The Abuse in Care Royal Commission of Inquiry Contextual hearing is returning today at 10am at the Rydges hotel in Auckland where Commissioners will hear from four witnesses. Witness evidence summaries are outlined below.

After witness speak, their full evidence, along with footage of them speaking, will available for download here.(external link)

Dr Rawiri Waretini-Karena

Ngāti Māhanga, Ngāti Māhuta, Ngāti Hine, Ngāti Kāhu, Te Rarawa

Dr Rawiri Waretini-Karena is a lecturer and Postdoctoral Research Fellow at Te Whare Wānanga o Awanuiarangi.  His life has caused him to reflect on the experiences and impacts of intergenerational trauma stemming from colonisation, and especially arising in early legislation and policy in Aotearoa New Zealand. He reflects on the intergenerational trauma within his own whakapapa, and how colonialism, the State, and State care have contributed to that narrative. His areas of research have focussed on this and the impact on Māori in order to contextualise the deficits that the many Māori who share aspects of this narrative face within Aotearoa New Zealand.

Dr Alison Green

Ngati Awa (Ngati Pukeko), Ngati Ranginui (Ngaitamarawaho) Ngaiterangi (Ngaitukairangi)

Dr Alison Green is a researcher at Te Kotahi Research Institute, University of Waikato. She holds a PhD in Māori and Indigenous Development from the University of Waikato.  Dr Green is the recipient of the inaugural international Indigenous Misiweskamin Postdoctoral Fellowship to the University of Saskatchewan.  Her postdoctoral research compares legislation and policy for the removal of indigenous children from families in Aotearoa New Zealand and Canada.  She draws on her own life experience of closed adoption in 1958, and the racist attitudes that underpinned such practice at that time.  She reflects on her whakapapa as a means of illustrating the intergenerational impacts of colonialism, legislative settings, on her own whānau (through to current involvement with the State care system) in the context of different pathways through State care, which have led to varying impacts and outcomes, many of which are negative within members of her whānau.

Moana Jackson

Moana Jackson will give an explanation of colonisation as a process and an exploration of the symmetry of colonial intent that can be seen in the United States, Canada, Australia, and Aotearoa. Such intent is in my respectful view an important framing for the issues before the Commission. Hw will discuss of Te Tiriti o Waitangi and the fundamental treaty breach that the abuse of children in care represents. This Part of the brief also interrogates the assumed right of the Crown to take Māori children from their whānau as a similar breach of Te Tiriti. He will discuss of possible treaty-based resolution and the kind of treaty-based constitutional transformation that will ensure the future well-being of all children.

 

Media enquiries: Hannah Grant, Hannah.grant@abuseincare.org.nz; 027 298 2094