Parliament has passed a new system to compensate survivors of abuse in state care, with the Redress System for Abuse in Care Bill clearing its final reading on Wednesday. The Government framed the vote as a long-overdue response to the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuse in Care, while Labour opposed the bill and survivor groups said it still falls short of what they were promised.
The new scheme is meant to give people who were abused while in the care of the state an alternative to going through the courts. A redress officer will be appointed to decide who is eligible, and successful claimants will be offered a financial payment, a formal apology from the relevant state agency, access to their care records, and counselling or other wellbeing support.
The minister responsible, Erica Stanford, who holds the role of Lead Co-ordination Minister for the Crown Response, has described the purpose plainly. In announcing the system the Government said the aim of a state redress scheme is to recognise a person’s experience of abuse in care and to offer a pathway as an alternative to litigation. You can read the official outline on the Beehive release page.
Money sits at the centre of the changes. The average redress payment for new claimants is rising from $19,180 to $30,000. Survivors who have already settled claims under the old arrangements are being offered top-up payments of 50 per cent so that earlier settlements line up better with the new amounts. The Government says agencies have already paid more than $11 million in top-ups to over 900 survivors, at an average of almost $12,000 each.
One of the most argued-over parts of the bill deals with survivors who themselves have serious criminal histories. People convicted of serious violent or sexual offending, broadly those sentenced to more than five years in prison, can still apply, but they are presumed ineligible by default. The independent decision maker has to be satisfied that making a payment would not bring the scheme into disrepute before money is paid. The Government has pointed to an Australian model as the basis for that approach and stresses that it does not automatically lock any survivor out.
The scale of the task is enormous. The Royal Commission, whose final report was handed down in 2024, estimated that up to 200,000 children, young people and vulnerable adults were abused in state and faith-based care between 1950 and 2019. Prime Minister Christopher Luxon delivered a formal national apology in Parliament in late 2024. Against that backdrop, officials expect only about 80 new claims a year under the redress system, and have warned that funding could run short if demand turns out to be higher, as reported by the New Zealand Herald.
The bill had a long path through the House. It passed its first reading in October 2025 and was then referred to the Social Services and Community Select Committee, where it sat for about five months while submissions were heard. The final reading passed on a voice vote, with a vocal majority in favour and no formal party vote called, as RNZ reported.
Labour voted against the bill. The party’s spokesperson for children, Willow-Jean Prime, has said she is concerned the legislation does not follow the redress recommendations made by the Royal Commission, and that it was not designed with enough input and collaboration from survivors themselves. Labour has argued throughout that a scheme built to right historic wrongs should have been shaped far more closely by the people it is meant to help.
Survivor advocates have been blunt about earlier versions of the changes, with some describing them as an insult, a broken promise and a kick in the guts. Their central complaint is that the Royal Commission called for a redress process that is independent of the institutions where the abuse happened, that is led by survivors, that treats people’s needs as a whole rather than as a list of payments, and that properly reflects te ao MΔori, the MΔori world view. Critics say the system that has now passed does not go far enough on those points and that a long running consultation process has left many survivors worn down and waiting.
The Government counters that the alternative to passing the bill was more delay, and that getting a working scheme in place with higher payments is better than leaving survivors in the existing patchwork of agency-by-agency settlements. Earlier this year it also moved to widen the net through what it called Charlotte’s Change, which extends redress to more survivors who were abused in mental health care.
What happens next depends heavily on take-up. If far more than 80 people a year come forward, the question of whether the scheme is funded to match the promise will land back on the next government’s desk. With a general election due in November, abuse in care redress now sits alongside health, housing and the cost of living as a test of which parties can be trusted to follow through on a national apology with real money and a process survivors actually believe in.
If you want to see where the parties stand on issues like this before you vote, you can compare their positions using our voting tool.
Do you think the new redress scheme does enough for survivors of abuse in care, or has the Government missed the mark? Share your thoughts in the comments below.
This article was written by AI, briefed to report the facts, hopefully without some of the bias people bring to the job π
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