189. The first 20 years of the Inquiry period involved increased urban migration, assimilationist State policies and the beginning of the modern care settings network. This was during a period of relative economic and social stability with strong population growth due to the baby boom following the Second World War. Care settings grew both in the range of settings and the numbers of children, young people and adults taken and placed in them. Māori and Pacific Peoples were increasingly placed in all care settings, becoming over-represented.

Te urutau a te Māori ki te noho tāone
Māori adapting to an urban way of life

190. By 1966, 62 percent of Māori lived in towns and cities compared to 9 percent in 1929. Within a few decades, Māori had become “a predominately urban people”.[231] This was due to a combination of factors, including the impact of government policy on Māori farming, growing numbers of jobs in the cities and, after 1962, encouragement from the State to move to the cities.

191. Throughout the 1950s, many Māori raised issues with the way their mana and organisational capacities were being undermined by the State.[232] At the same time, Māori were adapting State initiatives to their own ends. By mid-century, the tribal committee system under the Māori Social and Economic Advancement Act 1945 was achieving results in areas such as improvements to meeting houses, marae complexes, sports facilities and interactions with the Department of Māori Affairs.[233]

192. The 1945 Act also provided for Māori Wardens, volunteers who were authorised to enforce “order and regularity”. Wardens came to play a significant role in the life of whānau, hapū iwi and hāpori Māori by, organising events, acting as intermediaries with government agencies and assisting with legal matters.[234]

193. The State encouraged organisations such as Māori Wardens and the Māori Women’s Welfare League in part because it saw them as a way to help Māori adjust to life in the city. Support could be withdrawn if they were considered to have gone outside their official briefs.[235]

194. A wave of laws were passed in the 1950s aimed at further assimilation. These included:

• the Māori Purposes Act 1950, which allowed the leasing of any Māori lands considered unproductive
• the abolition of the Māori Land Boards, and the introduction of the Māori Affairs Act 1953, which gave the Māori Trustee the power to buy interests in land which the State deemed to be uneconomic[236]
• Māori customary marriage being invalidated in 1953
• the Adoption Act 1955 weakened customary adoption (whāngai) by promoting secrecy about family origins and legally severing any links between birth and adoptive families[237]
• in 1962 the Adoption Act was amended to remove the Māori Land Court’s jurisdiction in adoptions and applicants were forced to go to the more formal Magistrates’ Court.[238]

195. In 1960, then Prime Minister Walter Nash asked the Department of Māori Welfare to do a stocktake of the state of Māoridom to inform future policy.[239] The review was charged with recommending changes to assist departmental operations and the State’s immediate, medium-term, and ultimate goals for Māori.

196. The resulting report, known as the Hunn Report, made it clear that Māori were essentially marginalised and continued to lag behind Pākehā in all socioeconomic indicators.[240] The State saw increased attempts at assimilation and integration as the solution. A number of Māori commentators criticised the Hunn Report for failing to recognise tino rangatiratanga. The Māori Synod of the Presbyterian Church challenged the report’s assumption that it was Māori, rather than Pākehā, who needed to adjust.[241]

Te hunga Turi, whaikaha me te hunga i rongo i te wairangitanga
Deaf, disabled people and people who experienced mental distress

Te whaikaha
Disability

197. From the 1940s, there was a growing public concern about disabled people entering institutions both nationally and internationally. In 1949, the Intellectually Disabled Children’s Parent’s Association was founded and advocated for schools and community facilities to keep their children and young people out of institutions.[242]

198. The Minister of Education, Hon Ronald Algie, set up a Consultative Committee in 1951 to review education for disabled people. This was led by Dr Robert Aitken and the resulting report became known as the Aitken Report. The Aitken Report promoted putting disabled children, young people and adults into large-scale facilities (approximately 400 to 500 people) as the best model of care.[243]

199. The New Zealand Branch of the British Medical Association released a report in 1959 (known as the Burns Report) criticising the State’s policy of putting people into institutions. The report instead advocated for community-based care.

200. The Burns Report described the State’s policies towards children with learning disabilities as “based on outworn and outmoded ideas” and doing little to improve the lives of disabled people.[244] It was particularly critical of the practice of admitting very young children into institutions.[245]

201. Despite this growing public and professional concern, health policy for disabled people from 1952 to 1972 largely followed the direction of the Aitken Report.[246] Following its publication, and until the early 1970s, large-scale institutions became the State’s preferred option for housing disabled people, particularly those with learning disabilities.[247]

