Lake Alice survivor Karilyn Wildbore and family. Photo: RNZ/Jimmy Ellingham
A senior government minister has refused to apologise to a Lake Alice abuse survivor for telling the United Nations more than 10 years ago that there was no state torture in New Zealand.
Then-Justice Minister Judith Collins made the comments in 2014, a decade before the government first used the word 'torture' in relation to the Lake Alice child and adolescent unit in the 1970s.
She said she was acting on UN reports from the time.
The government now says that children and young people who suffered electric shocks or painful paralysing injections at the Rangitīkei institution are eligible for redress, because they were tortured.
Included in that is the offer of $150,000 rapid redress payments, which Levin woman Karilyn Wildbore has decided to take up.
In March, she also asked for her compensation to include an apology from Collins, now Attorney-General and Minister of Defence, for her 2014 comments.
When questioned about New Zealand's obligations under UN conventions, particularly from the Iranian delegate, Collins said: "In response to Iran, I can advise that there is no state torture in New Zealand."
In a letter to Wildbore this week, Collins said she would not apologise for the comments.
"My response to Iran's remarks reflected the findings of the United Nations subcommittee on the prevention of torture, which had visited New Zealand in April 2013.
"In its report, provided to New Zealand in November 2013, the subcommittee found 'no evidence of torture or physical ill-treatment' in places of detention in New Zealand."
Collins said she acknowledged the experiences of Wildbore and others at the Lake Alice unit.
"However, I don't believe that what I told the UPR [universal periodic review] in 2014, in response to a remark from Iran, was wrong.
"As such, I am unable to provide the apology Ms Wildbore has requested."
Wildbore said she was not surprised.
"Denial's the name of the game at the moment," she said. "No matter what you do, people don't want to be responsible."
Wildbore said Collins should have known about what had happened at Lake Alice, especially since the first compensation payments were made more than a decade before 2014.
Only last year, the government began using the word 'torture' to describe the unit's treatment of children and young people, under lead psychiatrist Dr Selwyn Leeks.
The $150,000 rapid payments are part of a $22.68 million package for Lake Alice Survivors announced late last year.
Survivors who received electric shocks or paralysing injections could either opt for these payments or head to arbitration.
Collins' office was contacted for comment.
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