Swarbrick ChlöeCHLÖE SWARBRICK (Co-Leader—Green): Tēnā koe e te Māngai. Tēnā koutou e te Whare. Nau mai haere mai e te whānau.I just wanted to acknowledge the weights of history and of resilience and the potential for healing that currently exists palpably in this room. Words cannot adequately convey the systemic failures and the injustices perpetuated by the State but words do matter. They are something to be held accountable to. And so joining with all of Parliament let it be clear that we in the Greens are so so deeply sorry.I want to acknowledge all of the survivors and their whānau who are here. I want to acknowledge those survivors who told their stories in public and in private in contributing to this royal commission of inquiry. I want to acknowledge the commissioners and the many kaimahi who made this happen today.I also want to join in acknowledging the Rt Hon Jacinda Ardern and the Hon Grant Robertson who drove this in the last Government and this Government for picking it up. I also want to acknowledge who should be here giving this speech the Hon Marama Davidson who has long worked with survivors and who many will know is presently in cancer treatment and recovery but it is hopefully her fire for compassion and justice that I will bring to this kōrero today.Last night our MPs heard from a few survivors and supporters who reached out asking if there was any formal welcome to Parliament and when we couldn't find any we decided to do something small ourselves. And I wanted to acknowledge those who joined with us and shared their stories this morning. There I spoke to one survivor Gary who handed me personally a letter to hand to our Prime Minister. I want to tell Gary that I have done just that two hours ago now—you're welcome. I also asked survivors what they wanted me to say in this speech. Broadly they said that they wanted two things on record. Firstly the apology and secondly what redress and justice actually looks like. Today's apology is long-awaited.I want to acknowledge that this morning many survivors told us that they believe that this apology should have happened on their terms and in their turf not in this institution which has caused so much harm. I hope that is the Government's next step to come to survivors not to continue to ask survivors to come to us.Now an apology means acknowledging what happened. It means taking responsibility and it means change. It means that the State at worst helped to facilitate and at best was complicit in the abuse of so many of the hundreds of thousands of New Zealanders who passed through State and faith-based care institutions between 1950 and 1999. But survivors today wanted me to be clear that that abuse did not stop in 1999 and there are some who continue to experience it to this day.The royal commission inquiry itself tells us that—and I quote—People were more likely to be placed in State and faith-based residential and institutional care if they had experienced poverty family crisis or violence parental abuse and neglect or were deaf disabled and mentally distressed." They also said and I quote "The effects of colonisation urbanisation the breakdown of social structure and racism saw Māori more likely to be placed in State care." The royal commission tells us that institutional care was overused for deaf disabled and mentally distressed children young people and adults. It tells us that through the 1950s and the 1980s tamariki rangatahi pākeke and wāhine Māori as well as Pacific peoples were all disproportionately targeted monitored and therefore placed into care by the police and other State agencies. It tells us that through the 1950s and 70s many unmarried and pregnant girls and women were placed in faith-based homes often having their babies taken away from them and adopted out in a way that was discriminatory and for Māori legally severed their ties to whakapapa and identity.All of this underscores what almost doesn't need to be said but must be if we are to be serious about this apology in this place. In this Parliament the attitudes that we have about the humanity and the worthiness of people and of groups of people inform and create policies that do and can cause real world harm. That harm did not just happen in State care in the form of immense and devastating physical and sexual abuse. It stayed with the people and in some cases it multiplied. That harm was the seed that grew gangs in this country and the State responded largely by compounding that harm. The most obvious place that you will see the impacts of that today is in our prisons which as we know and the data tells us also fails victims and offenders by producing even more crime not less.Now there's a proverb that goes something like: the child who is not embraced by the village will burn it down to feel its warmth. Some of course will rightfully point out that not everyone who has been subject to abuse in State care has ended up down a darker life course. Few may try and argue to rationalise that there's no need for us to change anything about the so-called criminal justice system. Indeed many members of this House continue to call for harsher penalties more prison beds and more prisoners. Something has got to give.At one point or another we must look in the mirror away from the heat of knee-jerk political campaigns and the basic question for this House is whether we are serious about transformational change to stop harm at the hand of the State. If we are not or rather if we are we need to reconcile that this abuse and the consequences of this abuse are not historic. That abuse and harm cannot be siloed. It is built into the fabric of the way that our State has worked since colonisation in this country established this Parliament.That should not be a controversial statement. We should be brave enough to reflect on the ramifications of decisions made historically and to this day to understand how that shapes the world around us. We can own our history and we can do better. The buck stops here. We either do something or we don't. We either centre the pleas of survivors or we don't. We either tinker or we transform. Now we here in the Greens can commit wholesale to the foundational recommendation of the report to work in a cross-party manner to establish and to work through the recommendations of the inquiry.That brings me to the point of redress. Of course there can and there must be financial compensation for those whose lives that State and faith-based care upended. But more so than that and as we heard this morning survivors deserve and want real justice. That means that this apology must transcend into ensuring that no people are ever subjected to this at the hand of the State ever again. To get really real and frank what that means and what survivors this morning told us is no military-style boot camps. It means retention of section 7AA of the Oranga Tamariki Act at the very least. It means upholding and honouring and ensuring that the fabric of our State honours Te Tiriti o Waitangi. It means a complete transformation of our criminal justice system as Turuki! Turuki! the safe and effective justice review chaired by the late great Chester Borrows demanded of us. It means if we are to do things differently here we need to genuinely do things differently here.We are here to work with survivors and across the aisle to ensure that this inquiry tabled today represents the first step in a story of restorative justice. To victims and survivors this is something that you should hold all of us here politically but also personally responsible for. An apology can never just be words alone. Change and action must follow. For at the end of the day what is the most important thing in the world? He tangata he tangata he tangata—it is people it is people it is people."