Prime Minister Christopher Luxon has announced he will make a formal public apology on behalf of the government to those who experienced abuse in state care, calling it "a shameful part of our history".
It's the culmination of five years of hearings and interviews with victims, decades of advocacy, with the Royal Commission of Inquiry's report finally coming out tomorrow.
But what will the apology do? And what does apologising materially change?
Professor Andrew Geddis is a specialist in public law at the University of Otago and speaks to Emile Donovan.
Photo: RNZ / Cole Eastham-Farrelly
