Survivor summit speech

A speech by Lynne Pillay delivered at the SOSA Summit, Auckland

Kia ora, good afternoon.
I stand before you today as Labour Spokesperson for Victims’ Rights and like so many people here a staunch campaigner and advocate for a return to a fair and just support system for survivors of sexual abuse.
Thanks to Gudrun, and the team of organisers, for bringing us here for the very first sexual abuse survivors' summit/hui. Congratulations on taking the initiative to make this happen and to give us an opportunity to share experiences and strengthen our collective voice. I am proud to be part of it.
I want to acknowledge the survivors who are here and also those who are not. The last several months have been a gruelling time for so many – counsellors, psychotherapists, professionals working in organisations who support survivors, advocates and even members of parliament. But it has been the hardest for survivors of sexual abuse who have been re-victimised by a cruel experiment which has had terrible consequences and has deprived them of the support they need and deserve. Thank you for your courage in being prepared to tell your stories – it has been effective and it has reinforced why the government MUST be challenged and held to account.
Can I make a special mention of the ACC Sensitive Claims panel who I understand have made the time to be here today. Former Mental Health Commissioner Dr Barbara Disley, Clinical psychologist Clive Banks, tireless community worker Ruth Herbert, and Professor Graham Mellsop. Thank you for being here. Thank you for listening. I am hearing positive things and I am cautiously optimistic. 
I do want to clarify issues with respect to the Review that relates to my Labour colleagues and me. Minister Nick Smith wrote to us earlier this year and asked us if we would like to view the terms of reference in confidence. We declined. We wrote back to the Minister asking for an urgent return to the status quo as we had enough real evidence and statistical information to know the new ACC-created pathway was not working, and that a restoration of something that did work was the first priority. We maintained that a review could be done in parallel while sexual abuse survivors could access help through the old process. Furthermore, we objected to being involved in any Terms of Reference which would be ‘in secret or in confidence’ – especially when connected to an issue that many people have fought for transparency and truth on.
Labour’s objections have been around the evidence, or the evident truths that survivors and sexual abuse experts alerted us to late last year. Their stories of frustration, desperation, and rage have continued and escalated since. We didn’t pluck this out of a hat and we have always been aware that we are dealing with a very sensitive issue and with people who must be treated with respect and dignity.
Last year there was the consultation with the sector on ACC’s ‘new pathway’ for sensitive claims. We assumed that consultation and the pathway was around the Massey Guidelines of 2008. Soon after, experts in the sector started contacting me with concerns. Many were very worried. There was a two week delay in the introduction of the new ACC-created pathway and finally, in October last year, a petition to delay implementation. 
The New Zealand Association of Psychotherapists (NZAP), the New Zealand Association of Counsellors (NZAC), the New Zealand Association of Christian Counsellors (NZACC), the New Zealand Association of Social Workers (NZASW) and almost 4000 people signed that petition. They stated:

All professionals involved in the treatment of these clients in New Zealand agree: that these proposed changes are clinically unsound, and contrary to ACC’s statutory requirement to provide treatment that conforms "to best clinical practice".
Under the changes ACC want to make it harder to get funding by making a diagnosis of mental illness a requirement. Furthermore they propose limiting funding to only sixteen sessions.
They also expect clients to disclose the assault(s) and then wait, with no counselling to happen until ACC has approved the claim. This process of approval currently takes weeks, sometimes months.
ACC claim to follow a recent research report titled “Massey Guidelines, 2008” yet have mis-interpreted the research report and used it to justify reduced funding for treatment.

At that time David Parker, Labour Spokesperson for ACC, and I met with Nick Smith, Dr Peter Jansen and ACC Officials to discuss our concerns about the ACC imposed pathway. We pushed to delay the implementation on the basis that the pathway was at completely at odds with the Massey Guidelines of which the first principle was about client safety. In fact the pathway had been described by many as unsafe, dangerous and would only serve to re-traumatise survivors. It became obvious that there was never going to be a meeting of minds and that the purpose of the meeting was to persuade us that the ACC pathway was in the best interest of all. I thought it would be helpful to point out to Dr Jansen that like me, a former nurse, as a GP he had no real understanding of this highly specialist work. It wasn’t helpful – Dr Jansen told me he was getting very angry. I was very tempted to advise him to see a counsellor!
Sadly, our combined efforts were unable to stop the introduction and the worries and concerns about what would happen after 27 October 2009, depressingly, came true.
Here we are seven days short of eight months later and the ACC-created pathway is still with us, with all the fallout – hundreds of counsellors and psychotherapists who are unable to do this work as they believe it is unsafe and unethical, the harsh system which discourages people from seeking help, for those in the system the moving of the goal posts so that virtually no one is eligible for treatment.
Examples include declining counselling for children who have been raped, rape victims still waiting after months for confirmation of counselling, people having to be deemed to have a mental illness to receive any assistance, the ludicrous situation where a survivor states that she is coping and is diagnosed as “in remission from depression” and is therefore ineligible for counselling – that same woman ending up in critical care with an overdose days later.  And the list goes on and on.
All of this was entirely preventable because people had predicted and warned of what would happen.
There has been a campaign to confuse and undermine around the new ACC-created pathway. The Minister is the biggest culprit. He has answered questions saying the ACC-created pathway was the Massey Guidelines, or based on the Massey guidelines. He has claimed all sorts of endorsements of the ACC-created pathway. First from the Royal NZ College of GPs – who said later it was the Massey Guidelines evidence they were welcoming. He claimed the RANZ College of Psychiatrists endorsed the ACC-created pathway when they had not. He backed away somewhat when Massey University wrote this letter:

