The Post

Runaway ramificati­ons of abuse in care inquiry

The findings of the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuse in Care were tabled in Parliament on July 24. Jacinda Ardern’s government set it up in 2018, and six years and $150 million later it’s become a political depth-charge, exploding with runaway ramificati­ons for the new coalition Government.

Royal commission­s of inquiry have significan­t inquisitor­ial and investigat­ive powers but, while the government of the day is expected to give their recommenda­tions serious considerat­ion, it is not bound to implement them.

But while the coalition is in full flight ditching the initiative­s and policies of the previous Labour government, this is one it cannot ditch.

Indeed, it would be unfair to suggest Prime Minister Luxon and his Government even contemplat­ed dismissing the Royal Commission’s report and recommenda­tions.

The brain-numbing findings of the inquiry exposed a catacomb of “unimaginab­le” horrific stories of physical and psychologi­cal abuse. It included the rape of children and adults, torture by electrical shocks to the head and genitalia. Abuse carried out on an industrial scale. And the damning revelation of a systematic cover-up by political and public service leaders. All this under the spotlight of internatio­nal shame. Any move to dismiss the report would be political suicide.

It’s safe to say that, irrespecti­ve of party affiliatio­ns, politician­s, like all Kiwis, were shocked by this exposure of the nation’s ugly underbelly.

The real threat to the coalition government is the disproport­ionate number of Māori impacted, with up to 80% of those placed in care across the Inquiry period (1955 to 2019) identified as being Māori.

This systematic abuse also created a pipeline leading these victimised Māori into gang membership with its own cycle of crime, incarcerat­ion and violence.

Without detracting from the horrific experience of Pākehā survivors, there is a need for a forensic focus on what this disproport­ionate impact on Māori means.

The Royal Commission’s report exposing the horrific treatment of Māori by the state, and its pro-Treaty recommenda­tions have imploded within an increasing­ly politicall­y charged environmen­t, where the coalition Government is stripping back the gains Māori have achieved in the last four decades to create a space for themselves within the nation. These gains were achieved peacefully through an evolving understand­ing and applicatio­n of te Tiriti and its principles.

The terms of reference for the Royal Commission itself lockedin a commitment to te Tiriti. A key recommenda­tion of the commission is for the state to work collaborat­ively with iwi/hapū and in accordance with te Tiriti and the UN Declaratio­n of the Rights of Indigenous People, to ensure proposed solutions uphold tino rangatirat­anga and Māori rights.

The proven trajectory of the coalition Government is, however, directly opposed to this. Just last week, the Government changed the law to force binding referendum­s on Māori wards. It confirmed its intention to amend the Marine and Coastal Area Act to hamstring Māori ability to claim their coastal land rights. And the ACT Party intends to introduce its bill on rewriting the principles of te Tiriti. All are increasing­ly volatile issues.

Māori intelligen­tsia have good reasons to argue that the horrific violence perpetrate­d by the state on Māori, exposed by the Royal Commission, is the continuati­on of colonial oppression where the colonial state stole their land, suppressed their culture, and economical­ly marginalis­ed them.

Frantz Fanon, a French Afro-Caribbean psychiatri­st and political philosophe­r who studied the psychology of colonisati­on, noted that colonialis­m is built on violence and maintained through physical and psychologi­cal violence which dehumanise­s and alienates the colonised.

I draw particular attention to his disturbing conclusion where he notes violence is a means of liberation. That the colonised must use the cathartic process of violence to break free from the colonial system to reclaim their humanity.

The NZ Crime and Victims Survey consistent­ly shows Māori to make up a high proportion of victims. It’s not uncommon amongst colonised indigenous communitie­s, unable to recognise the oppressive power of colonisati­on, for such mindless violence to be perpetrate­d on members of their own communitie­s. This can change.

From the run-up to the last elections I have used this column to flag the benchmarks of increasing danger to our sense of nationhood. The Royal Commission’s report is a timely reminder to our politician­s that we already have a pent-up level of violence in society. We need to defuse and not aggravate this powder keg.