Royal Commission Report Part Four – Recommendations
Opinion piece: Liz Gregory.
(Thoughts, opinions and views expressed here belong to Liz Gregory and may or may not represent the views of all leavers, current members or the Trust).
It took two months to complete reading and summarising the Royal Commission report. (Click here to read the full summary related to Gloriavale). The summarised report is only 80 pages – unlike the full report which is over 2500 pages long. Gloriavale is mentioned directly 150 times, but is referred to many more times throughout.
Here are a few things I want to point out:
- It’s very clear that the Royal Commission still holds grave concerns for those in Gloriavale. Gloriavale is specifically mentioned in this report over 150 times.
- This report identified the use of spiritual and emotional abuse as the backdrop to other kinds of abuse. They said, “Abuse and neglect in care has had a corrosive effect on the lives of so many survivors.”
- This report correctly identifies the impact of abuse and neglect that affects the rest of survivors lives. Gloriavale still has absolutely no concept of the emotional damage they have done to people – the prevalence of PTSD and other mental health impacts, the difficulty in forming healthy trusted relationships, the stripping of identity, creating learned helplessness, difficulty in workplaces, feelings of alienation, suicidal ideation, and for some various addictions and dependency – as they grapple to comes to terms with what happened to them.
- It’s clear the Royal Commission believes the factors for abuse remain inside Gloriavale and the Government has not done enough. The Royal Commission seems to think they can do more. They criticised Governments ineffective cross-agency and monitoring efforts saying they were ineffective.
- They found Gloriavale protected abusers – who will be held to account over that? (Yes they are still protecting abusers)
- The doctrines and beliefs, including the Doctrine of Unity made it very difficult for members to raise concerns.
- Gloriavale admitted their What We Believe foundational document included policies that it prevented its people reporting crime. (and yet they still got Charitable status and were allowed to keep a school open based on that).
Findings of fault – Gloriavale
j. From Gloriavale’s inception in 1969 through to the end of the Inquiry period, the Overseeing Shepherd and senior leadership of the Gloriavale Christian Community were at fault for:
i. allowing physical and sexual abuse to happen within the community.
ii. failing to address intergenerational sexual abuse within the community which perpetrated a cycle of harm.
iii. failing to prevent and protect survivors within the community against abuse.
iv. responding to allegations of abuse by seeking to create repentance from the offender and forgiveness from the victim.
v. failing to recognise the harm of abuse on survivors.
vi. failing to deal with perpetrators of abuse appropriately, allowing them to continue living in the community and allowing abuse to continue within the congregation as a result.
vii. failing to recognise the scale and extent of abuse in the community.
viii. dealing with complaints of abuse themselves and not engaging any other authorities or professionals, including NZ Police or Oranga Tamariki and its predecessors.
ix. the role the community’s Doctrines had in creating a culture that allowed abuse to occur.
Senior Leaders and Managers Criticised
239. In both State and faith-based care settings, some senior leaders or managers appointed an abuser into a position despite knowing they had former criminal convictions for child sexual abuse.
245. Hopeful Christian was able to return to Gloriavale when he was released on parole after he served a prison sentence for indecently assaulting a young girl in the community. NZ European survivor Rosanna Overcomer, survivor and Gloriavale Leaver’s Trust representative, told the Inquiry that:
“he was allowed back into our community, the community where I, a child, lived. The people that should have cared for the children and vulnerable allowed a sex offender not only into a close-knit community with inadequate living quarters but back into the senior position of leadership as the Shepherd of the church.”[285]
Barriers to Reporting
66. In some faith-based settings, religious doctrine or documents created a barrier. Howard Temple, the current Overseeing Shepherd at Gloriavale, acknowledged that the Gloriavale Doctrine of Unity made it very difficult for members to raise concerns
Admissions from Gloriavale
431. Gloriavale’s current leader, Howard Temple, acknowledged that the doctrinal text “What We Believe” has historically included information that amounted to a policy that prevented its members from reporting crimes outside its community.[566] All disclosures of abuse were to be dealt with in-house by the Gloriavale leadership[567] and within the families involved.[568] Up until the mid-1990s, then-leader Neville Cooper (Hopeful Christian) dealt with the internal discipline of abusers “in the way he thought best”.[569] Current leader Howard Temple acknowledged that as recently as 2017, the Gloriavale leadership still wanted to keep sexual offending reports in-house unless the person re-offended.[570]
Our comment is that until Gloriavale examines its damaging doctrines, abuse in all its forms will prevail.
