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The Impact Statement Podcast - Dr Kim McGregor

The Impact Statement Podcast - Dr Kim McGregor

Yellow Image card - The Impact Statement with Dr Kim McGregor

In this episode Petrina is joined by Dr Kim McGregor, our inaugural Chief Victims Advisor. Dr McGregor knows how tough it is for victims because she's been listening to victims' voices for more than 30 years as a therapist, researcher, trainer and advocate, and she's a survivor of violence herself.

Welcome to The Impact Statement, where we bring victims' issues into the public spotlight and challenge narratives around victims and victimisation. Most of us never think of Victim Support or what it's like to be a victim unless we are affected by crime or trauma ourselves, but anyone can find themselves a victim and the impact of victimisation is far-reaching.

I'm Petrina Hargrave, and I'm going to share with you the stories, research and people that are making an impact in the lives of everyday New Zealanders affected by crime, trauma and suicide.

If you were tasked with making things better for victims in the justice system, where would you start? How would you channel the adversity you see on a daily basis into a force for good? The Chief Victims Advisor provides independent advice to the New Zealand Government on exactly this.

Petrina: Thank you for joining me today, Kim, and welcome to The Impact Statement.

Kim McGregor: Kia ora, thank you so much.

Petrina: Kia ora, Kim. So I'm thinking that our audience have probably heard of your role, they've probably heard the term Chief Victims Advisor in the news a lot lately. Can you explain what a Chief Victims Advisor does?

Kim McGregor: Well, I think it's fair to say that when this role was advocated for from victim advocates for decades before this role was set up, victim advocates would have preferred to have a Victim's Commissioner and have a Victim's Commission. The credit needs to go, though, however, to Minister Amy Adams. She was the first one to decide to set up a role of Chief Victims Advisor to government. So this role was set up along the lines of the Chief Science Advisor to the Prime Minister. So it was a very small role, it was a kind of an academic role, and it was only 0.3, so a day and a half a week. And it was envisaged that the person would be working at a university or something alongside this role.

So I was very honoured to be chosen for this role, and it's a role that enables the provision of advice to ministers, directly to ministers, and it's independent advice, which is a very important distinction to government officials where they are providing advice separately to me, and their advice might be quite different to my advice.

Because I'm independent, I am able to speak to people on the front line, speak to victims, victim advocates, victim champions, and I'm able to package that information that I glean from people who are working at the front line, and provide that with research and provide it directly to ministers. So it's a real honour to be able to do that. So I'm often being able to provide ministers with information that they don't get from any other source.

Petrina: That's right, that's so important. And you talked about being on the front line and speaking to front line workers, but you yourself have also had front line experience as a therapist, and also as a victim, you've got lived experience too, haven't you?

Kim McGregor: Yes, that's right.

Petrina: So how does that drive you in this role, that background that you've got, that rich background?

Kim McGregor: Well, I suppose when I look back, it was being victimised as an 11-year-old by my stepfather, and I was a victim of sexual violence that led me to this path. It wasn't a conscious decision. And so I had a whole lot of effects on my life, including marriage breakdown and a whole lot of impacts from childhood sexual abuse. I had a really very difficult teenage years, where I took an overdose when I was 16 and ended up in a mental health unit because I just couldn't cope anymore. I was suicidal for many, many years. And the sexual abuse, so it sort of led me to seeking counselling help as my marriage was ending. And it was at that point that I realised the impact from when I was a teenager, when I was 11, from the abuse. And just learning about that caused me to want to give back to others.

So I started working for Auckland Sexual Abuse Help Foundation in about October 1986. So I've been working basically with survivors of abuse for over 35 years now. And so I wanted to help other people who didn't understand the effects of childhood sexual abuse. And it also led me to my PhD, which was asking survivors of childhood sexual abuse what was helpful and not helpful in therapy. So that was my doctorate question.

And the answer is, what's helpful is the relationship with the therapist. Therapists can be really technically very, very capable but unless you've got a really good relationship with your therapist, all the technical skills in the world are not going to really cut it, really. And I wrote two self-help books for survivors of childhood sexual abuse. The second one was 'Surviving and Moving On', published in 2000, I think it was 8.

So when I was working as a counsellor, I found that because of the history of childhood sexual abuse, there was no, and this is going back decades and decades and decades, there was no literature for advising parents about childhood sexual abuse and how it happened, how children were groomed. And so when children disclose childhood sexual abuse, there was very little help for parents. And so I don't blame my mother, who didn't believe me and couldn't help me at the time.

