Ms Catherine King (Ballarat, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Health and Medicare) Share this | Hansard source

I join with many colleagues in this place to talk on the National Redress Scheme, and I want to commend the member for Corio for his contribution. Anthony's story is one of many, many, many that men and women have told. Anthony is one of many who went through appalling abuse in our orphanages and our institutions whom we have lost and for whom this compensation scheme, this redress scheme, comes too late. It is their voices we hear echoing through this chamber, and it is important that we have resolve to get this done.

My community of Ballarat, of course, knows too well the legacy of child sexual abuse. There have been countless cases highlighted through the royal commission. The Ballarat cases warranted their own part of the commission's inquiry, their own booklet as part of the inquiry, as there were so many of them. There will be others who have never come forward to this day and have never spoken about their abuse, and there are many others who we have lost to suicide or early death. Our community has had an incredibly deep hurt inflicted through its heart, a hurt that lingers to this day and will take generations to heal. Child sexual abuse hurts everyone in a community. It affects every one of us, from the children growing to adults through to their children and their partners. It affects our police, our welfare workers and our teachers—all of us. That is why the royal commission has been so important: shining a light on what has occurred and providing a powerful symbol to the many, many survivors, that they are heard and believed across the breadth and the depth of this nation—that we believe you.

At hearings across the country, the royal commission heard from tens of thousands of Australians and shone a light on a shameful part of our history—a part of our history that has been ignored and denied for too long. In Ballarat I attended these hearings and I saw personally both the hurt and the strength of those who told their stories. I echo the member for Corio's words, that these men and women are some of the bravest people I know. There was the sight of some of these men attending Rome when Cardinal George Pell had been unable, or unwilling, to attend Australia to be part of those hearings. The survivors in Ballarat went to Rome to highlight that case and to speak with him, to encourage him to come and tell what he knew. They are some of the bravest people I know.

Of course, when Prime Minister Gillard established the royal commission, it was more than about symbols. It was established to provide redress and to make changes across all policy areas to ensure the protection of children and to make sure this does not happen again. In recognition of this important role, the commission deliberately handed down an interim report on redress so that the policy work on implementing such a scheme was not delayed. While this legislation has been a long time coming, it's an important step. And while I respect the complexity of negotiating such a scheme on behalf of the many people of my electorate who this affects directly, it would be remiss of me not to point out its shortcomings.

This is not the redress scheme recommended by the royal commission. When I talk to survivors, there are several things that they tell me. One is that the constant retelling of their stories to health professional after health professional and counsellor after counsellor perpetuates the harm. They need ongoing, lifelong access to counselling and other health services that provide them with dignity and continuity of care. They need recognition financially that many have lost jobs, housing and financial security—if they were ever able to get these in the first place—and it's been a direct result of the trauma that they experienced. This scheme does some of that, but falls well short of what many in the community need and expected.

While we are still trying from this side to seek improvements to this legislation, we are deeply conscious that many survivors have already been waiting too long and that the scheme is due to start on 1 July. My criticisms of the scheme are already on record, but they include, firstly, the government's decision to allow states and institutions to opt in, which, in essence, handed over all of the negotiating power to them. It's resulted in the Commonwealth having to make substantial concessions to get them into the scheme. We still do not have all states or institutions in.

There is no excuse for any of these bodies not to sign up to this scheme. No institution could possibly justify a decision not to offer the redress that means so much to more than 60,000 survivors of institutional sexual abuse. The failure of some institutions to sign up to the scheme adds a further hurdle to many survivors. The failure of some institutions means that, despite no recommendation from the royal commission, the government's bill states that only one application to the redress scheme can be made for each survivor. That means that some survivors may have to make the difficult choice of whether to delay pursuing a claim in the hope that all institutions responsible for the abuse sign up, or deciding to access redress when only one or some of them have opted in. This would be a particularly difficult decision for the survivors who are nearing the later years of their lives.

