Erica Stanford speaking at a press conference on Wednesday. Photo: Samuel Rillstone / RNZ
The lead minister for the government's response to abuse in care says redress payments for survivors of torture at Lake Alice will have no bearing on the redress system for other survivors.
The government will make decisions on the wider redress system for survivors of abuse in care next year.
Erica Stanford said Cabinet looked at the case separately, which she described as a "world-first".
"We looked at how we were going to redress for that very, very differently and I made it clear yesterday that any decisions we make in the future about redress will have no bearings on the decisions we made about paying out for the torture of children," she told Morning Report.
Stanford acknowledged the government cannot meet every survivor's expectations.
But while some of those were not met, Stanford said she had spoken to several of them that were pleased with the outcome.
"That was always going to be the case as there are some people, just a few that have very, very high expectations," she said.
"Look, we were never, ever going to make everyone feel like they got what they deserved, and we knew that. It made the job tough, and it made the phone calls tough.
"There were a number [of calls] were people were emotional and crying on the phone because this is life-changing for them."
Stanford said in the end it came down to the government wanting to something significant for the survivors.
She said there was no precedent set to assist them in determining the redress payment.
"As I said [on Wednesday], there are a couple of other countries that have paid for torture, but is a very, very different circumstance, and not for children," she said.
"We did look at things like the highest payment under MSD for redress that was not torture, and that was $95,000, and we always wanted it to be significantly more than that."
Survivors that opt to request an independent arbiter to make an individual assessment will still have their payment capped as part of a pool total.
Stanford said the arbiter may give more to some, but the total they can pull from is capped.
One of those survivors that will not be taking the redress payment is Malcolm Richards.
He said it is not enough.
"It's outside international law on torture redress, it's completely illegal," he told Morning Report.
"Torture redress cannot be a one-size-fits-all solution, it must be worked on in conjunction with survivors all the way through, every step of the way. It hasn't been,,,so many things."
Richards expects it to go the High Court, following the United Nations' visit to New Zealand next year.
He said he understood why some will accept the redress payment instead.
"Absolutely, there are a lot of us that are tired, there are a lot of us that are very ill, there are a lot of us that just don't have the brainpower after the abuse to fight this anymore."
Survivor of another institution said he is pleased with what the government has done, but conceded those that suffered at Lake Alice can never been fully compensated.
However, he questioned why survivors from other institutions were not given a dedicated timeline, and that was one of his disappointments from Prime Minister Christopher Luxon's apology speech.
"Once again, survivors were let down and asked to wait, and survivors of my generation are dying at a rapid rate, so it just lends to great sense of injustice of it all," he told Morning Report.
"Something should've been done for all survivors by now."
He also called the need for independence in the process, and that the institutions that perpetrated the abuse have bias and will only protect itself.
Sign up for Ngā Pitopito Kōrero, a daily newsletter curated by our editors and delivered straight to your inbox every weekday.
