NZ needs to rethink how it views cult influence; Australia can show us how
Amy Tiemann PhD is a neuroscientist and youth safety expert in Wellington who will be chairing a panel about children’s rights at the upcoming Decult 2026 conference.
OPINION: New Zealand needs to rethink how we understand and respond to people affected by cults and high-control groups.
Coercive control is a critical issue that needs to be understood by clinicians, educators and other frontline professionals. This is especially true for children in and from cults.
The organisations directly helping cult survivors in Aotearoa, like the Olive Leaf Network and Gloriavale Leavers’ Support Trust, estimate that as many as 50,000 New Zealanders are in or have been in high-control groups.
The majority of them were born or raised in the group, and their trauma can last a lifetime. Adult leavers who were kids in cults have been shown to attempt suicide 10 times more than those without a cult background. Centrepoint and Gloriavale are the most devastating and well-documented examples of high-control groups in Aotearoa, but there are many others that are not as visible.
Coercive control is not just an issue of a few “bad apple” leaders, or unusual groups. Abusive dynamics can show up in any family, organisation or community. As a child and youth safety advocate for more than 25 years, my top two aims are to increase cult education for tamariki, their families and youth-serving professionals – and to pass a coercive control law in New Zealand.
Children do not have a choice of which groups they are born into or that their parents join. When children live in a cult-control situation, often isolated and without agency or a sense of self, they need their teachers, doctors and other adults in their lives to recognise signs of trouble, and to get help. This requires a systematic response. Awareness of these issues is growing and needs to be backed up by tangible support, training, and action.
That is why this month’s Decult conference in Ōtautahi Christchurch is so timely. We will share survivors’ stories, identify needs, and craft strategies to move forward. Progress has been made since the first conference two years ago. The formation of the nationwide Cult-Informed Professional Network (CIPN) stands out as a major success story.
In New Zealand, there is growing legal and public recognition of the overlap between human trafficking, modern slavery and abuse by high-control groups. They all use force, fraud or coercion, and some of the human trafficking laws may be useful in shutting down cults. But a better solution would be to craft a standalone coercive control law that can apply to any group and is not limited to offences related to human trafficking or family violence.
To achieve this goal, I recommend that New Zealand’s leaders study the powerful blueprint set out by our neighbours in Australia who convened the Inquiry into the recruitment methods and impacts of cults and organised fringe groups. In the commission’s own words, “This inquiry was not about judging anyone’s belief, rather it was focused on understanding how coercive high-control groups can attract, influence and harm people and how to protect people from this harm”.
This recently released report resulted from a great deal of research and consultation with hundreds of cult survivors to identify the problems caused by a wide variety of groups, many of which also operate in New Zealand. It should be required reading for our police, judiciary, law enforcement, social services and mental health professionals.
Once the commission members heard survivor stories about the abuses happening in their own communities, they knew they needed to work for reform. The report is a magnificent road map that can be applied to New Zealand, if we are willing to take the brave first step of admitting that we have a problem too.
The courageous survivors and victim advocates who got Victoria’s parliamentary inquiry off the ground will be at Decult on a live-streamed panel about legislative change. We invite our Government and policymakers to tune in and stay in touch to create an ongoing dialogue.
Decult 2026 is on October 24-25 at Christchurch Town Hall and live-streamed online; https://decult.net/