Secondly, one of the concessions that the government has made to get states and institutions into the scheme has resulted in the maximum cap for redress claims being watered down. Whereas the royal commission recommended a $200,000 maximum for redress claims, the bills before the House specifically say that the maximum available will be $150,000. This amount is important not only because of the possibility that the amount of redress offers but because those who accept an offer of redress made under the scheme will lose their right to make a civil claim against the institutions responsible for their abuse. I've heard countless stories of survivors of abuse who have never been able to work or who have in later years lost jobs and businesses and are suffering from significant financial insecurity. While redress is not a compensation scheme, it should also not be so low as to afford little recognition of this harm. The issue of indexation of previous payments made is also of significant concern, meaning that there will be some recipients who are entitled to redress actually ending up receiving absolutely nothing, because of the indexation of past payments.

One of the more contentious measures of the original legislation has been improved but is still of concern. The government has now allowed that people imprisoned for five years or more may be considered eligible for the scheme so long as providing the person with redress does not bring the scheme into disrepute. As someone who spent the early part of their career working with people in prisons and youth training centres, I get it—they have often done terrible acts and committed unforgivable crimes—but I also know that very few of them that I worked with had not experienced some form of abuse, some of them sexual abuse, while in the care of institutions. There is considerable evidence that a history of childhood abuse and trauma can increase the likelihood that an adult will engage in criminal behaviour. The later decisions and crimes of these survivors do nothing to negate the abuse that they as innocent children suffered. This childhood trauma may have been a significant cause that led to their later crimes. These bills seek to potentially deny them justice and redress.

Thirdly, the bills also go against the recommendations of the royal commission regarding access to counselling. The commission recommended access to counselling and psychological care be provided for the rest of their lives if required and not be limited to a lump sum payment. These bills fall far short of this. The bills state that either counselling will be provided through an existing state service for the life of the scheme or a payment for counselling of up to $5,000 will be made to the survivor. This is one of the key areas I think the government needs to rethink. Survivors who've suffered abuse at the hands of state-run institutions may not be able to or wish to use state- or institution-run services. This needs to be taken into account by states when delivering these services. In such a case, the $5,000 payment will not be adequate to provide access to lifelong support. As I said at the commencement of my contribution, it is this issue that is so important to ensuring the future health and wellbeing of survivors. The government has not got this right in this legislation. It is deeply unfair and it does not recognise the incredible harm done.

Labor has long argued that the recommendations of the royal commission should be implemented as intended and that no changes be made that limit the benefits the scheme offers to survivors around Australia. In light of these many concerns, Labor has referred these bills to a Senate inquiry so that the community can be consulted more thoroughly before a vote is taken. As a gesture of good faith in our ongoing discussions with the government to resolve these concerns and in acknowledgement of our longstanding commitment to the establishment of a national redress scheme, Labor will support, as the member for Jagajaga said, the bills in the House today, but we need to do much better.

On 24 May in my local newspaper, the Ballarat Courier, some survivors spoke about their disappointment with the redress scheme. As I conclude my contribution I want to quote from that so that their voices are heard here in this chamber. Gary Sculley said:

The redress is quite poor in a way, going against a lot of the Royal Commission recommendations and whittling it down to the point where it is insulting.

…   …   …

Survivors are put in a position now where it's basically take the redress, go away and die; it is appalling …

Stephen Woods said that there is so much frustration and anger. He said:

The survivors and families … we are all still holding on.

Like so many others, my life has been a small percentage of the potential I have, of what I could have achieved.

They are important words for us to hear. Whilst I don't want to underestimate the moment that we have here of actually achieving a national redress scheme, I have to speak for the many voices of the men and women of my community who have been so deeply affected. This isn't the scheme that the royal commission recommended. We do need to do better, particularly in the area of access to counselling and other healthcare services for the lives of these men and women. We know many of them have been deeply traumatised by what happened and are deeply traumatised still to this day. Every day of the commission, and every day this is debated in this place, more and more of them talk about the harm done. They are exhausted by the process. They want us to get this done, but they also want to make sure that what we do is right by them.

As I say, whilst we'll support these bills, it's important for us to hear where the scheme needs to be improved, and it's important for us to hear the words of the many survivors. It's important for us to remember that, whilst the commission has done its work and it's concluded its work, ours has only just started and we still have a very long way to go. I thank the House.

See this speech in context