202. In 1967 the Government set up a royal commission of inquiry to look at developing a scheme to ensure people who acquired a disability had fair and equal access to income support, care and treatment.[248] The resulting report, known as the Woodhouse Report, recommended a public insurance scheme where people would get ongoing care and support from a single system, no matter how they acquired their impairment (whether through an accident or otherwise), what their age was, or whether they were working.[249] The Woodhouse Report eventually led to the establishment of the Accident Compensation Corporation (ACC) in 1974. The original recommendations in the Woodhouse Report were for the system to include support for people whose impairments did not result from an accident – these were never fully implemented, and the resulting system created ongoing inequities between people disabled by accident, and people with who acquired their disability in other ways.[250]

Te wairangitanga
Mental distress

203. Rates of admissions to psychiatric hospitals peaked in Aotearoa New Zealand during the 1940s and the 1950s, a time when rates of institutionalisation for mental distress among non-Māori were among the highest in the world.[251]

204. At the end of 1953, there was a combined total of 9,742 people in the country’s psychiatric hospitals – a population average of 478 per 100,000 of population.[252] These numbers fell over the next few decades, partly due to the introduction of new and effective drugs to treat common conditions such as depression and schizophrenia, as well as the growing popularity of individual and group therapy.[253]

Te hunga Turi
Deaf

205. Kelston School for Deaf children was established in 1958 in Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland, replacing temporary State schools for Deaf children and young people at Mount Wellington and Titirangi (Lopdell House). Like Sumner in Ōtautahi Christchurch, (later named van Asch college and then Van Asch Deaf Education Center), Kelston School followed the oralist method of education. Two epidemics of maternal rubella in the 1960s increased Deaf student numbers, with maternal rubella thought to account for half of hearing loss in the 1960s. Kelston School had a high proportion of tāngata Turi Māori and Pacific students. In 1974, 35 percent of students at Kelston School were recorded as “Polynesian”.[254] As with van Asch college, “Polynesian” was not defined.

I kaha te whāia o ngāi Pasifika
Pacific Peoples increasingly targeted

206. As more Pacific families migrated to Aotearoa New Zealand and settled in urban areas, Pacific children and young people became more visible to authorities. Over surveillance led to increased court appearances and reports of abuse and neglect in Pacific families.[255] Niuean survivor Tigilau Ness told the Inquiry: ‘it was not uncommon to walk down Karangahape Road and see Pacific Islanders being stopped randomly and questioned by the Police. It was not uncommon for Pacific Islanders to get picked up for no reason by the Police and be charged with idle and disorderly offences. Some of our children would be taken.’[256]

207. Pacific children and young people began appearing before the courts in increasing numbers from the 1960s. Similar to tamariki and rangatahi Māori, Pacific children and young people were more likely than non-Pacific youth to be targeted by Police and prosecuted.[257]

Te āmaimai mō te taiharatanga rangatahi
Concern about juvenile delinquency

208. In the 1950s there were heightened anxieties about juvenile delinquency. This was due to the increase in the country’s youth population (approximately 13 – 19 years) and a separate youth culture developing in the main cities, combined with rising rates of youth crime. [258] Deepening fears about youth behaviour were part of wider social unease about how things were changing, including “adolescent independence, gendered social shifts and weakening family control”.[259]

209. Two events in 1954 triggered these anxieties: the murder of an Ōtautahi Christchurch mother by two teenage girls, one of them her daughter,[260] and the uncovering of a supposed “teenage sex ring” in Te Awa Kairangi ki Tai Lower Hutt.[261] Both attracted wide media coverage and fuelled a growing unease about teenage behaviour.[262]

210. The State responded by appointing lawyer Oswald Mazengarb to chair a Special Committee on Moral Delinquency in Children and Adolescents. A few months later, after interviewing 145 witnesses and taking 120 written submissions, the Committee released what is known as the Mazengarb Report. A copy of the report was sent to every household in the country. This further fuelled public anxieties about young people.[263]

211. The report said, “juvenile immorality” was “uncertain in origin, insidious in growth, and [had] developed over a wide field”.[264] It particularly focussed on perceived promiscuity or immorality of girls as an issue and linked juvenile delinquency to girls being more open and confident about their sexuality.[265] The report recommended broadening the Child Welfare Act 1925 so State authorities could undertake preventive work. Its recommendations were quickly enacted into law and included the addition of sexual acts between children to the list of care and protection issues in the Act.[266]

Ka whanake te hauora hinengaro tamariki
Child psychiatry develops

212. At the beginning of the Inquiry period, psychology was still a relatively new discipline and standards of care for children and young people focused less on mental health and more on the importance of a healthy diet, routine, exercise, and fresh air.[267]

213. Throughout the Inquiry period, as research and understanding grew, people started to pay more attention to children and young peoples’ emotional, as well as physical, wellbeing.[268] Some physical discipline of children and young people was accepted for a large part of the Inquiry period but the law noted that this should be “reasonable force”. [269]

214. Globally, the influence of culture on child development was well established by the 1950s, based on works such as those of cultural anthropologist Margaret Mead, Carl Murchison’s Handbook of Child Psychology and Leonard Carmichael’s Manual of Child Psychology. B.F. Skinner’s experimental work, and its focus on observable behaviour and how it can be shaped using reward and punishment, was highly influential. John Bowlby’s attachment theory was further developed by researchers such as Mary Ainsworth over the 1960s.

