress. These acts happen to them, too. What we are doing is we are dehumanising a group of people, and we are making a problem that is gnarly, that is difficult, that is grey, that is messy—we are making it something that is far too simple because we know and the public know that, actually, the people who have this kind of abuse happen to them, the consequences are so damn real. They end up committing violent crimes. They fill our prisons. But we cannot—we cannot—deal with this until we are prepared to take full responsibility. And that means we have to stand by our principles and take the public with us. Not worry that they will misunderstand because this is the only people who are helped by this piece of legislation. The only people are the State that saves a bit of money—a sad amount of money. And, yes, that's true. They save about $12,500 if the person stands by the presumption, and that is inappropriate.

So I ask this court, I ask this Parliament to think twice about this legislation because it is not about standing up for victims, this piece of legislation—it's not about that. It's not even close to it. And we need to take on board our apology.

Dr VANESSA WEENINK (National—Banks Peninsula): Thank you, Madam Speaker. It is an honour to rise and speak in this first reading of the Redress System for Abuse in Care Bill.

It has been quite annoying, actually, to sit over here on this side and listen to some of the claims that have been coming from across the House, because I think that there will be abuse survivors who are listening at home and some of them may actually be upset to hear the claims from the other side—which are untrue—that this is going to mean that some people aren't going to be able to get access to redress. Actually, this doesn't apply to most people. Only 5 to 6 percent of claimants may even fall into this category, and most of them have not gone on to cause other victims in the system.

I think that the claim that this is somehow discriminatory is terrible. This is a very balanced bill that means that where there are some very real sensitivities, then we are looking at a different way of approaching those people. They're still going to be addressed to—it's still going to be through an independent process. They will still have the right to seek potential redress and so they still have that available. It is absolutely irresponsible for people across the House to imply that people will not have that, and, actually, it makes me deeply angry when I know that there are people who will, potentially, clip their speeches—

Tākuta Ferris: Just let the Crown own up to its faults.

Dr VANESSA WEENINK: —and think that they can just show this and say—there are some people who only get their news based on what some of these clowns say. So I'm really concerned about—

Tākuta Ferris: Some of these "clowns"?

Dr VANESSA WEENINK: I apologise, Madam Speaker. It was unnecessary for me to say that. But it is actually unfair, and I commend the bill to the House.

A party vote was called for on the question, That the Redress System for Abuse in Care Bill be now read a first time.

Aye 68

New Zealand National 49; ACT New Zealand 11; New Zealand First 8.

Noes 53

New Zealand Labour 34; Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand 15; Te Pāti Māori 6.

Motion agreed to.

Bill read a first time.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Maureen Pugh): The question is, That the Redress System for Abuse in Care Bill be considered by the Social Services and Community Committee.

Motion agreed to.

Bill referred to the Social Services and Community Committee.

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