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Comment: Christopher Luxon had the least baggage of almost anyone in senior positions in Parliament, going into his national apology for the abuse of children in state care.
He just hadn’t been there. He only came into Parliament in 2020, became National’s leader in 2021 and Prime Minister in late 2023.
The decades of evil that occurred under others’ administrations, so forcefully and creditably outlined by a formidable Royal Commission report, were nowhere near his watch.
When Luxon received the commission’s final report and recommendations he pledged a formal national apology in Parliament on yesterday’s date, November 12.
He appointed another relative cleanskin, Erica Stanford, elected to Parliament in 2017, as his lead minister for the Government’s response to the commission’s report.
That duo stood, at different times, and offered formal apologies on behalf of New Zealand, on behalf of the apparatus of the state, on behalf of past governments, past Prime Ministers and ministers, MPs, doctors, departmental mandarins, directors-general, commissioners and Solicitors-General.
Stanford went first, at the event in the Beehive Banquet Hall before hundreds of survivors and supporters and ahead of speeches by seven departmental chief executives and then four survivors. She conveyed depth and sincerity and promised all the right things, if with little detail and no tangible redress or financial compensation.
Luxon followed a couple of hours later in the debating chamber of Parliament. His speech – surely it had been composed, crafted, re-crafted, legalled, edited, smoothed, polished, re-legalled and re-edited over many weeks – was sure-footed and empathetic.
The PM spent a vital, necessary time talking directly to those high above him in the public gallery, many of them older men and women now, who were waiting on his every word.
Luxon delievered the words with evident humility and feeling and was gracious to opposition parties for their backing of the apology planning and legal changes to follow.
He said sorry. Sorry. Sorry. Sorry. Sorry. Sorry. Sorry. Sorry. Sorry. Sorry. Sorry. Sorry. Eleven times.
And his text mentioned apology or apologise eight times.
Turning to putting things right, it mentioned initial funding of $32 million for immediate redress. It committed to agreeing to implement 28 of the Royal Commission’s 138 recommendations, which is a modest early scorecard. Law changes were also modest, a potpourri of justice and state care measures, some of which the commission hadn’t sought but that were obviously low-hanging fruit ready to be picked on the day of apology.
Luxon’s speech was silent on what might happen to officials who had perpetrated either the direct abuse, or the second wave of abuse through the legal system to stymie victims’ quest for justice.
And what it never mentioned, once, were the words ‘National Party’. He was speaking on behalf of the Crown, on behalf of Christopher Luxon’s three-party coalition Government, on behalf of all governments and officials.
But he never spoke as Leader of the National Party. One of the two parties that have led every government since 1935. His words were about the state and the system and the authorities and the officials and the politicians who did not listen.
He did not associate that, directly, with National.
And National effectively was the state in the 1950s and the 1960s , the 1970s and into the 1980s (apart from two, three-year interregnums under Labour). The bulk, the worst of what befell many thousands of young children and others in state health, welfare, education, justice and children’s institutions was in that sad era.
Sir Keith Holyoake, Sir John Marshall, Sir Robert Muldoon, Jim Bolger, Dame Jenny Shipley, Sir John Key and Sir Bill English have led National governments over the era that the devastating inter-generational abuse or its controversial legal aftermath occurred.
Luxon’s advisers and speechwriters might well argue that it would have been beneath the man who was speaking for a whole nation to mention his own party. Even though that party had first heard word of what happened at the notorious Lake Alice psychiatric hospital in the 70s, and had formal Cabinet papers about the threat of Crown liability in one of its terms as long ago as the 1990s.
Perhaps the advisers are right.
But immediately after he spoke and sat to polite applause, it was the turn of the Leader of the Opposition, the Leader of the Labour Party, Chris Hipkins, to address the packed chamber and public galleries.
Hipkins has been in Parliament for a comparatively long time, since 2008. He was in Government for six of those years 2017-23, the Minister of Education for most of that period and Prime Minister for nine months.
He has been part of this government beast for a lot longer than Luxon.
Labour had in its first term, in 2018, taken the critical step of establishing the Royal Commission, which Hipkins mentioned without a hint of self-praise for his party.
But then the Ardern-Hipkins government received and had the first Royal Commission report on redress for these very abuse survivors for a year while in office – and did not do much of anything to address it.
Hipkins might have chosen to remain apolitical and bipartisan, keeping his apologies and sorries on behalf of the broader establishment, governments, state, and Crown.
His speech was good, like Luxon’s. It addressed the pain of the survivors directly, this time taking time to step through the harms done specifically to Māori, Pasifika, Pākehā, deaf, disabled, rainbow survivors, naming the sad and dark institutions of old, in sharp and practical language. It mentioned apologising eight times, the word ‘sorry’ thrice.
But in a moment of high political insight he and his advisers chose to seek, in this most sensitive moment and venue, absolution for the sins of his party, Labour.
When he decided to do a Labour-culpa, you could almost feel the frisson of guilt and acceptance from that chamber reaching out through the livestream.
With his voice breaking, Hipkins offered a red flag of sorrow.
“Successive Labour governments, ministers, ministries, and state institutions had a role to play in this neglect, abuse and trauma, including torture.
“They allowed the systems they governed to continue to place children, young people and vulnerable adults in care unnecessarily, and then to hurt them when they were there.
“When survivors tried to raise the alarm, representatives of Labour played a role in ignoring, punishing and shaming survivors – drowning them out so that they could never be heard.
“This was wrong.
“Today, I want to tell you, on behalf of successive Labour Governments – we also formally and unreservedly apologise for the neglect, abuse and trauma, including torture, that took place in state and faith-based care.
“We apologise for ignoring you. For punishing you for speaking out. And for leaving you unsafe and unheard.
“Today, I want to confirm that we hear you. We hear all of you. We are sorry we took so long, but we finally hear you.”
He apologised for his Government’s failure to act on redress. “I am also sorry that the last Labour Government did not act more quickly to put in place an independent redress system.
“We, the Government and representatives of the Crown owe a huge debt to you.
“Redress has taken far, far too long, to the point where many have already died, or fear they might do so before getting any compensation.”
It was remarkable in its directness, in its decision to step outside the cloak of Labour tribalism, of any residual sanctimony of having more claim to justice or kindness than others.
Easier to do, probably, in Opposition than when sitting across on the Treasury benches.
When Hipkins finished, many in the public gallery stood in acceptance, if not appreciation.
It was not a contest. Both major party leaders had carried out the task history had delivered them, well.
Luxon, heartfelt and promising largely unspecified change, kept within the historical political guardrails. Hipkins, by recognising his own party’s guilt, might have given the speech of his career.