Key points:
- The Government’s boot camp pilot is set to begin on Monday.
- Prime Minister Christopher Luxon said the new approach involves whānau, experts and community organisations.
- Māori education expert Meihana Durie argued the pilot has not gone far enough to include Kaupapa Māori.
After months of political debate, the Government’s controversial boot camp pilot is set to start on Monday.
The policy had already faced fierce criticism from some, but The Royal Commission’s state care abuse report release added fuel to the fire.
One case study from the report highlighted abuse at a boot camp on Aotea Great Barrier Island – but Prime Minister Christopher Luxon has defended his Government’s approach, and said it is “very different”.
In the case study from the boot camp, it was found children were subjected to horrific sexual and physical abuse and were forced to dig trenches they thought were their own graves.
The case study said: “Despite allegations of abuse and multiple reviews of the programme throughout the 1990s and into the 2000s, children and young people continued to be sent to Te Whakapakari Youth Programme up until 2004.”
Luxon told RNZ: “I want to be very clear about that because what we’re proposing is something very very different, having read the full accounts. I’ve read all the 81 accounts of the individuals and I’ve read the five case studies of the centres as well.
“What we’re doing is something very very different. That was about unvetted staff, we have in this case senior psychologists and two social workers working with 10 young people consistently.
“That was about being isolated, we have three-month programme, nine-month at home, we involve the whānau, we involve the family, we involve other community organisations.”
However Rangitāne Māori education expert professor Meihana Durie said the policy was “detrimental”.
“The engagement with rangitāne happened quite late in the piece. I think it is also fair to say had we been engaged earlier we would have signalled significant concerns about this type of approach to engaging and working with rangitahi,” he told Breakfast.
“One of the inherent risks I think of a boot camp style approach, it’s reflective of an ideology that was popularised by the US marines in the 50s and 60s, and that presents significant concerns for us as rangitāne.”
Oranga Tamariki told RNZ earlier this week that it “acknowledges that it would have been better to have engagement with mana whenua earlier in the process”.
“We are grateful that we are now establishing the right engagement and relationship with mana whenua as we continue to progress the pilot.”
Durie said there is a significant level of pressure which is being placed on the participants in this programme, nine out of 10 of who are Māori. He asked what the implications would be if the programme failed, particularly on rangitahi Māori who are “already quite vulnerable and at risk”.
On Luxon’s comment about the boot camps being “very different”, Durie said any rangitahi programme needs to have Kaupapa Māori experts and Kaupapa Māori practitioners.
“The other thing around the design of programmes like this is the survivors of state care have a hand in the design, and information about what the critical success factors might be… and thirdly I think the voices of rangitahi themselves need to be heard.”
Durie said that to reduce generational trauma, programmes need to be set up for whānau and informed by whānau.
He added positive engagement with rangitahi works, and through positive engagement comes empowerment or whakamana, which leads to whakamārama or enlightenment.
“Education from the perspective of rangitāne and from the experience of Māori is absolutely pivotal to breaking ground here.”