Graham Perrett (Moreton, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

by leave—I just want to commend the minister at the table, the member for Swan, on his elevation and to say on the record that he's a great bloke.

Mr Irons interjecting—

Thank you, minister. I'm pleased to speak on the tabling of Report 9 of 2018 of the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Human Rights. I thank the member for Moore for his chairing of that committee. I am the deputy chair, and we work well together. I particularly wanted to speak on this report as it contains the committee's deliberations and recommendations regarding the National Redress Scheme for Institutional Child Sexual Abuse Bill 2018.

The work of the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse has been extraordinary. I particularly wish to acknowledge the wonderful and tireless work of the member for Jagajaga and her commitment over many, many years to addressing the hidden horrors of institutional child sexual abuse. I wish her well in her future endeavours beyond this parliament. I also want to mention former Prime Minister Julia Gillard. Her strength and tenacity made the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse a reality.

The royal commission received 42,041 calls. It received 25,964 letters and emails. It held 8,013 private sessions and made 2,575 referrals to authorities, including the police. The evidence the commission received was beyond shocking—it would make a stone weep at the big, horrific 'Why?'—so I also acknowledge the work of the commissioners and their staff for the tremendous but harrowing work they undertook, particularly in those 8,013 private sessions. May their dreams be filled with sunshine and light after listening to much of that horror. I also thank the many professionals, including my wife, Lea, who continue to work with the survivors of childhood sexual abuse. We now know that many of those victims never got to tell their stories to the royal commission. They had been living their lives with the horror of their childhood experiences hovering over their every move.

The impact of child sexual abuse on victims can be devastating. It is life-changing and life-limiting and, sadly, too often it can be life-ending. Their experiences often limited their educational attainment, often limited their employment opportunities and sometimes led them into criminal activity. That was one particular aspect of the bill that the human rights committee considered through a human rights prism. The redress scheme limits redress being claimed by victims with serious criminal convictions. The committee had some concerns that this was incompatible with the right to equality and nondiscrimination. It is important that victims who have been drawn into criminal activity because of the horrors they have endured and who have been lawfully punished are not being punished a second time by being denied redress for the crimes perpetrated against them. Victims who have serious criminal convictions can still be considered for redress by the scheme operator, who will make a determination. The human rights committee carefully considered the issue. The committee recommended that the special assessment process for persons with serious criminal convictions be monitored by government to ensure it operates in a manner compatible with the right to equality and nondiscrimination.

The human rights committee also considered the provisions relating to determining whether disclosure is necessarily in the public interest. The committee recommended that the scheme's operators' disclosure powers be monitored by government to ensure that any limitation on the right to privacy is no more extensive than what is strictly necessary.

I'm proud to be speaking as the deputy chair of the human rights committee today. It is when this committee considers bills such as this, bills that will have a life-changing effect on the most vulnerable members of our community, that we are reminded why this human rights committee was formed in the first place. It was another former Labor Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd, who introduced legislation to form the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Human Rights in 2008. It was in response to the Brennan consultation committee, chaired by Father Frank Brennan. The committee was formed to scrutinise new legislation introduced into the parliament for its compatibility with the human rights treaties that we are a signatory to. When parliament brings in new legislation that can have an enormous impact on the lives of victims of child sexual abuse, people who have already suffered more than any of us, I am comforted that this committee will be carefully looking at the impact through the prism of human rights. The last thing any of us would want is to cause more harm to victims.

Lastly, I would also like to mention the secretariat of the human rights committee and to thank them for the wonderful work that they do. They should be particularly proud that the Australasian Legal Information Institute, known as AustLII to most law students, have recently included reports from the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Human Rights in their database, so now people from all over the world will be researching reports tabled by this parliament's human rights committee.

On a final note, I thank Prime Minister Morrison for agreeing to deliver a national apology to victims and survivors of institutional child sexual abuse on Monday, 22 October. May it grant peace to the troubled and help heal wounds whilst forever damning those perpetrators.

Debate adjourned.

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