Labour has promised survivors of abuse in state care an independent redress system. Its fiscal plan doesn’t mention it once, let alone cost it.
Social development spokesperson Willow-Jean Prime has in fact made the commitment more than once. She made the promise before Labour released their plan. So what's the excuse?
Now let’s be very clear here. Survivors are owed compensation. The fact our government played a role in the abuse of children is disgusting, and to our national shame. The Royal Commission's findings on the Crown's failures were damning.
The current Government has already set aside funding to keep the existing redress process running, which on current track would amount to $599 million over the next four years across a handful of agencies. Whether that is enough to meet the Commission’s recommendations is not clear, but it fails on at least one front.
Which is where Labour’s promise comes in. They’ve pledged repeatedly to create an independent, integrated, one-stop-shop redress process. And while noble, that’s not free.
Figures released this week under the Official Information Act show this alone would cost between $98.5 million and $150.5 million over four years. That’s a lot of money, but it's certainly not an unachievable amount given the tens of billions of dollars in new spending Labour are promising. Yet they haven’t set aside a single cent to pay for this.
Promising survivors justice without setting the money aside isn’t compassion. It’s playing politics with people who the state has already failed all their lives. That is unfair, and it is cruel.
But it doesn’t stop there.
Labour have also promised to work with survivors to implement the Royal Commission’s broader recommendations. Again, official documents released this week put a cost to that.
Depending on which redress package the government pursues, this could cost anywhere between $1.30 billion and $1.62 billion. That’s an additional $704 million to $1.03 billion over and above spending on the government’s current track.
At the top end, that's $495 for every household in New Zealand over the next four years. These aren’t rounding errors, and that sort of gap can’t just be magicked away.
Labour's fiscal plan would suggest they’ve costed making amends at a grand total of zero dollars and zero cents. They have set no money aside to pay for it. But they could have.
For one example, Labour’s plan to undo most of National’s planned public service cuts comes with a $1.96 billion price tag. More than enough to pay for this, with more than $900 million spare. In fact, even just scrapping the second tranche of cuts’ reversal would save $1.18 billion, $100 million more than is needed to pay for their promise.
It’s not that Labour couldn’t put the money aside in their plan. It’s that they have chosen not to. Having your cake and eating it too, while dangling redress in front of survivors, is deplorable.
Labour will say the shape of redress should be worked out with survivors, and that putting a number on it now would be premature. And it is true that survivors should have a say in how the system works.
But Labour haven’t left themselves the headroom.
Excluding redress for survivors, we’ve costed their policies at $18 billion more than they claim. Their $10.97 billion pay equity promise alone eats the vast majority of any operating allowance, and the rest is blown on one policy or another.
Labour have shown elsewhere that they can put a cost to their commitments. Their failure to do the same here raises serious doubts about how much thought sits behind this promise, and how much resolve there is to delivering it.
For people who have already waited too long for justice, a promise must come with a credible plan to deliver.