Ongoing Concerns for Gloriavale
528. In August 2022, the government established a new function to coordinate the operational activities of government agencies in relation to Gloriavale. Briefings to government released under the Official Information Act in March 2024 noted that this coordinating function came to an end on 31 December 2023.
529. A 20 December 2023 briefing to the Ministers for Workplace Relations and Safety, Education, Social Development and Employment, Police, Children and Women noted that:
“There are several other legal proceedings underway relating to labour exploitation and physical and sexual abuse at Gloriavale, including charges of indecent assault relating to historical offending against young women, against the community’s Overseeing Shepherd Howard Temple. He is currently on bail outside the Gloriavale compound, with a condition of compliance with an Oranga Tamariki safety plan. This includes supervision to prevent any inappropriate contact with a child or young person.
…Oranga Tamariki and Police continue to respond to allegations or disclosures of harm towards children in the community, including those relating to harmful or concerning sexualised behaviour in children.”[272]
530. A briefing to the Minister of Social Development on the same day noted:
“A number of risks and challenges remain… These include risks to child wellbeing, education provision, and risks to the stability of Gloriavale’s commercial enterprises.”[273]
531. The Inquiry is concerned to ensure that the government does everything it can to prevent the factors that led to historical abuse and neglect in care at Gloriavale.
Direct Recommendations for Gloriavale
Tūtohi 88 | Recommendation 88
“The government should take all practicable steps to ensure the ongoing safety of children, young people and adults in care at Gloriavale.“
This recommendation is short and sweet and all of Gloriavale’s complex issues are swept up into this one sentence. But there would need to be some positive connections made with leavers so the Government can be suitably educated on what that looks like and how it should be implemented.
General Recommendations
The Royal Commission had 138 recommendations all up – but the ones below are of significant interest:
Tūtohi 70 | Recommendation 70
The government should prioritise and accelerate current work to close care and protection residences, which perpetuate the institutional environments and practices that led to historical abuse and neglect in care.
Tūtohi 20 | Recommendation 20
Establish a fund for projects connected to community harm arising from the cumulative impact of abuse and neglect in care
Tūtohi 35 | Recommendation 35
NZ Police should establish a specialist unit dedicated to investigating and prosecuting those responsible for historical or current abuse and neglect in State and faith-based care
Tūtohi 36 | Recommendation 36
– Civil justice legislative changes. The courts should prioritise civil proceedings regarding care or abuse and neglect in State or faith-based care to minimise litigation delays.
Charities to lose registration status for non-compliance
325. During the Inquiry period, there was a lack of faith-based institutional accountability for abuse in care. This contributed to abuse being able to occur and continue.
326. There is an existing framework that can investigate and sanction serious wrongdoing by those faith-based entities with charitable status. The Charities Act 2005 sets out the grounds under which a registered charity can be removed from the register. This includes removal if “the entity has engaged in serious wrongdoing or any person has engaged with serious wrongdoing in connection with the entity”.[165]
327. Currently, the Charities Service can investigate any charity for serious wrongdoing where there is potential criminal offending or proven instances of abuse.[166] Between 2009 and 2022, the Charities Service carried out eight investigations into faith-based charities. Two of these investigations related to Gloriavale, and the other six were faith-based institutions not investigated by this Inquiry.[167] Most faith-based institutions the Inquiry examined have received tax benefits as registered charities.
328. The Care Safety Act (Recommendation 45) will include sanctions that permit or require the de-registration of a charity where abuse or neglect is proven, or where accreditation is removed in the most serious cases, rather than requiring a separate investigation into the same wrongdoing by the Charities Services.
