According to a news item on New Zealand website Stuff, Justice Goddard is now flying over to our shores to get ready to head up the nation’s Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse.

There’s lots to do. In the article, Goddard highlights the need, still, to define the written terms that will make up its remit. She talks about including a glossary which will offer definitions for all the key terms used, something we suggested in a previous post and so we are glad of the move. Justice Goddard also said in the interview that phrases like, the aim of “truth and reconciliation” will likely be replaced by “truth and justice”, because some survivors say reconciliation is not possible, due to what has happened to them. And she will, finally, be doing away with the word ‘historic’, acknowledging that survivors and victims’ of abuse live with the effects of that abuse every day and is therefore not an experience consigned to the past.

It also looks as if the Inquiry is unlikely to be completed within four years (not news really, given its gargantuan task) – the interim report alone is allegedly not due until the end of 2018. Justice Goddard also talks about the difficulties in structuring the Inquiry so that it is manageable, one of her bigger tasks before the Inquiry gets underway.

The piece also gives us some insight into Justice Goddard and her early adult experience, which involves England. An interesting piece, not just for its snippets of information on the investigation (crumbs we should really be receiving on the dormant Inquiry website, not through an online newspaper) but for a closer look at the new Chair of our Inquiry.