Sir,
You reported on October 28 that ACC Minister Nick Smith says the changes to rules for sex abuse claims were developed by Massey University. This is not correct.
The new ACC guidelines for sensitive claims, which ACC calls "clinical pathways" were developed by ACC itself. Staff of Massey University did develop sexual abuse and mental injury practice guidelines, which were launched last year and have been used successfully and without controversy by sensitive claims counsellors throughout New Zealand since then.
James Gardiner
Communications Director, Massey University, Auckland
October 29 2009

I often regret resorting to statistics because I know there is a person behind every statistic. I know there are families and their supporters and they are not counted in any statistic. What these statistics measure is the most personal declaration from a person who finds the courage to say the words "I was abused". Often they have marshalled support to take charge of their lives after others have taken control over their bodies. Statistics don’t mention the people who have not yet had the courage to make the first step. In statistics they do not yet exist.
So I apologise that I must quote from statistics but I am trying to hold the Minister and ACC accountable and gain documentation from a Government on behalf of the people. I submit Parliamentary questions to the Minister on a regular basis but I am appalled that official statistics have become increasingly more difficult to obtain under this Minister for ACC.
Around 200-250 people used to be approved for ACC-funded counselling each month in New Zealand prior to the introduction of the ACC-created pathway. 
Let me tell you what happened when I asked the Minister in April this year. I asked how many people had been approved for ACC-funded counselling in February 2010 and here is the answer from Nick Smith (Written question 01771 2010): Six people. When Phil Goff took this up with him in Question Time in Parliament he huffed and said that those figures were provisional, "it is double that now". Well, we did the maths ... 12 people. Twelve people can start their journey to heal. But now he will not update these figures. We suspect the new system is creating its own internal embarrassment especially as it has introduced two additional data categories entitled "Awaiting necessary external information" and "Under assessment for claims decision by ACC". Whatever happened to "Approved", "Pending" and "Declined"? Most people seem to be languishing in these new categories and the Minister has yet to provide the updated figures.
Just this week (2 June) Nick Smith responded to a repeated written question from me asking for updated figures from November 2009:

Question: What are the numbers of sensitive claims, lodged, accepted, declined, awaiting external information, under assessment by ACC for claims decision and duplicate, by region for November 2009?
Answer: I am unable to provide the Member with a full and accurate response within the required timeframe.  The information will be supplied to the Member as soon as it is available.

I would have thought figures from November 2009 would be available. Why on earth would they not be? 
But here we are in a room where there is transparency and truth. If any of you wish to look I have brought along with me all the oral questions Labour MPs have asked Nick Smith. If nothing else the answers are consistent although not true – the pathway is supported by professionals and it is based on the Massey Guidelines.
Whenever we feel thwarted or outraged by these sorts of answers or lack of answers Phil Goff, Annette King, David Parker and I continue to come back to the evidence of people’s experiences. We must honour people’s experiences and keep demanding that their voices be heard. That is why we raise this injustice time and time again in Parliament, in the media and in communities. It’s neither fair nor just and it certainly has not been transparent or truthful.
Truth and transparency are vital aspects of all of our professional and personal lives. It is what we strive for; we may miss the mark sometimes, but we come back to the first principles that the ‘truth must come out’ and ‘sunlight is the best disinfectant’. Breaches of trust range from minor, through to offences from which many find it almost impossible to find their way back from. But the human journey has been characterised by many stories of redemption and triumph over adversity. The people in this room know what I am talking about. I commend you and I along with my colleagues will continue to fight alongside you to restore a system where survivors of sexual abuse are able to access the support the need and deserve.
Thank you.