Submission: Opposing the Redress System for Abuse in Care Bill

(Government Bill 209—1, Erica Stanford)

From: Ukes Baha | 26 November 2025

Submitted in response to the Committee’s call for submissions on the Bill.

1. Introduction

I oppose the Redress System for Abuse in Care Bill in full.

The Bill rewrites the fundamental purpose of redress. Instead of repairing Crown-caused harm, it redefines redress as a mechanism to limit Crown liability, create classes of “deserving” and “undeserving” victims, and legally sterilise State apologies.

The Royal Commission exposed decades of systemic abuse, neglect, violence, and institutional failure in State care. Survivors asked for a system centred on truth, dignity, accountability, and healing. This Bill delivers the opposite: a restrictive, punitive, image-management system that protects the Crown at the expense of survivors.

2. Executive Summary

The Bill should be rejected because it:

Introduces discriminatory barriers that deny financial redress to survivors based on their later life outcomes.
Punishes survivors for the impacts of the abuse they suffered while in State care.
Establishes a vague, subjective “disrepute” test that prioritises political optics over justice.
Grants legal protections for State agencies by making apologies inadmissible in civil proceedings.
Creates new strict-liability offences targeting vulnerable survivors.
Imposes invasive criminal scrutiny and coercive information demands not required in any other redress or victim-compensation system.
Provides no appeal rights or fair review pathways.
Contradicts the intent, spirit, and recommendations of the Royal Commission of Inquiry.
Undermines Te Tiriti o Waitangi by disproportionately excluding and disadvantaging Māori survivors.
Reduces redress from a justice process to an administrative filter.

The Bill does not meet basic standards of natural justice, survivor-centred practice, or international human rights obligations.

3. The Bill Creates a Discriminatory Two-Tier System of Survivors

Clause 9 introduces a presumption against financial redress for any survivor convicted of certain serious offences and sentenced to five years or more.

Two individuals who suffered identical State abuse are treated entirely differently based on later life circumstances.

This is discriminatory for three reasons:

Redress is about the harm done to the survivor, not the harm the survivor may later cause.
Many survivors who later offend do so because of trauma, neglect, and systemic harm experienced in State care. The Bill punishes them for consequences rooted in that very abuse.
The presumption enshrines a moral hierarchy of victims, contradicting the survivor-centred principle established by the Royal Commission.

Redress must be about State accountability. The Bill makes it about survivor worthiness.

4. The “Disrepute Test” Is Undefined, Subjective, and Politicised

Clause 19 requires the redress officer to decide whether granting financial redress to a survivor “would not bring the redress scheme into disrepute”.

This test is unworkable because:

It has no legal definition or objective standard.
It invites political influence, public pressure, and media narratives into what should be a justice process.
It allows the Crown to deny redress based on reputational concerns, not factual evidence of abuse.
It prioritises the image of the State over the rights of survivors.

A redress system centred on “disrepute” cannot ever be survivor-centred.

5. The Bill Reverses the Moral Logic of Redress

Clause 4 positions redress as “an alternative to litigation”.

But the Bill constructs a process more burdensome than litigation:

mandatory criminal record checks
mandated declarations
invasive scrutiny by Corrections
access to sentencing notes and Parole Board decisions
negative inferences if survivors refuse consent
multi-step escalation process
no guaranteed financial redress even where abuse is proven
no right of appeal

This is not redress. It is a gatekeeping mechanism designed to reduce the number of people who qualify.

It reverses the moral logic: survivors must now justify their right to redress, instead of the Crown justifying why it failed them.

6. The Bill Criminalises Survivors for Administrative Errors

Clauses 23 and 24 impose strict-liability offences with fines up to $5,000 for:

failing to declare a qualifying conviction
failing to disclose a subsequent conviction

Strict liability means that intent does not matter.

Many survivors:

have literacy challenges
have complex trauma histories
have impaired memory of decades-old sentences
are not legally represented
struggle with administrative processes due to the very harm the State inflicted

Punishing them for errors replicates the very institutional harm the redress system is supposed to repair.