Tūtohi 66 | Recommendation 66
People must be held to account for substantiated complaints of abuse and neglect in care.Where a complaint has been substantiated, State and faith-based entities providing care directly or indirectly and relevant professional bodies should take steps to ensure the person or people responsible are held accountable,
Amend prosecution guidelines
190. The Inquiry reported in He Purapura Ora, he Māra Tipu: From Redress to Puretumu Torowhānui that survivors consider that holding perpetrators and organisations to account was a crucial part of moving on with their lives.[84] The conviction of a survivor’s perpetrator provides a measure of accountability and justice for the survivor and can also be an important step of the road to healing. The Inquiry found however that very few perpetrators of abuse and neglect of people in care have ever stood before a court to answer for all their actions.[85] During the Inquiry period, survivors who complained to NZ Police and were witnesses in criminal proceedings often had negative and harmful experiences.
State Failures and Responsibility
Gloriavale wasn’t the only one to take the whipping. The State’s failures were also recognised:
- [822]. “There is consistent and persistent evidence that the State prioritised managing its reputation, limited its liability and accountability, neutralised or covered over institutional abuse, over safeguarding people in care, despite fifty years of evidence and awareness that all parts of the care system were failing people in care.”
- The State knew or should have known that the system was failing people in care
- 88. Throughout the Inquiry period, the State faced increasing reports of concern and complaints about abuse and neglect in State and faith-based care, across all care settings.[1054] Those concerns and complaints came to its attention through government agencies like the Departments of Social Welfare, Health, Education, NZ Police, and through numerous oversight and monitoring bodies. Many reports and reviews, some commissioned by the State, and others independent, found evidence of abuse and neglect in care.
The State’s structure clouded how it reacted to signs of system failures
794. The structuring of government agencies explains in part why the State failed to take a system-wide approach to abuse and neglect in care. It also explains why there was so much variability to care across and within care settings.
795. Government agencies were structured to implement the policies and priorities of the Minister they reported to, with strong vertical reporting lines and no formal tools for cross agency working. For individual care settings, agencies were only looking at and advising individual Ministers on problems in care relevant to them. When individual government agencies identified a problem relevant to them and designed policy solutions, they were designing policy solutions for discrete parts of a care setting – even though that problem and solution likely applied across all settings.
797. Many of the strategies relevant to care settings in the 1990s, while they demonstrated strategic thinking and attempts at a cross-departmental strategic approach, failed to deliver widespread change due to factors like a lack of clear targets; lack of progress reviews; changes of government which saw priorities shift; and difficulty navigating agency silos. Different targets and bureaucratic processes across agencies and a focus on individual output arrangements could all act as barriers.
The State did not implement a national care safety framework
798. The State should have responded to signs of systemic abuse and neglect, and that the care system was failing children, young people and adults in care, with a national framework to safeguard all people in care and prevent and respond to abuse and neglect.
Conclusion on the State’s responsibility for Care
818. The State had a responsibility to provide a coherent and comprehensive care system that effectively safeguarded all people in care. It had a responsibility to monitor that system, to know whether people in care were being safeguarded, and to act decisively when it knew abuse or neglect had happened, to prevent it happening again, and ensure abusers and care providers were held accountable.
819. The State had responsibilities to protect the human rights of families, whānau, and people in care. The State was also responsible for giving effect to the guarantees it made to Māori in te Tiriti o Waitangi.
820. Instead, there were grave breaches of standards of care and te Tiriti o Waitangi across all settings and throughout the Inquiry period.
821. There is evidence to suggest that the State knew the potential nature and extent of the abuse and neglect in care but did not take steps to investigate further. Instead, it took a defensive, adversarial approach to deny, defeat or limit claims of abuse and neglect with the aim of avoiding the financial and legal implications of being found accountable.[1101] There was evidence that the State was not only aware of deliberate steps to move, protect or employ abusers, but in many instances, it was senior leaders within the State taking those deliberate steps. The Inquiry is not aware of any senior leaders being held to account for abuse and neglect, or for taking deliberate steps to avoid accountability.
822. There is consistent and persistent evidence that the State prioritised managing its reputation, limited its liability and accountability, neutralised or covered over institutional abuse, over safeguarding people in care, despite fifty years of evidence and awareness that all parts of the care system were failing people in care.
Summary
In summary this report was highly critical of Gloriavale as an institution. They believe there is no place for institutions like this in New Zealand to exist.
We need a total investigation into this issue. Ultimately there will need to be a full Commission of Inquiry into Gloriavale.
Leavers are taking things into their own hands making use of the courts – but ultimately they shouldn’t have needed to do that. The State has not been helpful to them so far.
We will watch with interest…