(NEW ZEALAND)
Scoop [Wellington, New Zealand]
May 25, 2026
By SNAP Aotearoa New Zealand
SNAP Aotearoa warns proposed redress laws could create categories of “deserving” and “undeserving” survivors.
The Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP) in Aotearoa says the Government’s proposed Redress System for Abuse in Care Bill, which has now passed its second reading in Parliament, risks excluding some survivors from financial redress on the basis of later offending, creating what the organisation described as a discriminatory and survivor-excluding system.
Under the Bill, survivors of abuse in State or faith-based care who have served prison sentences for serious offending may be excluded from receiving redress. Clause 9 of the Bill provides that a “serious violent or sexual offender is not eligible for financial redress unless the redress officer appointed under section 10 determines under section 19 that financial redress should be made available to the person.”
SNAP says the policy is discriminatory, cruel, and a betrayal of the Royal Commission into Abuse in Care’s findings.
“Many survivors who end up in prison were first victims who were ignored and abandoned after being brutalised in State and Church care,” said SNAP national leader Dr Christopher Longhurst. “The abuse came first. The trauma came first. Now the Government risks abandoning them again.”
SNAP says the Government cannot claim to support survivors while simultaneously creating categories of “acceptable” and “unacceptable” victims.
“Survivors do not stop being survivors because their trauma later exploded into addiction, violence, mental illness, homelessness, or offending.”
The organisation says the proposed legislation directly contradicts the spirit of the Royal Commission’s Whanaketia report and undermines New Zealand’s obligations under international human rights standards.
“Human dignity is not conditional. Human rights are not conditional. Redress is not supposed to be a moral purity test,” Longhurst reported.
SNAP also warned that allowing a redress officer discretionary power to decide whether certain survivors are “worthy” of redress creates a dangerous and deeply subjective system.
“Justice requires equitable access to redress. If Section 19 requires case-by-case assessment, the legislation should clearly define the criteria under which survivors with offending histories are evaluated.”
SNAP says the proposed Bill is deficient in this area. Under Section 20, no reference is made to people who are both survivors of abuse and offenders.
SNAP says the Government’s justification — that compensating serious offenders could damage public confidence — avoids the complexity of the issue.
“The truth is State and Church abuse helped create many of the broken lives politicians now want to distance themselves from,” Longhurst said.
SNAP is calling on Parliament to remove the presumption from the Bill and implement a non-discriminatory, survivor-centred redress system.
“You cannot claim to care about survivors while abandoning the ones most visibly destroyed by abuse. Convicted offenders are held accountable for the crimes they committed. But they should not continue paying for crimes committed against them,” Longhurst clarified.
“If this Bill passes in its current form, the New Zealand Government risks perpetuating the very harms the redress system is intended to address.”