This contradicts basic principles of trauma-informed and survivor-centred policy design.

7. The Bill Strips Apologies of Accountability and Meaning

Clause 25 renders apologies:

not relevant to liability
inadmissible in civil proceedings
incapable of implying fault

This transforms apologies into legally hollow gestures.

A redress system depends on:

truth
acknowledgement
accountability
transparency

By legally sterilising apologies, the Bill:

protects the Crown
removes survivors’ ability to rely on admissions
weakens access to justice
disconnects apologies from responsibility

Apologies without accountability are not redress; they are public-relations tools.

8. The Bill Contradicts the Royal Commission’s Recommendations

The Royal Commission called for:

equitable access to redress for all survivors
a system based on dignity, fairness, and responsibility
simplicity, clarity, and low barriers to access
an independent body free from Crown interference
trauma-informed design
support for the most marginalised and harmed

This Bill delivers the opposite:

high barriers
punitive design
Crown protections
subjective discretion
no right of appeal
exclusion of the most vulnerable survivors
legal protections for State agencies

The Bill selectively implements the Commission’s work in a way that reduces, not enhances, accountability.

9. The Bill Disproportionately Harms Māori Survivors

Māori were disproportionately subjected to State care, institutionalisation, violence, and systemic abuse.

By excluding those with qualifying convictions, the Bill disproportionately excludes Māori, who:

were overrepresented in State care
were overrepresented in youth institutions
are overrepresented in the criminal justice system due to generational harm caused by State policies
were specifically named by the Royal Commission as a group requiring strengthened redress access

A presumption against financial redress for those most harmed by the Crown is a clear breach of Te Tiriti o Waitangi obligations, particularly:

active protection
equity
partnership

It embeds structural discrimination and compounds historical injustice.

10. The Bill Offers No Appeal Rights or Procedural Safeguards

Survivors denied redress:

cannot appeal
cannot request independent review
cannot access an ombudsman decision
can only reapply after three years

This is inconsistent with any modern administrative justice framework.

Every other rights-based system includes appeal mechanisms.

This Bill deliberately excludes them.

11. The Bill Privileges Administrative Convenience Over Moral, Legal, and Human Rights Obligations

The Bill focuses on:

limiting financial liability
managing Crown reputation
controlling survivor access
preventing litigation risks
protecting agencies from consequences

It does not focus on:

survivor well-being
truth
responsibility
Te Tiriti obligations
trauma-informed practice
international human rights norms

The result is a redress system that resembles risk-management architecture, not a justice process.

12. Recommendations

I recommend that the Committee:

Reject the Bill in full.
The Bill is structurally flawed and cannot be meaningfully amended to become survivor-centred.
Replace it with legislation aligned with the Royal Commission, including:
• equal access to redress for all survivors
• no exclusion based on later offending
• meaningful, accountable apologies
• fair information access rules
• no strict-liability offences
• independent oversight and appeal rights
• genuine trauma-informed process
• Te Tiriti-consistent design
• Crown accountability provisions
Centre survivor voices, including those who were criminalised, institutionalised, or marginalised as a direct result of Crown failings.
Remove any clauses that protect the Crown from liability, as these contradict the purpose of redress.

13. Conclusion

This Bill is not a redress system.
It is a Crown-protection system.

It excludes those who suffered most, criminalises administrative errors, and legally neuters apologies. It departs entirely from the Royal Commission’s moral, legal, and human recommendations. It embeds discrimination and undermines Te Tiriti obligations.

Survivors deserve justice, not administrative filters.
They deserve accountability, not reputational management.
They deserve a redress system centred on truth and restoration, not one centred on Crown convenience.

I therefore urge the Committee to reject the Bill in full.

Respectfully submitted,
Ukes Baha
Public Health Advocate | Counsellor | Policy Analyst
ukesbaha.com