So I started a literature review of what was, you know, it ended up being the first ACC therapy guidelines for therapists who were working with survivors of childhood sexual abuse. And it sort of provided a pathway for therapists to understand that a lot of people who've experienced childhood sexual abuse have not been able to have supportive help because even clinical psychologists haven't been trained, you know, generic psychologists have not necessarily had the training to understand the dynamics of childhood sexual abuse and the impacts on adulthood and all the phases that people go through.

So it was a sort of a pathway of finding there are big gaps and trying to fill those. So I was really pleased to write the first set of guidelines for ACC, and it just talked about, you know, all the things I've just described. And along the way, I found that there were gaps, particularly in ACC, for counsellors who were working with adult survivors of childhood sexual abuse, and they had gaps in sort of ACC's understanding and the gaps in funding and things like that. So a lot of my colleagues would say, you know, Kim, there's gaps here.

The first set of gaps I learned about was actually back in the 1980s when I was working for Auckland Sexual Abuse Help Foundation, and one year out of the blue, government decided that they would stop funding the Auckland Sexual Abuse Help Foundation. And we provided 24/7 support for adult rape survivors and counselling, 24/7 crisis support. So in 1986, I started off on a night roster where I would go out with police or the medical practitioners where there was a rape, and I would go to the police station and support a statement and/or go with a victim survivor to have a medical forensic examination. And that all took hours, and it was very invasive. And so it's really important to have somebody alongside a victim survivor through all those processes.

Now, prior to sort of rape crisis groups providing that, and they were all voluntary women who were, you know, organised a phone tree and supported rape survivors. Before that, I mean, I believe there was the Māori Women's Welfare League who also supported victims of family violence and sexual violence. But all of the support has come from the community and just like Victim Support, it's come from community members identifying gaps and providing service for those gaps.

So it hasn't come from government, it's come from the community identifying gaps and then trying to find funding to support those gaps. So when I'm going sort of fast forwarding back to about 1988 or 9, we had a letter from the government saying that the funding for all the sexual abuse help was ending. And it was just a letter saying your funding's ending. Just like that. You know, absolutely outrageous. And we're providing the only 24/7 support for victims of sexual violence in probably the whole of Auckland at the time. I think there was a South Auckland help that might have been at the time. And Tu Wahine Auckland Trust in West Auckland. We must remember that there are kaupapa Māori services all over the country as well at the same time and their funding was regularly cut. So when Tauiwi services suffer, you can understand that kaupapa Māori services will be suffering doubly.

But just this one point was a sort of a change moment for me. And I just got hurt about this letter. I was sort of part of the, I think, the leadership group. And I said, this is outrageous. So I decided, you know, we should phone Parliament and I think it was in December and I think Parliament had stopped sitting. So anyway, I was just ringing probably the halls of government and it was pretty empty but I kept ringing numbers and finally got through to an MP. And I said, look, they've chopped off our funding and we've got to get through Christmas. You know, it's a really busy time and we can't provide medical support or, you know, go to the police station.

So this MP said, look, leave it with me. I'll go and sort it. So she went away and she managed in December to reroute our funding through a disability funding mechanism. I have no idea how she did it. Anyway, that MP happened to be Helen Clark. And I think she was the MP for housing or health at the time, the minister. So we were just very lucky. So I understood from that moment that so when you have a problem, you ring the minister and they fix it. So that's what I decided was that was the way I operated from then on. So every time my colleagues would say, Kim, you know, ACC is not funding us. I go, that's OK. I'll just ring the minister. The minister will fix it.

I knew a lot of women ministers, and so I would ring them and I say, minister, this needs to be fixed. And you go, OK, Kim, we'll go and have a talk to the officials and find out what's going on. So I did that for like 30 years and then sort of fast forward to six and a half years ago and I'd been the director of rape prevention education for a decade and after the Louise Nicholas case.

Now that for people who don't know about that, Louise had been raped, pack raped by a number of police in the 1980s and been through horrendous police processes where she was not believed. And the case that was going through in 2004 was a case where she was the complainant in a case where the accused was to be the next police commissioner. And there were two other police who were accused and unknown to the general public. They were already in jail for rape of another woman and this case went ahead and there were 20 charges of the three men.

