July 27, 2024 • 10 mins
This week on the Sunday Panel, NZ Herald Senior Writer Simon Wilson and Capital Director Ben Thomas joined in on a discussion about the following issues of the day - and more!
A Royal Commission of Inquiry has found about 200,000 people suffered in state and faith based institutions from 1950 to 2019. There's growing calls for compensation for victims - is this the way to go? Does the Government need time to craft the perfect response?
The Green Party has decided to wait another month to decide what to do with Darleen Tana, with a meeting set for September 1. Do they need to act quicker?
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:06):
You're listening to the Sunday Session podcast with Francesca Rudkin
from News Talk SEDB.
Speaker 2 (00:13):
It is time for the Sunday Session Panel. And joining
me this morning, I have got New Zealand Herald senior
writer Simon Wilson. Good morning, Simon.
Speaker 3 (00:19):
Hi, Francisca and Director.
Speaker 2 (00:21):
Of Capital and political commentator Ben Thomas. How are you doing, Ben?
Speaker 4 (00:25):
Great?
Speaker 2 (00:26):
Good to have you both with me. Can we just
start with the abuse and care report that came out
throughout the week and compensation. I think everybody was horrified
and very moved by what we've been learning from the report,
which of course took six years to come forward. And
(00:47):
you know, I was at first a bit disappointed that
we were going to have to wait until November for
a formal apology, But then as the magnitude of the
abuse and the people involved, and the cost of the
abuse and everything you know about this report, the magnitude
of it is just so immense. It's going to take
a while. The really hard job now is to work
out how we are going to commensate and look out
(01:08):
for these people.
Speaker 4 (01:09):
Simon.
Speaker 3 (01:11):
I think you're absolutely right, November is not too early,
not too late for an apology. The apology needs to
be something of substance, and it needs to be delivered
in the context of really a really strong material response
from the government, So they need time to put that together.
I think that's a good thing. I'm not sure that
compensation actually is going to be the hardest thing. It
(01:34):
will be difficult to work out, and there's a complicated
process I assume that they'll have to go through, but
in a way, it's a mechanical process they can just
step by stepwalk their way through. There are some really
big challenges in how we evolve and change our systems
and structure of care for vulnerable children, and they are
going to be so much harder to solve, particularly in
(01:57):
the context of orangatamaiki and other care providers not having
the funding that they say they need, and we're going
to have a big, big problem on a wider society level. Two,
in terms of our attitudes. You know, discussions about boot camps,
discussions that the whole thing of did those kids deserve it,
(02:18):
which is a kind of easy prevailing thing that people
fall into when they think about kids who have done wrong.
Speaker 2 (02:24):
Are we're really going to ask that question?
Speaker 3 (02:26):
Though? Assignment well, I think we have to I think
we have to ask how are we going to build
us rebuild ourselves a society. That doesn't mean that a
third of children who are placed into special care in
some way become abused. I mean what the inquiries told
us is so horrifying. It challenges all of us. It's
(02:47):
not just about money, it's about structures and it's about
attitudes too.
Speaker 2 (02:51):
Ben, do you agree, do you think the biggest challenge
is looking forward?
Speaker 4 (02:55):
Well, look, I think the question of how you prevent
abuse in the future is suddenly, you know, the biggest question.
It's not a new question, you know, not hang a
Tamadiki gets restructured roughly every sort of eighteen months. It's
you know, this is an enduring issue. You know, what
do you do with the most vulnerable parts of our society?
(03:18):
You know who whose lives are headed on the wrong track?
But but you know, how do you reset that? And
no one's no one's got up with it. So yet
you know, obviously you put them into better homes, you
keep any family or extended family, but you know, outside
of immediate harm, and it's just easier said than done.
(03:40):
And look, you know, I don't a time, I think
he has been making progress. It's intidental. We agreements, we
have capacity to do that kind of thing, and that's
sort of irrespective of Section seven AA. But yeah, still,
you know, ultimately, as Karen's House says, you know, you
(04:00):
can't ever make guarantees, and you know, there's a terrible shame.
I mean, in terms of the compensation issue, I mean,
I think Simon's right, it's not necessarily difficult. You know,
in the past, we've seen things, you know, the ads.
There were sort of lump sums for historical sexual abuse,
for instance, So you know, these sort of mechanisms have
(04:23):
existed in the past. The Monstory of Social Development previously
had a sort of process for this limited compensation available,
but it was pretty bureaucratic and hard to get through.
And I assume that, you know, any kind of compensation
would have to be a little easier to access. But
(04:44):
then you get into the politics of the fiscal position
and do you really want high ranking gang members of
coming and collecting their checks as well, and that might
be a bit tougher for the government.
