Who can make a redress claim

This page explains who can make a redress claim and the process for making a claim against Te Puni Kōkiri.

The purpose of the State Redress process is to recognise a person’s experience of abuse or neglect in State care and offer an alternative to litigation for redress for abuse in care. Redress includes one or more of the following:

• a personalised apology
• financial payment
• counselling or other well-being support
• assistance with accessing care records

Financial redress and criminal conviction history

Serious violent or sexual offenders are not eligible to receive financial redress as part of the State redress process from redress agencies unless the independent redress officer determines under section 23(2) of the Redress System for Abuse in Care Act 2026 that financial redress should be made available to a person.

If you are seeking financial redress, you will be asked to complete a Serious Offender Declaration and agree to a criminal record check.

Find out more about financial redress and criminal record checks here: https://www.redress.govt.nz/make-a-new-redress-claim/financial-redress-and-criminal-record-checks

Te Puni Kōkiri Eligibility Criteria

A person is eligible to make a claim to Te Puni Kōkiri if they believe they were abused or neglected:

• whilst attending or participating in the Te Whakapakari Youth Programme during the period of 1 January 1977 – 31 December 1989, while the Department of Māori Affairs (DMA) had administrative oversight of the Te Whakapakari Youth Programme; or
• by a Department Employee responsible for delivering services related to the care, protection, or control of the person when they were a child or young person; or
• whilst in a care programme administered by the department where a Departmental Employee ought to have reasonably known about the abuse and failed to take reasonable steps to prevent the abuse.

For the purposes of the above criteria, it is intended that:

• “Departmental Employee” includes Mātua Whāngai social workers;
• “care programme administered by the DMA” includes the Mātua Whāngai programme itself; and
• “abused” and “neglect” encompasses the same definitions as those in the Common Payment Framework.

Individuals who do not meet the above criteria will not be eligible to receive redress from Te Puni Kōkiri.

To register

If you meet the above eligibility criteria, you can register a claim by emailing claims@tpk.govt.nz.

What happens after you register

After you register, Te Puni Kōkiri or its representative will contact you to acknowledge receipt of your registration and may ask you to provide further information to help confirm your eligibility.

If you are eligible, we will give you information about wellbeing support.

If you are not eligible, we will suggest other services that may be able to help. If your claim is the responsibility of another agency, we will help connect you.

Although Te Puni Kōkiri can receive registrations for claims and determine their eligibility, we do not currently run a redress process. Your claim will be held while decisions are made about how Te Puni Kōkiri claims will be managed within the wider work to improve the State redress system. 

Changes are coming to State redress

A new service will soon be available to make State redress easier to understand and use.

The service will provide a single point of contact for people seeking information about State redress, making new claims, or finding out more about existing claims.

Find out what is changing here: Upcoming redress changes - Redress New Zealand. This will explain how your information may be used, and what this means for existing and future claims.