215. Child psychiatry developed as a separate branch of psychiatry after the Second World War. In 1959, senior lecturer in psychiatry, Dr Wallace Ironside, wrote that child psychiatry was “an almost unknown specialty” in Aotearoa New Zealand.[270]

216. Psychologists based in Aotearoa New Zealand and elsewhere were researching and publishing on local child development issues from at least the late 1950s.[271] At the end of the 1960s the Association for the Study of Childhood held a conference that included papers on the role of the family in personality, and intellectual development.[272]

217. In the 1960s there was a high demand for mental health services for youths but very few child psychiatrists. In 1972, it was estimated, based on population, that Aotearoa New Zealand needed at least 60 child psychiatrists to meet local need. Six were available.[273] More information on child psychiatry is contained in the Inquiry’s 2022 interim report, Beautiful Children – Inquiry into the Lake Alice Child and Adolescent Unit.[274]

Te iti o te aroā ki te tūkino tamariki
Little awareness of child abuse and neglect

218. Data collection and published statistics on abuse varied over the Inquiry period, and it is not always easy to paint an accurate picture of its frequency.

219. During the early part of the Inquiry period, societal awareness of child abuse and child sexual abuse was often limited or, in the case of child discipline, was not considered abuse by many. Using physical force to correct bad behaviour in schools and the family environment was legal and socially acceptable for most of the Inquiry period.

220. However, throughout the Inquiry period many of the forms of abuse the Inquiry heard about were against the law. Under the Crimes Act 1961, which largely continued provisions under the Crimes Act 1908, it was a crime to:

• rape or have unconsented, unlawful sexual connection with another person[275] or to have sex with a child under the age of 16[276]
• ill-treat or neglect a child[277]
• wound, injure or assault anyone.[278]

221. In annual reports published by the Division of Child Welfare from 1950 to 1966, there was little mention of child abuse, other than a more general reference to protecting children under the age of 6 in foster care from ill-treatment.

222. At least some level of parental physical discipline was seen as acceptable by the Child Welfare division during this time, although it was acknowledged that there were better alternatives to disciplining a child than “thrashing”.[279]

223. The division’s research unit began collecting data on child abuse in the community from the early 1960s.[280] By the mid-1960s, division staff were investigating, on average, between 300 and 400 incidents of suspected abuse per year. Child welfare officers believed that the true scale was vastly underestimated due to the lack of reporting.[281]

224. In 1967 the first nationwide survey of physical child abuse in Aotearoa New Zealand was conducted.[282] The survey did not collect data on child sexual abuse.

Te haere tonutanga o ngā wero me ngā porotū
Continuing challenges and activism

225. During the 1960s and 1970s, several groups, including Māori, human rights, gay rights and disability rights activists and Pacific Peoples placed the State’s care and protection system under increased scrutiny and broadly challenged the status quo.

226. In the late 1960s, a number of emerging movements and ideas influenced Māori activism:

• Pākehā anti-racist groups and emerging Māori protest movements joined together in response to the ban of Māori rugby players from the 1960 All Blacks tour of South Africa[283]
• Māori activists, including Ngahuia Te Awekotuku and Donna Awatere Huata advocated for the rights of wāhine Māori [284]
• the surge in strikes and class struggles influenced the political awareness of Māori workers. Te Hokioi and the Māori Organisation on Human Rights (MOOHR) aimed to unite Māori and working-class activism. They highlighted issues in housing, sports, employment, and Māori political rights, addressing Treaty of Waitangi concerns and advocating for a bicultural Aotearoa New Zealand.[285]

227. Blind people mobilised in response to the nature of the cradle-to-grave provision of services to blind people, and the numerous allegations of sexual abuse of blind children.[286] Blind Citizens NZ was founded in 1945 (as the Dominion Association for the Blind) to advance the interests of blind people. Only blind people could be members. Its achievements included:

• the 1958 abolition of the means test for blind people applying for the invalid’s benefit
• beginning talking-book services, radio for the blind, and magazine taping
• training members to use speech and braille programmes on computers.[287]

228. Due to the State and society often devaluing Pacific Peoples, they created their own support systems and communities to rely on. Churches often became the hearts of Pacific communities.[288] These support systems were often formed from the ground up and were community or worker focused – for example, a community support group for immigrating Pacific teachers.

