St Matthew-in-the-city

E te iwi whanui, tena koutou katoa. Nga hau e wha, e nga waka, e nga tai e wha, nga mihi nui ki a koutou.

Reverend Ian Lawton (Vicar, St Matthew's), Raewyn Stone (organiser of service), Henare te Ua (kaumatua St Matthew's), Waiora Port (kuia, St Matthew's), Danny Tumahai (delivering the mihi), the many people gathered here today who love, and care about, children.

I have attended and participated in so many functions, services and ceremonies since becoming Governor-General earlier this year. But none has had the shared emotion I feel present in this place of prayer today. We are here to remember the short lives of children who have died at the hands of adults. Today, and properly, tears will flow in their memory.

The Commissioner for Children, the Hon Roger McClay, is to speak briefly later in this service about some of those children, and about the way forward for New Zealand society if we are to stop barbaric violence against our youngest citizens.

For my part, I want to touch on about how we, as a society, can cope with the ever-increasing numbers of horrifying stories about child abuse that come to light. How do we express our anger effectively, our horror, and our refusal to see children suffer?

When I think about this issue, I recall my numerous experiences, as a Family Court and then High Court Judge, dealing with those who sexually abuse children. I recall also the terrible information that I have read or seen of similar attacks on children in other countries, whether it be in the name of culture - such as female genital mutilation, or in the name of war - the rape and mutilation of girls in the former Yugoslavia or Rwanda, or the Korean comfort women and girls enslaved by the Japanese.

All of these incidents have one thing in common. The adult uses his or her power to threaten, assault and subdue children. Power over the lives of others is a force for good or for evil. Authority belongs rightly only to those we can trust to do what is best for those in their care or control. As a society we - each one of us - has the duty to exercise that power with wisdom, with love and with the welfare of those who have been entrusted to our care as the paramount consideration.

When we see that positions of power are abused, equally we have the responsibility of protecting the vulnerable child and of condemning the attacker. We can never tolerate such violence.

Now, years on, there have been many stories of sorrow about the abuse of our children. To some, it may seem that there are so many, that reports are read briefly and with a diminishing sense of horror. That is not so for those who must bury the children or help them recover. Nor is it so for me.

When you are faced with the evidence and see the young damaged faces and limbs, hear the terrible stories from the mouths of those who should at worst be shrieking with fear at a scary video and not at their parent or caregiver, then you can never forget.

And because there are so many such stories we are in danger of ranking them for seriousness - shuddering only at the worst or most exotic type of evil. Which case is more serious - a child who has been exposed to adult sexual practices so that his or her childhood ends abruptly and cruelly, or a child who has had so many bones broken that the doctors don't know which to start treating first? A child who has been tied up and kicked, or a child who has been used as an ashtray?

The answer is that every single case of child abuse must be viewed with the same outrage as the very first case that ever came to light. And for me that sense of outrage carries with it contempt for the person who would use his or her superior or trusted position, or strength to degrade and wound so deeply the children who are our future, our pride and the source of so much innocence and joy.

This is one instance where to forgive or forget is almost as great an offence as the perpetrator's. And from that outrage will come the energy needed to sustain the battle against child abuse in New Zealand.

If we, as a society, cease to be affected, become conditioned to the existence of child abuse, we risk beginning to rank such crimes against children.

We can then no longer call ourselves a civilised people. We become a species that implicitly endorses survival of the fittest, survival of the strongest. And children, among the most vulnerable in our society, will rate the lowest.

I would like to finish by talking about hope, and about strength. Last weekend, I picked up a newspaper and noticed it had two articles about child abuse.

The first article warned us to expect another surge in reports of child abuse during the next few months, following the planned screening of a programme exploring child abuse in New Zealand.

My heart sank, as I thought of the violence against children that these reports would no doubt reveal. After some time, however, my thoughts turned towards hope - hope that this anticipated surge in reporting would save the young lives involved.

The second article was a feature about a book called Flight of the Dancing Bird. The book has been written by a 41-year-old woman who had been subjected for 23 years to the most terrible sexual abuse and torture by her father. The abuse had started when she was nine years old.

Reading the article sickened me. But the final paragraph said: "I've come through it. I'm living proof that you can have a really wonderful life at the end of it. I can stand up and say I am not ashamed, and I am not afraid."

I took heart from this woman's strength - and I hope that you do too. May it encourage each and every one of us to reach out to a child at risk, and offer him or her the chance to come through it, and have a wonderful life.

But, most importantly, let us all find the strength to continue to be outraged at each and every violent act against children, as though it was the first such act ever committed. Because one single act of violence against a child is one too many.

To the children we remember today, kua wheturangitia koutou. Takoto, takoto, takoto e nga tamariki ma. You have become a star in the heavens, lie in peace.