Louise was cross-examined over many days by three very practiced senior prosecutors, defence lawyers, and she was slammed by these very professional defence lawyers. She was basically called a slut and a liar over days and days. And the public watched this happen and the public did not know that two of the men were already in jail for rape. The jury didn't know either. The end result was 20 not guilty verdicts in all 20 charges. And when the public found out that not only were these two men in jail for rape, but then there was another case against them by another woman and that went ahead a little while later. But there was one of the general public came to me.

I was the director of rape prevention education and said, look, she wanted to organise a march through the country, not just through Auckland, through all the cities. And so on one day, and I think it was 2000, 2006, there was a march in multiple cities around the country in support of Louise. And what was surprising to me, I think my memory's a bit faulty, I'm very old. My short term memory's not, so please check this. But in the papers the next day, I think it might have even been in the Herald after there were 20 not guilty verdicts.

The next day, the front page of the Herald, I seem to remember was the word guilty. And Louise saw that and she went, oh, no, they've got it wrong. But she opened up the full page and it said guilty in the court of public opinion, something like that. And so the public was absolutely on Louise's side. Now, just before this, we'd be trying to found a national network to provide service for survivors of sexual violence.

We formed an organisation called Te Ohaakii a Hine, National Network Ending Sexual Violence Together, which is a bicultural organisation. But it was really a profound moment going back to advocacy, victim advocacy. So I was able to take, I called on the government, the Minister of Justice at the time, Mark Burton, at the end of the March in support of Louise Nicholas for a taskforce for action on sexual violence. And nothing happened. I mean, this was about March in 2006. Nothing happened. And then September 2006, I took Louise to meet with the Minister of Women's Affairs. And that was Leanne Dalziel. And Louise and Leanne had a conversation where Leanne Dalziel said to Louise, every woman in this country is having the same conversation. And they're saying, if we're treated that way, if we've seen you treated that way, if there's no way, if we're raped, we would report rape. So that was the catalyst to get the taskforce for action on sexual violence.

So anyway, fast forward to the Chief Victims Advisor role was advertised. And for about 30 years, I'd been complaining to various ministers. We need more money. We need more services. We need more victim advocates. We need your government to step up. Multiple different governments, National governments, Labour governments, you know, all of them. I'd been complaining. And so the victim, Chief Victims Advisor role came up. And I thought, they're never going to appoint me because I've been a pain in their side for so long. But anyway, I thought, I'll put in my name and see how we go. And I was absolutely really shocked that they chose me.

And some of my colleagues were very kind enough to say, well, maybe they really want to change. And so, you know, I've been honoured to be in this role for six and a half years. And in the last six and a half years, I have started to see a change across government. So now we've got government officials, just in the last two years in particular, after Andrew Little set up Hāpaitia te Oranga Tangata, the Safe and Effective Justice Reform Programme.

And that was an opportunity to start looking at the entire criminal justice system and victims' roles in it. So, and Petrina, I'd like to acknowledge your research around that time, because we were able to work together on that. And you produced a very important document called Victims' Voices. At the same time, I was able to provide a Te Tangi o te Manawanui, which is on my Chief Victims Advisor website, if anybody wants that. And that's the recommendations for reform.

And I think both you and I would absolutely agree that the most important thing that government can do is provide procedural justice for victims of crime. And so I'm sure that you and I will agree that victims don't have a control over the outcome of the system. So whether it's a guilty or not guilty verdict or a sentencing. But what they should have control over is a voice in their case and be told about the investigation, choices that they have, that they can make, and that's the sort of procedural justice that I know you and I are fighting for.

Petrina: That's right, exactly Kim. Yeah, you're right on that and I think, do you have the sense that perhaps the general public doesn't understand that procedural justice is so important to victims and that, you know, it's a lot more than hearing on the news that someone so-and-so was found guilty and has been sentenced to a long time in prison, you know, like justice for victims is far more than that outcome, isn't it? Do you sense in your work that there's a lack of understanding about that amongst the general public?

Dr Kim McGregor: Yes I do. I don't think, like I don't think very much, not even the public, it's more also within government. I don't, and I, and look honestly, I've been, as I say, I've been working with victim survivors for over 35 years, even I didn't understand the huge gaps for victims in the criminal justice system until I came into this role. The profound gaps when victims don't have their own lawyer, I didn't understand the profundity of that. So, because I know they've got a, they've got a crown prosecutor, so what I have learned is that, and I know lawyers understand that I did not understand how important this was, so victims do not have their own lawyer, they're not a party to the case, so they, they're not represented, so the accused has their own lawyer, so which means that they can direct their lawyer in the case, they can say I want this to happen or that to happen.

