This redress fulfils one of the recommendations in the Royal Commission’s final report and willsee some survivors of torture reimbursed legal fees they were charged during the settlement process more than 20 years ago.
It’s another step on what has been a very long path for the survivors of abuse in state care at Lake Alice.
In 2001, the Crown reached a settlement with 95 survivors for $6.5 million but the law firm representing the group, Grant Cameron & Associates, deducted an estimated $2.6m in legal fees from what the survivors received in payments. As a result of that deduction, survivors of abuse at Lake Alice received an estimated $41,000, on average, after $27,000 was taken off in legal fees.
However, subsequently, further claimants received an average of $70,000 as the Crown met the legal costs. Erica Stanford, the lead co-ordination minister for the Government’s response, said this was “inequitable treatment” and a “historic injustice”.
“We are putting right a historical wrong,” Stanford said during the announcement on Wednesday.
Erica Stanford, the minister responsible for the Government’s response to Abuse in Care Inquiry, during a press conference regarding the next steps for Lake Alice survivors at Parliament in Wellington. Photo / Mark Mitchell
“As a society, we should have done better. This Government is determined to do better.”
Each individual survivor will be eligible for between $15,000 and $55,000 depending on their case. They have until June 30 next year to lodge a claim with the Ministry of Health for reimbursement.
The redress will cost the Government $2.67m and will cover the reimbursed legal fees, the Ministry of Health administration for the claims process, as well as costs of additional claims that have been made recently for historical abuse at Lake Alice. The amount the survivors will receive won’t be adjusted for inflation, a move the minister in charge said was consistent with other redress payments.
“Payments will be made on an ex-gratia basis, meaning they will not be treated as income for tax or benefit purposes,” Stanford said.
An aerial view of Lake Alice Psychiatric Hospital.
“Since July, we have acknowledged some children and young people experienced torture at the Lake Alice unit and set up urgent financial assistance [for] those who are terminally ill,” Stanford added.
During the announcement, Stanford said “while we can never fully make redress for or right the harm survivors experienced, the Government is continuing to respond to the Royal Commission’s final report with the respect and care it deserves”.
While this redress is a deeply important step towards righting a wrong, it is important to remember that it took us all far too long to get here.
Stanford said she spoke to survivors ahead of the announcement, stating many are not in good health and what happened to them at Lake Alice had impacted on their health and wellbeing. Some of the torture victims at Lake Alice have likely died before this announcement, so not everyone who deserved this money will have lived long enough to receive it.
The Labour Government formally apologised to 95 former Lake Alice patients in 2001.
Earlier this year, the Government formally acknowledged some children and young people at the psychiatric hospital experienced torture. A Royal Commission report found most of the 362 children who went through the unit between 1972 and 1978 had no mental illness.
Throughout the 1970s, patients were given electric shocks without anaesthetic, as well as painful and immobilising paraldehyde injections, the minister said at the time.
“It is clear treatments were not administered for any medical reason. They were used for punishment and emotional control through terror. It is beyond heartbreaking.”
This week’s announcement is good news for those still with us, but we must go further. Long beyond payments are made, long after apologies are accepted, we must continue to honour the survivors of abuse in state care by collectively agreeing that, as a society, we will never let such abuse happen again.
