Webb DuncanHon Dr DUNCAN WEBB (Labour—Christchurch Central): Thank you Mr Speaker. I was flabbergasted today when I heard Brooke van Velden the Minister for Workplace Relations and Safety saying that a coordinating agency for the protection of vulnerable people was added bureaucracy". Gloriavale is not some quant outdated community. It's an oppressive backward harmful and evil institution run by a small group of controlling men. They have the temerity to call themselves shepherds. There are 300 children or there abouts at Gloriavale and that Government is disestablishing an agency whose job it was to coordinate a series of departments to address the harms that are going on there. Progress has been made in dismantling the evil that goes on there. Assistance was being given prosecutions were being made and people were being assisted to leave. A Public Service commissioner was tasked with coordinating that work and that Government is abandoning that work because it's additional bureaucracy. It's shameful.Basic human rights are not a priority for this Government. Children are not a priority for this Government. Preventing an evil blot on the West Coast from spreading its hatefulness is not a priority for that Government. It's a sign of an incompetent Government—a Government that doesn't care and a Government that's too obsessed with its own chaos to look after people.The history of Gloriavale is a litany of harm perpetrated at the highest level. The list of crimes prosecuted and convicted is long but we know it's the tip of the iceberg. In 1995 the very founder was convicted of three charges of indecent assault against a 19-year-old. The overseeing shepherd Howard Temple is currently facing 27 charges of sexual offending. In 2023 Jonathon Benjamin was convicted of 26 charges of sexual offending. In 2021 Vigilant Standtrue pleaded guilty to three charges of assaulting three boys. In 2019 an unnamed member of their community was convicted of indecent assault. In 2019 Just Standfast was convicted of sexual conduct with a girl under 12—and the list goes on.People like Clem Ready who have left the cult talk about the prevalence of sexual offending the concealment of that offending the exploitation of women premised on abuse and submission. These are matters which have been prised out of the cult. What has not seen the light of day horrifies me and that Government is turning the other way.This evil community sets out its beliefs in "What we believe". At its heart it doesn't recognise the authority of the New Zealand Government. It dictates that the church does not hand sinners over to secular authorities for judgment. Abuse and subjugation are built into the very fabric of this community. And it's got a medieval approach to the place of women. And it says in that document women must "not question or correct the men." They must "submit themselves unto their own Christian husbands" "show a meek and a quiet spirit". Pervading the entire document is an approach to sex which is deeply concerning. It says "God made men and women to marry once they reach sexual maturity and not … some arbitrary age." Look we need to recognise that the inmates at Gloriavale are stranded. They have no means physical financial or emotional to leave. In a lesson to young people are required to sign this declaration of commitment where they commit to living there for the rest of their lives giving over all their money and property to the shepherds and they're indoctrinated to believe that if they do leave they do so at the peril of their soul. They're cut off from families and loved ones. When they leave they leave with nothing. No bank account no documents no identity. They don't even know how the world works. They're refugees in their own country. And this Government has defunded the coordinating agency because it's added bureaucracy. It's absolutely shameful."