Victim survivors cannot direct their lawyer because it's the crown has taken on the burden and the cost of taking forth an investigation and a prosecution, so that's very costly, but the loss for victims is that even though, so they're not paying for the investigation and prosecution. However, they are then sidelined to become a witness to the prosecution's case. Yes. Now, that means that they are just a witness to their own victimization, so when we get a rape case, for example, even though they are talking about something that happened to them, they become a witness to their case.

So they have to be cross-examined as a witness and it's, it's very hard to describe how that is so unfair and that it's hard to describe when you've been victimized and then you suddenly thrust into a criminal justice process, at that point you're traumatized already, you've been harmed, you're trying to heal from that and sort of survive it and then, then you're left out of all the decision-making and suddenly you don't know why the police aren't, you know, telling you about what they're doing, you have to chase to find out who the officer in charge is and when we lay charges, we think the police are going to get on to it straight away. But often there's a really long lag time because of prioritization, like there might have been a homicide that week in your area, so police are going to have to get on to that straight away, so if it's a historic sort of rape charge or family violence charge or, you know, even a burglary or a home invasion, you know, or a serious fraud, your case, depending on your safety needs, I guess are, you know, going to be prioritized, which is a really hard to hear when you've just been harmed. Exactly.

So you're entering a system and it's a very complex and pretty under-resourced system, but it's also a system that does not have victims at the heart of it, it doesn't have victims at the center, it's an offender-centric system and it's very nature and so that's a systemic gap and so victims are stepping into this enormous gap that they, you know, they're, so Victim Support and all the other NGOs, the specialist family violence NGOs, the specialist sexual violence NGOs are stepping in to try and, you know, fill that gap and provide information and support for victims that are not provided by government. Yeah, that's right, it's crazy. Yeah, a lot of victims we've spoken to have said that the support network, such as Victim Support, they're supportive but the system isn't supportive.

Petrina: You know, to feel like you're let down by a system, you can't, it makes you feel even more powerless, doesn't it, because you can't really affect change as an individual. Yeah, and that's what's so remarkable about what you're doing, Kim, because you have been a victim and you've lived that, you've got, you know, you understand what it's like to not be believed and then you've worked and listened to so many voices who have said, you know, this isn't fair and so you're representing, really, all those voices. That's quite a big responsibility, isn't it?

Dr Kim McGregor: Oh, look, I just feel so honoured to be the, you know, the first and the inaugural Chief Victims Advisor to government and, you know, as I say, I mean, I was pretty, I had imposter syndrome for so long, I was thinking, oh, I wish, you know, somebody else could do this job because they must be able to do it much better than I could, you know, like I'm not a lawyer, I don't know the system and it's taken me a really long time to understand it. Yeah. So, you know, I felt really guilty that I didn't know right from the start and I, maybe I could have been faster at trying to change the system but what I do understand, as you say, I mean, with lived experience, at least I know that the most important thing is for victims to be listened to, to be believed and supported and be provided with choice and information and validation.

You know, just all those victims' justice needs but just, you know, when you experience that, you know, you just know intuitively that's what you need and I guess, you know, you know, I suppose in my defence, you know, if I was a lawyer and I didn't have victims' experience, then I, you know, I would have had different understandings.

So, yeah, so I'm just feeling my way through and I suppose I'm pleased that in the last few years, I, because I've been in the system for six years and I've built up a lot, I believe a trust and confidence with a lot of judiciary, a lot of sort of lawyers, but particularly ministers across different governments because I was appointed by a National government and then I've kind of served two Labour governments, their governments and this is my fourth justice minister and quite, you know, a few police ministers and now we've got a minister of family violence and sexual violence prevention.

So, I worked with quite a lot of ministers and, but also victim advocates, you know, it's really important to understand what's happening at the front line because, and this is going back to the beginning of our conversation, it's really important to stay in touch with what's happening at the front line.

