Govt agencies no longer meet over Gloriavale

Ten government agencies monitoring the Gloriavale community are no longer required to meet fortnightly.

The all-of-Government response to the remote West Coast community, looking at issues raised by leavers, employment and education investigations and criminal court cases is no longer active since the end of last year.

It comes as a victim of child sex abuse in Gloriavale has called for the Government to take action to protect children in the Christian community, saying the court has proved multiple times that it “isn’t a safe place”.

The 10 government agencies were involved in a Gloriavale-West Coast Stakeholder Group, which included police, WorkSafe and Oranga Tamariki, in a joint response set up in August 2022, reporting regularly to the previous Government.

The current Government’s move to disestablish the group has been met with concern from the leavers’ support group and the opposition who say agencies need to work together to combat continuing concerns and risks for those living in the community.

The previous Government asked for five key outcomes: community members work without the threat of penalty, receive minimum legal entitlements, children have their rights upheld – including receiving an education and not being exploited for commercial gain – no tolerance of serious harm including physical and sexual abuse and those who want to leave Gloriavale could do so freely.

MBIE’s workplace relations and safety policy general manager Anna Clark said the group’s mandate from Cabinet came to an end on December 31.

“Since August 2022, agencies working alongside the Gloriavale leadership have made progress towards supporting the community to achieve the five outcomes,” she said.

Agencies would continue working with Gloriavale for the foreseeable future, and take a collaborative approach where it made sense to do so.

Labour Inspectorate head of compliance and enforcement Simon Humphries said issues identified at Gloriavale remained a concern and the Inspectorate was investigating and working with the leaders to educate them on their legal responsibilities.

Gloriavale Leavers’ Support Trust manager Liz Gregory said the meeting of Government agencies signalled to the country that there were some significant issues of concern around Gloriavale, their culture and practices. She believed Gloriavale failed to meet most of the five key outcomes the Government set for them.

She hoped the meetings were not just a “talk fest” and believed the group missed vital information by not inviting leavers and the Leavers’ Support Trust to be involved.

However, she called on the new Government to “actually do” something.