Apart from the addled antics of one misguided heckler, the occasion was decorously organised and carried out with suitable solemnity. Prime Minister Christopher Luxon and Labour leader Chris Hipkins gave speeches befitting of the day.
The afternoon sitting featured just one item of business, the first reading of the Responding to Abuse in Care Legislation Amendment Bill.
Although the events of the morning were weighty and significant, arguably those of the afternoon were the more important: apologies, no matter how sincere, are all very well, but it is the putting right that counts, and that is where the Bill comes in.
It was referred to the social services and community select committee, which just happens to be chaired by Southland National MP Joseph Mooney. Committee chairs usually have a speaking slot in these debates and an obviously emotional Mr Mooney clearly wanted to make his time in the House that day meaningful.
‘‘It is unbelievable that up to 250,000 children, young people and vulnerable adults were abused in State and faith-based care between 1950 and 2019; unbelievable but true,’’ Mr Mooney said.
‘‘Why that is important is because the harm it has created will have reverberated through those lives, will have affected everything for those people.
‘‘But not only that; reverberated through the foundations of our very nation because a nation should be measured by the way that it treats its most vulnerable, and a nation failed on that score.’’
During his maiden speech to the House — which he made just before some chap called Luxon — Mr Mooney referred to knowing from his life experience if parents did not have jobs kids went hungry.
‘‘I remember days on end when we had no food to eat and going to the river to look for blackberries for food.’’
He also told a powerful story about when he was 11 and he and his 9-year-old brother left home and lived for a week on the streets in Wellington.
‘‘It serves to remind me that while I’m here, I need to do my best to ensure the policies that go through this House do not have unintended consequences that hurt our country’s children.’’
Mr Mooney went to university as an adult and a young parent, studied law, and prior to entering Parliament worked both as a lawyer and a mental health advocate, fields in which he often dealt with many damaged individuals across the country. Individuals who had suffered that damage at the hands of the State, or while ostensibly in its care.
‘‘I’ve reflected for many years on why we have so much trauma in our nation, why we have such high rates of family abuse — one of the highest rates in the OECD — the highest rates of abuse to our children, one of the highest rates of youth suicide’’ Mr Mooney told the House on Tuesday.
‘‘I think we have an opportunity now, as a nation, to come together and to work incredibly hard — and it will be challenging — to address those deep structural issues that we have throughout our nation, to ensure that does not happen to those in the future. That is an enormous opportunity, and I thank those who have made that possible.’’
That opportunity was to acknowledge the failure of the State and to somehow try to make that right, thereby ensuing a future for all vulnerable people, Mr Mooney said.
‘‘I look forward to hearing from those who will submit on the Bill,’’ he concluded.
‘‘I look forward to hearing the reflections that they will share with us. I note this is but the first step of many steps to come, but it is an important step.
‘‘I look forward to the future that we can all work towards, to making sure that we can give the love and give the care that is needed to the most vulnerable people in our nation so that we can be the great nation that we are capable of being.’’
Which was, absolutely, a reason to commend this Bill to the House.
