Royal Commission Report Part Two – The Government responds to Gloriavale’s issues

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).

Two weeks ago the Royal Commission report was tabled. Gloriavale was mentioned all through it. They told the Government they needed to act urgently. And so Ryan Boswell from TV One chased the Government up this week. Here’s what they had to say on the news tonight….

Did you see that? It just got passed through the hands of the Minister in charge of the Royal Commission response (who is also the Minister of Education), and then off to the Children’s Minister, who then passed it off to Oranga Tamariki…And THAT’S EXACTLY what we are talking about!! That’s been the problem all along with the Government and Gloriavale. That’s what the Royal Commission has criticised. The siloed approach.

The Royal Commission into Abuse in State Care and Faith-based institutions examined abuse and neglect. Often only sexual abuse and physical are focused on when people think of abuse, but this Commission of Inquiry recognised the role of emotional/psychological and spiritual abuse, as well as neglect. And yet so often when people think about “child safety” they only think of sexual and physical abuse.

The Commission was able to investigate abuse from 1950 up until 1999 – but thankfully they were given leeway to consider harm up until the present day. They found a lot wrong with Gloriavale.

Present Day Concerns

So what do you do when you still have concerns about groups and institutions who continue to psychologically and spiritually abuse and damage people? What do you do when you know the group is still protecting abusers? What do you think when the group has been asked to make a public apology? What do you think when you hear the Government is going to officially apologise in November?

I propose there are still failures of the state occurring right now. This Government may actually be assisting in holding up a system that breeds abuse. Sexual and physical abuse are natural outcomes of groups that psychologically and coercively control their members. That shouldn’t have come as a surprise to anyone. The research is there. And Gloriavale is still psychologically and coercively controlling their members. Leavers will know when they have stopped doing that. We will know.

Rosanna Overcomer said it eloquently, “Apologies are nice, but actions are more meaningful.”

So how did Gloriavale make it into the report?

Believe it or not, Gloriavale could easily have been missed out! The Commission relied on people coming forwards to them to share of the abuse and neglect they suffered. But for minority groups who already feel they have been let down and not listened to, they’re not usually lining up to tell a stranger about their trauma.

Our involvement began more than five years ago when we pulled together a group of Gloriavale Leavers to ask how they would feel about Gloriavale being included in the Royal Commission. They collectively agreed that there were enough concerns that needed to be investigated and that the government needed to take its job seriously. At that time there were no lawyers working for leavers. The Government and related agencies had rendered themselves hopeless at best (enablers at worst). The Royal Commission was their only hope.

Leavers spoke to us, and then to the Royal Commission. Thankfully before long Police realised they also needed to start interviewing leavers, which culminated in a rush of arrests over the past 3 years.  So far more than 20 men have been arrested and charged for sexual and physical abuse. I know there are more still to come.

Thanks

Our thanks to the Royal Commission for working closely with us to ensure the barriers were broken down. Thanks to the trustees and leavers who attended meetings in Wellington, Christchurch and on Zoom prior to any interviews being conducted. Advocacy is a slow and sometimes painful process. Thanks to the leavers who were keen to be educated about the Commission, it’s role and society and how they could participate and feel heard. For many Gloriavale Leavers this was their first time speaking aloud to a representative of an organisation about the abuse they suffered. if they weren’t willing to speak up, I shudder to think how much more harm might have come to people in there. (In 2020 the Police went to Gloriavale and said their sexual abuse rate was the worst they had come across. They already have over 138 victims, and we know there are many more).

We thank the commission for the flexibility in providing several lawyers to visit Timaru, Canterbury and the West Coast to take witness statements and work with Leavers in an appropriate manner. It can be very difficult when working with people who have left a high control, culty group. The response we had from Leavers is that they felt the lawyers understood what they were trying to express and comfortable with them.

Waiting, waiting, waiting…

But that was three years ago. The report date kept getting pushed out and it was clear that the Royal Commission was not going to be the solution to the complex issues of Gloriavale. So Leavers went on to speak to Police, the media, community events, documentaries, and eventually speak to lawyers. Many leavers became plaintiffs and witnesses in court cases that have been paraded on our screens weekly and monthly over the last few years.

Meanwhile we couldn’t give up there! Giving interviews to the Royal Commission was Stage one. Behind the scenes we kept advocating (and we’ve since heard other people unrelated to Gloriavale joined the crusade too – thanks). Our greatest fear was that Gloriavale wouldn’t be given any special status in the report, and so with help from others Gloriavale was included in the Faith-based public hearing 13th October 2022. Watch Howard Temple and Rachel Stedfast in the morning session below.

This was the first time that anyone in Gloriavale had spoken up in the public sphere under oath since Hopeful Christian’s trials in the mid-nineties. They did not appear in person but via AVL link. The Commission had prepared some good lines of questioning for them and it became clear that they had indeed use their doctrines and their beliefs to cover up abuse. It was very clear that Gloriavale is not a safe institution and even today they don’t think well or safely.

But we still weren’t certain that we had done enough. Our aim as an advocacy group was to ensure that a special report was written on Gloriavale that could be given out to lawyers, police, Government and social service organisations to assist them to do their jobs better. Several more rounds of advocacy followed. But no promises were ever given.

And so the delivery of the report has been an anxious time for us. Advocacy comes with the cost because it takes your time, effort and energy – and you might be better off placing it elsewhere.

Are we happy with the report?

Back to the report. The question is are we happy with the report? Well it’s taken two days to read all 2500 pages. Sadly there is no tidy section titled “Gloriavale”. I do feel that is a failure and disappointing given the huge amount of informaiton the Commission has amassed. What happens to it now…?

Gloriavale is a live issue and I believe it should have been prioritised. However, in saying that, Gloriavale is spread throughout the report and is mentioned more than 150 times. There are witness statements and there are some case studies and quotes from leaders. The Commission has found fault with Gloriavale and has listed five key areas. It was good to see that they had included a comment about the cultural aspects “creating a climate where abuse has flourished”.

They have also made many recommendations, some generally to Faith-based groups and then some more directly to Gloriavale and I will cover these in another blog post. I am currently pulling all of the parts of the report that relate to Gloriavale together and we will create a report that can be shared.

Keep your eye out for that soon.

Keep reading Part Three of these blog posts where we will examine the recommendation that Gloriavale apologises to New Zealand…