Jenny Macklin (Jagajaga, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Disability and Carers (House)) Share this | Hansard source

On 15 December, the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse will deliver its final report. The royal commission, established by the former Gillard Labor government in 2013, has sought to shine a light on past abuses, acknowledge the suffering endured by survivors and seek justice for those people—and it has. I want to thank the courageous men and women who have come forward to give evidence. We honour the survivors, their families and advocates, without whom there would have been no royal commission—people like Leonie Sheedy, Caroline Carroll, Pamella Vernon and the late Anthony Foster, just to name a few. I thank the royal commissioners and all the staff who have supported survivors in telling their accounts of abuse over four years of hearings. For many years, survivors were not believed. So I want to say directly to survivors today: I believe you. We believe you. Everyone in the parliament believes you. The task for us now is to deliver a fair dinkum redress scheme for survivors, to deliver justice and to make sure that we change the laws to stop this form of abuse ever happening again.

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