Government bars journalist from abuse apology at Parliament

By Tim Murphy, Newsroom

Journalist Aaron Smale appearing as a witness at the royal commission. Photo: Newsroom / screenshot

Since this stoy was published, the government has now reversed its decision to bar journalist Aaron Smale from the abuse apology at Parliament.

Parliament's Speaker has barred leading investigative journalist Aaron Smale from attending the official Crown apology at Parliament to victims of abuse in state care.

Smale, who has covered for eight years the abuse of children and others in state institutions, and the Crown's legal strategy to exhaust survivors legally to save money and reputations, will not be accredited to report for Newsroom on Tuesday when the apology is made.

The decision has offended one prominent abuse survivor, known as Earl White, who says: "It is a disgrace that the government is penalising someone who uncovered the fact that so many people in power covered up sexual abuse like my own."

A lawyer who has pursued justice for survivors for years, Sonja Cooper, told Newsroom: "What Aaron Smale has done in exposing the lies and cover ups by the Crown should mean he has a front row invite to the apology, not effectively a muzzling order."

Speaker Gerry Brownlee declined the accreditation application, which met the Press Gallery's usual criteria, after Newsroom had received repeated queries from Beehive officials about Smale's likely attendance and previous interactions with ministers.

In July, after Prime Minister Christopher Luxon initially apologised in Parliament to victims and admitted some had endured 'torture' at the state's hands, he held a press conference to address the tabling of the final report of the royal commission into abuse in state care.

After that press conference, which Smale attended with other Newsroom and gallery journalists, the Beehive complained to Newsroom about his persistent and forceful questioning of the prime minister, with suggestions it was rude and police at the event had been watching the reporter.

It had followed an interaction in Palmerston North when the government touted its boot camps for young offenders and Smale pressed Children's Minister Karen Chhour over whether it had been appropriate to associate the memory of the Māori Battalion with the new youth justice programme.

Newsroom responded to government officials that the questioning at the press conference was forceful and unforgiving but not more than that, and ministers should not expect to be protected from feeling 'uncomfortable' by media questioning.

A fortnight ago, Beehive staffers inquired of Newsroom if Smale would be attending the formal apology this Tuesday. Newsroom notified the office of the minister overseeing the response to the royal commission, Erica Stanford, that he would, but to write an observational piece - not quiz ministers.

The Speaker's accreditation decision, conveyed both to Newsroom and to the Press Gallery, is silent on the reasons why, other than to tell the organisation representing Parliament's journalists that it was over issues with Smale's "conduct on a prior occasion".

The gallery chair, Newstalk ZB political editor Jason Walls, confirmed the gallery had not had a complaint previously over Smale's questioning of Luxon.

The Prime Minister's office would not comment, other than to say the decision was for the Speaker.

Smale, who has won two Voyager investigative journalism awards for his inquiries into the aftermath of torture at Lake Alice, is puzzled by the government's action.

"In the eight years of covering the abuse of children in the state's custody I've always tried to do two things. First, give the victims the dignity of being heard and putting their voices front and centre. But equally I've tried to expose the multitude of ways that the Crown has silenced victims and dodged responsibility for the harm it has inflicted on tens of thousands of children.

"In my view, this decision is just another small example of the Crown dodging responsibility and its ingrained habit of avoiding accountability.

"What is it that the prime minister and his people are really uncomfortable about?"

The barring of Smale is likely to represent a wider government sensitivity about security issues when hosting a group of survivors at Parliament, some of whom were later imprisoned or joined gangs.

And the government is not ready, despite a royal commission report on redress being out for two years, to couple Tuesday's apology with any real detail on compensation or measures to address the injustice.

Luxon, Stanford and others will be aware (a survivors' group has already put out a press release condemning the failure to deal with redress) that tensions will be high and there is the potential for a historic day to be marred by negative reaction from those at the centre of the whole issue.

Smale has reported for Newsroom and other organisations for years on the abuse and the interference in survivors' cases for justice. In October Newsroom published a five-part series analysing the extent of the Crown cover-up identified by the Royal Commission.

Before he or Newsroom learned of the Speaker's decision late on Friday, he had already written a lengthy essay on what Tuesday's apology also needed to do to avoid further injustices. It is published today, here.

The survivor known in court records as Earl White - whose bid for justice was turned down in a High Court judgment that has restricted claims from others in the years since - reacted strongly to news of Smale's exclusion from the apology at Parliament.

"I find this decision really upsetting. It's like something out of a dictatorship. Aaron has fought to tell the truth about my case for almost 10 years.

"This government is happy to welcome into Parliament those people, like the current Solicitor-General, who fought to deny my sexual abuse had happened, yet will bar a journalist like Aaron, who simply told the truth.

"He has given a voice to some of the most vulnerable people in our society. It is a disgrace that the government is penalising someone who uncovered the fact that so many people in power covered up sexual abuse like my own and, by their actions, caused unnecessary additional trauma," White said.

"This decision offends me and should offend all survivors".

Sonja Cooper, of Cooper Legal which has represented survivors for years, told Newsroom her firm was "deeply concerned about the decision of the prime minister to bar Māori journalist Aaron Smale from attending Parliament for tomorrow's historic apology by state officials.

"More than almost any other New Zealand journalist Aaron Smale has worked tirelessly to expose the scope of true horror of abuse suffered by state survivors of abuse and the extent to which this has disproportionately impacted Māori.

"He has told the stories of the most marginalised victims, who had previously been unseen and unheard, including gang members whose abuse at the hands of the state and dislocation from whānau and te Ao Māori principles was the genesis of the gangs forming," she said.

"Aaron Smale has also unapologetically exposed the extent to which current and past State officials and governments have tried to bury information and adopted tactics to ensure that survivors would not receive justice.

"He has been deeply involved with the Royal Commission from day one, so the decision to bar him from attending Parliament as a journalist looks to Cooper Legal like the kind of censorship we would expect from the United States or Russia," Cooper added.

"Categorising Aaron Smale's questions as 'hostile' rather than 'probing' or 'difficult' as the reason for barring him is political rhetoric. Complaining that Aaron Smale asks difficult questions is a testament to his journalism.

"It is the media's role to hold both the state and officials to account. What Aaron Smale has done in exposing the lies and cover ups by the Crown should mean he has a front row invite to the apology, not effectively a muzzling order."

- Newsroom

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