Speaker 2 (04:53):
Yeah, but I mean, if it is for the abuse
that they experienced, then they should be able to But
this is where it gets tricky to simon because it's
not just about money. Should there be priority medical care
and helpful for people who have been abused? Should we
be can get into consideration when it comes to sentencing.
That's something which we're trying to remove from the system
at the moment, you know, like the implications of what
(05:14):
these people have lost and had on their lives. It's
more than just money.
Speaker 3 (05:20):
I absolutely agree with you about that. And in relation
to gangs, the Inquiry reporter has made it really clear
that the state care system was instrumental in creating the
gang culture that we have in parts of this country,
and that responsibility has to be addressed. I think one
(05:40):
of the useful ways to ask the question, it's a
very confronting question to me, is how would you degang
New Zealand? What would you do if you said, Okay,
we're going to do what it takes to eliminate the
influence of gangs in our communities. Some people might say
(06:04):
you just lock them all up, but there's no evidence
that works, and there's a lot of evidence that the
reverse works when you do that. So what would it
take on a society wide basis to say okay, kids
who are currently looking at maybe gangs is for me
to steer in different directions, and you start to see
quite quickly how comprehensive that that kind of approach would be.
(06:27):
But you also see that you've got to get alongside
the gangs themselves and go, Okay, how are we going
to work with you to refocus you. It's not easy
at all to do that, Isn't that what we have
to do?
Speaker 2 (06:41):
Yeah, and let's hope we do keep asking those really
hard questions because we can do hard things. Then the
Greens they're going to wait another month until they come
up with the decision as to what they're going to
do with Darling Tama. This has been going on since March.
I know that this is the way they deal with
these issues, but this is really dragging.
Speaker 4 (07:01):
Well, it's almost like a kind of satirical pieces. And
you know, the Green have been approaching it through a
consensus decision making process and there've been one vote short
of expelling Dahling Tana the whole time. You know, I
think they really need to just show a bit of
leadership at the parliamentary level, explained to their members why
(07:23):
in this case, the worker jumping legislation would be appropriate
to invoke. I know that the sort of regard that
they have for the late and great Rock Donald seems
to be a real mental block to them in terms
of the walker jumping legislation. But look, if they're worried
about being hypocrites, they already voted for the legislation. You
know that Waker has sailed. And their objection as a
(07:47):
party to the walker jumping legislation was that it would
be used to stifle principled dissent, to allow autocratic party
leaders to you know, throw out opposition and you know,
really kind of stifle democracy. I don't think there's anyone,
not really even Darling Tana, who is argue doing that.
You know, she was placed there by twenty two thousand
(08:09):
and five hundred Green voters specifically, and that she's serving
a particular constituency and that she has support, and that
she left on a matter of principle. The matter of
the reason she left was that they had no confidence
in her because of her personal and professional conduct, or
at least her inability to clear up questions about her
(08:30):
personal and professional conduct, and that led to questions about
her reliance. And so I think it's pretty easy to
distinguish this from their more principled opposition to invoking the bill.
Speaker 2 (08:43):
Now, I mean, you're right, you're right, you come in
on the party list, you behave in a way that
is deemed inappropriate, and that the party doesn't believe that
you qualify really to belong to the party anymore. I'm
not sure why you think you're qualified to sit in parliament.
Speaker 4 (08:58):
Simon Well, I think that.
Speaker 3 (09:01):
The difficulty that the Green's have with this is that
they'd like it to go away. We all would call
our problems to go away, of course, the Greens, and
there is no guarantee that that can happen if she
stays in parliament. Who knows what she will do might
do in the future to embarrass them. If she is
waker jumped out of parliament, then that will mean that
(09:22):
the Greens opponents in Parliament, the government parties will forever
after a tackle with that. So they can't make it
just go away unless Darlene Tanna herself resigned. So they
are really ramping up the pressure on her because that
is the best solution for them, and there will be
(09:42):
a few more weeks of it. The deeper, the deeper problem,
the Greens have is that they've got this process which
is democratic, which is consensus based, as Ben says, and
they it will lead them to processes where the members
feel involved. But it clearly is a disaster for them
in public in terms of public relations, and they have
(10:04):
to evolve a better a way of making these kinds
of decisions to do it more functionally, and then they
have to work out how to get there because changing
the way the Greens do things means you've got to
get the Green members to agree to do the change.
So that's going to be tough for them, but that
is a really big political challenge. If they do grow
as a party as Chloe Swarlbrook has said they really
(10:27):
want to do, they've got to develop that ability to
knock these things on the head much more quickly.
