Minister Erica Stanford says the government would be looking at the question of whether gang members would be eligible to receive any compensation for abuses they suffered while in state care.
Photo: RNZ / Samuel Rillstone

The government declines to say whether gang members could be excluded from compensation for abuses they suffered while under state care.

A new redress plan for abuse survivors is currently being worked on in line with Tuesday’s formal state apology.

The three coalition parties campaigned to combat gangs and introduced a gang badge ban that will go into effect next week.

When asked on Wednesday whether gang members would be entitled to reparations, minister Erica Stanford declined to answer.

“I haven’t made any decisions and neither has the Cabinet. All of these things have to go to the Cabinet,” Stanford said.

“I’m not going to tell you today what’s in, what’s out and how much, because we haven’t made any of those decisions yet.”

Pressed again, Stanford said the question of whether gang members would be eligible was “one of the things we have to consider.”

“There are many things we have to take into account,” he said.

“We will do it through a Cabinet process.”

When asked directly if the Cabinet was discussing excluding gangs, Stanford responded: “You know very well that I can’t talk about what the Cabinet is discussing.”

He Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuses in Carepublished in July, identified a significant link between state attention and gang membership.

“Gangs provided survivors with the care (i.e., attachment and belonging) and protection that state and religious institutions should have provided,” the report says.

Register at Ngā Pitopito Kōrero, a daily newsletter curated by our editors and sent straight to your inbox every weekday.