Money best spent on children

I am opposed to a full-scale inquiry on the historical abuse in welfare homes on the grounds that the money would be better spent on our current vulnerable children.

I favour the same kind of process as was done for the Lake Alice victims. That is, the Government put aside a specified sum and asked a retired judge to meet victims and allocate the monies according to the degree of hurt as he saw it.

We do not need an inquiry because this has already occurred. Indeed it was one of the first jobs of the Human Rights Commissioner. If that report is read one will see all the appalling details of what happened.

We do not need to rehash the details. Apology and compensation are enough.

The media need to recognise that the numbers subject to abuse is a small fraction of those in state care. The vast majority were dealt with by kind, caring whanau and foster parents. The current hysteria over this issue is an insult to those thousands of good people who were and still are the backbone of care for our vulnerable children.

Finally, having been party to many welfare cases since 1970, the claims of some that they were torn from happy families is mostly romanticised clap trap. Children were removed most reluctantly and with good reason. Of course, like any human endeavour, mistakes were made but if nothing else the cost of uplifting children served as a major deterrent.

If we are to have an inquiry maybe it should be into the media’s handling of this.

John Scott Werry MD, Emeritus Professor of Child Psychiatry.