And I'm very honoured to be able to speak to a lot of people like yourself, Petrina, and I can just pick up the phone and say, you know, what's going wrong? What are the gaps? And you and I can have, you know, unofficial conversations and I can, you know, I can be careful and diplomatic with channelling information through to ministers to say in a thematic way, you know, across the country, there are these gaps and I can join the dots from across the country, from different NGOs and different organisations. And I think that's a real advantage to having an independent role.

So, you know, whoever picks up this role in future, you know, I just, you know, I hope that whatever this role ends up becoming, it retains its independence because I think that's really important.

Petrina: So, I mean, you've obviously canvassed and listened to the views of so many victims, you know, as a therapist and in your role as Chief Victims Advisor and for your research. So I'd imagine you would have been hearing lots of stories of despair, lots of themes, like you say, similar themes. Is there anything in particular that stands out for you that surprised you that you've learnt from listening to victims' voices?

Dr Kim McGregor: Well, I guess, you know, because I had most of my early career, if you like to call it that, was with survivors of child sexual abuse and adult rape. There was quite a lot of family violence in that and also fraud and, you know, other burglaries. And, you know, when I was working as a therapist, there was lots of victimisation that I experienced, you know, I heard about and the impacts of that. But in this role, I've been able to, I've just been so shocked at, in particular, gender-based violence. So, especially through the Hāpaitia te Oranga Tangata Safe and Effective Justice Reform Programme, I was able to go across the country and listen to victims across the country. And people contacted me and said, look, I don't want to fill out your survey. I want you to talk to me directly. So, I said, well, I'll come. And I travelled across the country and spoke to people face to face.

And just in some ways, hearing from women who'd experienced intimate partner violence and the number of women that said to me, this will not end the victimisation until either he's dead or I'm dead. You know, he is going to hunt me down for the rest of my life. And this is somebody who, you know, their ex-partner had been arrested, had been in jail, had been released and was, you know, on out back in the community and had conditions that they could not, you know, contact previous partners. But one partner said, you know, she was living in a different island to the spouse who tried to kill her. And he said, but that gives me no comfort whatsoever because I know he's only eight hours away. He can get in the car, get on the ferry or, you know, get on a plane and come and try and kill me. She lived in a sort of farm up a gravel road so that she could hear if a car was coming in the middle of the night. You know, she had a back door, an exit route.

You know, some people are living in fear for the rest of their lives, basically. And that's where our criminal justice system is not able to keep people safe when there is very motivated offenders who are, you know, very motivated.

So I heard about those sort of crimes, but also just serious fraud, for example. Many thousands of people who have their, all of their life savings stolen and how that caused depression, suicide, you know, just the impact on their children, their grandchildren. I mean, huge impacts, home invasions, just the wide variety of crimes, but also the, you know, the massacres, the massacre in Christchurch. And, you know, I mean, just in kaupapa Māori services, as I say, if there are impacts on non-Māori services, you know, there are double the impacts on kaupapa Māori supports. And so we've got to, as non-Māori we must work so hard to make sure there's funding and voice for kaupapa Māori  services.

Petrina: Absolutely. So what else needs to change, Kim? How can we improve the justice experience for victims, all victims of crime? What do you think?

Dr Kim McGregor: Yeah, well, I know that Victim Champions, as I say, it comes back to the beginning of our conversation. They ask for a Minister for Victims, you know, or a Victims Commission, or, you know, just very senior voices for victims with decision-making ability. So you need voice, but you also need power to change the system. So whatever that structure looks like, and any of your, any of the people listening, there's a Chief Victims Advisor website, and I've got about, you know, 10 or 12 reports on that website. And one of them is about, it's a sort of a report that looks at international jurisdictions that have Victims Commissions, and they have independent bodies that monitor and evaluate services and systems for victims. And I think it's important to know that there is no measurement or monitoring or evaluation of victim services across our criminal justice system in Aotearoa, and that is an indictment.

You know, since the Victims' Rights Act of 2002, there has been no measurement, no monitoring, no evaluation of victim services and systems. And there's no, no body is responsible for victim systems or services. There's no, so there's no overview across the criminal justice system. And remember, this is a very complex, siloed system. So it's not just one system. It's not a one criminal justice system.

We have NGOs, we, you know, at the front end where, you know, victims won't often report to the police. We only have 25% of victims that will report to the police, and only 6% of sexual violence victims will report to the police, and 20% of family violence victims will support the police. So most will possibly report to NGOs. So that's one part of the front end of the system. Then there's the police system, then there's the justice and court system, then there's the correction system, then there's the parole board. You know, these are all siloed systems. And each of those has a different IT system, and none of them are connected to each other.

