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This statement was read on behalf of the Human Rights Commission by Disability Rights Commissioner, Ms Paula Tesoriero.

Dr Else is a writer, researcher and editor, and wrote the first comprehensive history of post-war adoption in New Zealand from 1944-1974.

Sir Martin is a disability rights activist.

Professor Stanley will give evidence about the nature of abuse in State care based on her extensive research for the published book The Road To Hell: State Violence against Children in Postwar New Zealand.

Evidence from Sonja Cooper and Amanda Hill on behalf of Cooper Legal will address: The beginnings of the civil claims against the State for abuse in psychiatric hospitals and Social Welfare care; How the claims grew, and how the State responded – with a mixture of ‘listening’ forums and fierce, uncompromising defence in the Court; How State mechanisms such as the Courts and Legal Aid played a role in the claims process; The role of our human rights law – both national and international – in progressing the civil claims; Settlement processes both past and current, and why they are not fit for purpose; and The disadvantages experienced by many survivors, including: less access to information; fewer resources to obtain help; often poor literacy or mental health and economic circumstances which pressure them to accept amounts of compensation which do not reflect their experiences; and What they see as the way forward for the claims process as part of a larger truth and reconciliation process.

Ms O’Hagan will provide historical context of abuse in the psychiatric system, including as it relates to Te Tiriti o Waitangi, key milestones between 1950 and 1999 and the survivor movement.

Dr Stace will give a disability perspective on the road to the Royal Commission.

Dr Brigit Mirfin-Veitch is the Director of the Donald Beasley Institute, an independent charitable trust that conducts research and education in the area of disability with a specific focus on learning (intellectual) disability.

Ngāti Kahungunu, Rangitaane Sir Kim Workman will give evidence about his early experience as a Police youth aid officer in the 1970s, and his subsequent work detailing the racial profiling of Māori and the disproportionate number of Māori in care.

As one of the members of the Nelson Māori committee and the Auckland Committee on Racial Discrimination (ACORD), Dr Sutherland spent 15 years campaigning and advocating on behalf of many children who were in State care during the 1970s and 1980s.