Speaker 2 (10:34):
Ben Thomas Simon Wilson, thank you so much for your
time this morning.
Speaker 1 (10:38):
For more from the Sunday session with Francesca Rudken, listen
live to News Talks they'd be from nine am Sunday,
or follow the podcast on iHeartRadio.
You're listening to the Sunday Session podcast with Francesca Rudkin
from News Talk SEDB.
Speaker 2 (00:13):
It is time for the Sunday Session Panel. And joining
me this morning, I have got New Zealand Herald senior
writer Simon Wilson. Good morning, Simon.
Speaker 3 (00:19):
Hi, Francisca and Director.
Speaker 2 (00:21):
Of Capital and political commentator Ben Thomas. How are you doing, Ben?
Speaker 4 (00:25):
Great?
Speaker 2 (00:26):
Good to have you both with me. Can we just
start with the abuse and care report that came out
throughout the week and compensation. I think everybody was horrified
and very moved by what we've been learning from the report,
which of course took six years to come forward. And
(00:47):
you know, I was at first a bit disappointed that
we were going to have to wait until November for
a formal apology, But then as the magnitude of the
abuse and the people involved, and the cost of the
abuse and everything you know about this report, the magnitude
of it is just so immense. It's going to take
a while. The really hard job now is to work
out how we are going to commensate and look out
(01:08):
for these people.
Speaker 4 (01:09):
Simon.
Speaker 3 (01:11):
I think you're absolutely right, November is not too early,
not too late for an apology. The apology needs to
be something of substance, and it needs to be delivered
in the context of really a really strong material response
from the government, So they need time to put that together.
I think that's a good thing. I'm not sure that
compensation actually is going to be the hardest thing. It
(01:34):
will be difficult to work out, and there's a complicated
process I assume that they'll have to go through, but
in a way, it's a mechanical process they can just
step by stepwalk their way through. There are some really
big challenges in how we evolve and change our systems
and structure of care for vulnerable children, and they are
going to be so much harder to solve, particularly in
(01:57):
the context of orangatamaiki and other care providers not having
the funding that they say they need, and we're going
to have a big, big problem on a wider society level. Two,
in terms of our attitudes. You know, discussions about boot camps,
discussions that the whole thing of did those kids deserve it,
(02:18):
which is a kind of easy prevailing thing that people
fall into when they think about kids who have done wrong.
Speaker 2 (02:24):
Are we're really going to ask that question?
Speaker 3 (02:26):
Though? Assignment well, I think we have to I think
we have to ask how are we going to build
us rebuild ourselves a society. That doesn't mean that a
third of children who are placed into special care in
some way become abused. I mean what the inquiries told
us is so horrifying. It challenges all of us. It's
(02:47):
not just about money, it's about structures and it's about
attitudes too.
Speaker 2 (02:51):
Ben, do you agree, do you think the biggest challenge
is looking forward?
Speaker 4 (02:55):
Well, look, I think the question of how you prevent
abuse in the future is suddenly, you know, the biggest question.
It's not a new question, you know, not hang a
Tamadiki gets restructured roughly every sort of eighteen months. It's
you know, this is an enduring issue. You know, what
do you do with the most vulnerable parts of our society?
(03:18):
You know who whose lives are headed on the wrong track?
But but you know, how do you reset that? And
no one's no one's got up with it. So yet
you know, obviously you put them into better homes, you
keep any family or extended family, but you know, outside
of immediate harm, and it's just easier said than done.
(03:40):
And look, you know, I don't a time, I think
he has been making progress. It's intidental. We agreements, we
have capacity to do that kind of thing, and that's
sort of irrespective of Section seven AA. But yeah, still,
you know, ultimately, as Karen's House says, you know, you
(04:00):
can't ever make guarantees, and you know, there's a terrible shame.
I mean, in terms of the compensation issue, I mean,
I think Simon's right, it's not necessarily difficult. You know,
in the past, we've seen things, you know, the ads.
There were sort of lump sums for historical sexual abuse,
for instance, So you know, these sort of mechanisms have
(04:23):
existed in the past. The Monstory of Social Development previously
had a sort of process for this limited compensation available,
but it was pretty bureaucratic and hard to get through.
And I assume that, you know, any kind of compensation
would have to be a little easier to access. But
(04:44):
then you get into the politics of the fiscal position
and do you really want high ranking gang members of
coming and collecting their checks as well, and that might
be a bit tougher for the government.
Speaker 2 (04:53):
Yeah, but I mean, if it is for the abuse
that they experienced, then they should be able to But
this is where it gets tricky to simon because it's
not just about money. Should there be priority medical care
and helpful for people who have been abused? Should we
be can get into consideration when it comes to sentencing.