When I first got into this role, I said, how many victims are in the system at any one time? What are their needs? You know, what, tell me, you know, what, what are the needs I have to address? And government officials don't know. Right. They still don't know.

Petrina: Crazy, isn't it?

Dr Kim McGregor: Nobody knows. It's crazy. But that's not just for our jurisdiction. That's, I spoke to the Victims Commissioner for England and Wales, Dame Vera Baird. And they don't know either, because it's an adversarial system that victims are not a party.

Petrina: It's offender focused. So I'm sure you better get data on the number of offenders in the system. But yeah, it just shows, doesn't it? It really just highlights how victims are the forgotten party. It's crazy. Yeah. So just a standard closing question. If you could wave a magic wand and change one thing for victims, only one thing, Kim, what would it be?

Dr Kim McGregor: One thing. I think I'd still go for a Victims Commission, because the number of victims I have spoken to, and apologies, I use the term victim because it's in my title, Victims Advisor, I mean, Victim Survivors. The number of victims, survivors I've spoken to, and I've just listened to what they have experienced in the justice system. Even when they've come out with, you know, they've had terrible, terrible experiences in the system. They haven't been listened to. They haven't got a good justice outcome. And they've just talked me through the gaps in the system because they want to improve it for somebody else. And just the impact of me listening to them for, you know, even an hour, just as something as simple as that, and to have somebody hear what they've experienced and be able to take their information and try and make it better for somebody else.

They said to me at the end, thank you for listening. And, you know, that's just so powerful to be able to, they said, I feel better just for telling somebody about how hard it's been. And I just say, well, thank you for telling me because without you telling me, I would not know. You know, I'm not the expert in this, you are the expert. And so thank you so much for telling me and I will do everything in my power to, you know, try and improve the system for people coming forward.

So that's why I think a Victims Commission would be really powerful is for people like myself with lived experience who can listen to others, you know, and we need to, it would need to be a kaupapa Māori, you know, like, you know, a Tuwhare, you know, bicultural Victims Commission based in Aotearoa, so, you know, on our principles and values. But, you know, to have victims and have somebody listen to us, who looks like us, who sounds like us, who understands us is really important.

Petrina: Absolutely. Isn't it just. It's getting away from that officialdom, feeling like you've got a connection, it's the human connection. And that's what I keep coming back to, you know, that's what Victim Support's about. And, you know, it's clear to me that that's what you're about as well. You know, you're driven by that. It's just the genuineness. And that's what's lacking in our system, I think, isn't it? One of the things is just that genuineness, genuinely caring about victims. It starts with genuinely listening and a willingness to understand their needs.

Dr Kim McGregor: And I must have to, I must say that, honestly, I just really want to do a shout out to a lot of my colleagues within government. There are so many, I've found so many victim champions within, you know, like government officials, police, even the judiciary, even lawyers, you know, even defence lawyers, they're just some of them, they really understand. But also, you know, just right, and court victim advisors, they all want to make the system better for victims.

And it's, it comes back to, it's the system, not individuals in the system, it's because it's a vendor-centric system, and victims are not a party. So it's a systemic gap. And we're all trying to fix it, and, you know, in our own way, and it's, it doesn't work, doesn't work for victims. So there are always going to be gaps until we find a different, you know, a different route. And I'm also working on alternative resolution pathways. And that's often a possibility for victims, you know, we're looking at restorative justice, for example, and other forms of justice.

Petrina: Well, it's heartening to know that there, I think there's hope. You know, we've got people like you, driving change, this is really important. And it's really heartening to know that there are people listening as well in government and in the justice sector. And yeah, I mean, that makes a huge difference, doesn't it? Just having the right individuals in there.

Dr Kim McGregor: Oh, absolutely. We're a team. Yeah, we are a team. All of us together, it's not one, no one individual can make any change. But we can do it as together.

Petrina: Oh, thank you so much, Dr. Kim McGregor for joining us today.

Dr Kim McGregor: Thank you for thank you for this time. I appreciate it.

Thank you for joining us today for The Impact Statement. I hope that you'll tune in for the next conversation. And a big thank you to Scotts College here in Wellington for the use of their recording studio. Victim Support really appreciates their generous support.