229. Pacific Peoples developed resilience in the face of racism, and civil rights activists fought back against discrimination. In 1964, the Citizens Association for Racial Equality was established. It was made up of Māori and Pacific Peoples and aimed to devote equal attention to racial questions in Aotearoa New Zealand and abroad. They considered the problems faced by Māori and Pacific Peoples moving to the cities.[289]

230. The 1960s saw the beginnings of gradual change towards the realisation of rights for Takatāpui, Rainbow and MVPFAFF+ New Zealanders. The Dorian Society, Aotearoa New Zealand’s first social club for homosexual men, was formed in Te Whanganui-ā-Tara Wellington in 1962.[290] In 1967, a group of lawyers formed the New Zealand Homosexual Law Reform Society. It presented a petition to Parliament urging homosexual law reform in 1968.[291] Internationally, in 1969 homosexual men and women resisted arrest during the Stonewall Riots in New York City. This is regarded as the start of the gay liberation movement.[292]

Kāore he tautoko tokoora, ka heke ngā āhuatanga ohanga
No dedicated welfare support, economic conditions decline

231. Before the 1970s, there were few dedicated benefits for single parents or parents with disabled children under 16.[293] Those in households with no wage earner, or with additional needs, could find themselves dependent on a system of discretionary benefits, tax abatements and welfare services.[294]

232. Discretionary welfare included assistance such as food, blankets, cash grants and support with life stress such as family relationships, children’s behaviour and parenting advice. The community in the form of family members, friends and neighbours were also a source of care and support to individuals in need.

233. In 1967, Aotearoa New Zealand faced a short recession.[295] Throughout the 1970s, issues such as the oil shocks, increasing prices and the rising costs of land and property reduced buying power.[296] Families receiving discretionary welfare support rose from 7,150 in 1950 to 39,759 by 1965.[297] The universal family benefit, introduced in 1946 and payable to families for each child under 16, was not indexed to inflation and decreased in value over the period.[298]

234. Women whose husbands had died were eligible for the Widow’s Benefit from 1911, with additional payments for dependent children.[299] There was also support available for women whose husbands had abandoned them.[300] There was no equivalent support for widowers or solo fathers, creating a loophole in government policies that meant many solo fathers were unable to support their children at home. An unemployment benefit was available from 1938 for both men and women. Qualifying criteria included not being unemployed without a good reason, being available for work and taking reasonable steps to find employment.[301] In practice the Department of Social Security was reluctant to grant the unemployment benefit to unmarried mothers, partly out of concerns about creating long term welfare dependency.[302]

235. During the Inquiry period the State funded many social services in New Zealand, but a significant quantity of social services was also funded by charities and church organisations. These and the available State supports were uncoordinated and offered mostly targeted assistance. Targeted assistance often fails to address the social and economic barriers that prevent the most disadvantaged from thriving and at best functions as a stop gap rather than a long term solution. These barriers include factors such as the national economic framework, gender dynamics, power disparities, racial biases, political beliefs, and community influences.

236. Multiple State agencies, departments and charities could be involved with a family, each unaware of what the others were doing. The Child Welfare division of the Ministry of Education could be involved because of concerns with a child’s behaviour at school, Internal Affairs and the Justice Departments could be involved through the Family Guidance Council if marriage counselling was needed. Various charities such as Catholic Social Services, The Salvation Army, Rotary, Mayoral Relief Committees and the Society for the Protection of Women and Children might also be involved too.[303]

237. Author Margaret McClure summed up the number of agencies a family in need could interact with in seeking support with her example of the Rowlands family:

“While the father was away for five weeks the mother and family of five children lived and paid rent out of the family benefit alone. When Mr Rowlands returned home he was arrested for failing to support his family. His wife withdrew the charge when she realised that he would be imprisoned and unable to work…the maintenance officer refused to act for her in future if her husband left again, which would make her ineligible for a full deserted wives’ benefit. The Social Security officer refused to grant help from the special assistance fund because the husband had returned home and had a job. The Child Welfare officer suggested that in view of the father’s drinking…Child Welfare should support the family…claiming that short-term help could save the mother from breakdown, and was cheaper than the long-term institutionalisation of the children.”[304]

238. Government grants to the non-profit sector grew from the 1960s. By the late 1960s central government was providing around $3.9 million ($144 million in 2024) to the non-governmental sector for services like churches’ work for Pacific migrants, kindergartens, Marriage Guidance, Prisoners’ Aid and Rehabilitation, the Māori Education Foundation and youth groups such like Girl Guides. By the mid-1980s, 68 percent of this funding was pre-allocated, meaning it rolled over to the same providers year on year.[305] This funding included grants to faith-based organisations providing care for tamariki and rangatahi who were in care or otherwise not living with their families.