Some senior public servants implicated in the state abuse cover-up remain in positions of power – including Solicitor-General Una Jagose and Education Secretary Iona Holsted. Now the minister leading the Government’s response to the watershed report has put officials on notice.
The minister in charge of the Government’s response to the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuse in Care says she expects the acting public service commissioner to consider how to hold the public service accountable, including potentially taking employment action against individuals in government departments.
This week, Erica Stanford will meet Acting Public Service Commissioner Heather Baggott to discuss the report, including how officials responded when survivors tried to raise concerns, make complaints, and seek redress.
This meeting comes a fortnight after the biggest royal commission in the country’s history publicly released its 3000-page report, which found that over the course of five decades, children, young people and vulnerable adults were subjected to “unimaginable physical, emotional, mental and sexual abuse, severe exploitation and neglect” at the hands of the state and faith-based institutions.
The commission said survivors were right to call for an inquiry.
“There has been widespread abuse and neglect in state and faith-based care which has had a devastating personal and multigenerational impact on survivors, their whānau and society as a whole.,” the commission said.
“It has been minimised and covered up by the institutions responsible. Significant resources have been used to deny survivors their voice and to defend the indefensible. This must stop.”
The commission found the state had attempted to cover up the abuse for decades.