That's something which we're trying to remove from the system
at the moment, you know, like the implications of what
(05:14):
these people have lost and had on their lives. It's
more than just money.
Speaker 3 (05:20):
I absolutely agree with you about that. And in relation
to gangs, the Inquiry reporter has made it really clear
that the state care system was instrumental in creating the
gang culture that we have in parts of this country,
and that responsibility has to be addressed. I think one
(05:40):
of the useful ways to ask the question, it's a
very confronting question to me, is how would you degang
New Zealand? What would you do if you said, Okay,
we're going to do what it takes to eliminate the
influence of gangs in our communities. Some people might say
(06:04):
you just lock them all up, but there's no evidence
that works, and there's a lot of evidence that the
reverse works when you do that. So what would it
take on a society wide basis to say okay, kids
who are currently looking at maybe gangs is for me
to steer in different directions, and you start to see
quite quickly how comprehensive that that kind of approach would be.
(06:27):
But you also see that you've got to get alongside
the gangs themselves and go, Okay, how are we going
to work with you to refocus you. It's not easy
at all to do that, Isn't that what we have
to do?
Speaker 2 (06:41):
Yeah, and let's hope we do keep asking those really
hard questions because we can do hard things. Then the
Greens they're going to wait another month until they come
up with the decision as to what they're going to
do with Darling Tama. This has been going on since March.
I know that this is the way they deal with
these issues, but this is really dragging.
Speaker 4 (07:01):
Well, it's almost like a kind of satirical pieces. And
you know, the Green have been approaching it through a
consensus decision making process and there've been one vote short
of expelling Dahling Tana the whole time. You know, I
think they really need to just show a bit of
leadership at the parliamentary level, explained to their members why
(07:23):
in this case, the worker jumping legislation would be appropriate
to invoke. I know that the sort of regard that
they have for the late and great Rock Donald seems
to be a real mental block to them in terms
of the walker jumping legislation. But look, if they're worried
about being hypocrites, they already voted for the legislation. You
know that Waker has sailed. And their objection as a
(07:47):
party to the walker jumping legislation was that it would
be used to stifle principled dissent, to allow autocratic party
leaders to you know, throw out opposition and you know,
really kind of stifle democracy. I don't think there's anyone,
not really even Darling Tana, who is argue doing that.
You know, she was placed there by twenty two thousand
(08:09):
and five hundred Green voters specifically, and that she's serving
a particular constituency and that she has support, and that
she left on a matter of principle. The matter of
the reason she left was that they had no confidence
in her because of her personal and professional conduct, or
at least her inability to clear up questions about her
(08:30):
personal and professional conduct, and that led to questions about
her reliance. And so I think it's pretty easy to
distinguish this from their more principled opposition to invoking the bill.
Speaker 2 (08:43):
Now, I mean, you're right, you're right, you come in
on the party list, you behave in a way that
is deemed inappropriate, and that the party doesn't believe that
you qualify really to belong to the party anymore. I'm
not sure why you think you're qualified to sit in parliament.
Speaker 4 (08:58):
Simon Well, I think that.
Speaker 3 (09:01):
The difficulty that the Green's have with this is that
they'd like it to go away. We all would call
our problems to go away, of course, the Greens, and
there is no guarantee that that can happen if she
stays in parliament. Who knows what she will do might
do in the future to embarrass them. If she is
waker jumped out of parliament, then that will mean that
(09:22):
the Greens opponents in Parliament, the government parties will forever
after a tackle with that. So they can't make it
just go away unless Darlene Tanna herself resigned. So they
are really ramping up the pressure on her because that
is the best solution for them, and there will be
(09:42):
a few more weeks of it. The deeper, the deeper problem,
the Greens have is that they've got this process which
is democratic, which is consensus based, as Ben says, and
they it will lead them to processes where the members
feel involved. But it clearly is a disaster for them
in public in terms of public relations, and they have
(10:04):
to evolve a better a way of making these kinds
of decisions to do it more functionally, and then they
have to work out how to get there because changing
the way the Greens do things means you've got to
get the Green members to agree to do the change.
So that's going to be tough for them, but that
is a really big political challenge. If they do grow
as a party as Chloe Swarlbrook has said they really
(10:27):
want to do, they've got to develop that ability to
knock these things on the head much more quickly.
Speaker 2 (10:34):
Ben Thomas Simon Wilson, thank you so much for your
time this morning.
Speaker 1 (10:38):
For more from the Sunday session with Francesca Rudken, listen
live to News Talks they'd be from nine am Sunday,
or follow the podcast on iHeartRadio.
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