Ken Wyatt (Hasluck, Liberal Party, Minister for Indigenous Health) Share this | Hansard source

I want to start by acknowledging former Prime Minister Julia Gillard's commitment to undertake this royal commission. It was an important decision. It was a line in the sand in addressing the unspeakable. I want to associate myself with the words of the Prime Minister, Scott Morrison, and the Leader of the Opposition, Bill Shorten, in their speeches to the parliament. Yesterday the Australian government, on behalf of the Australian people and our parliament, delivered a national apology to victims and survivors of institutional child sexual abuse. The national apology recognised the appalling abuse of children in institutions and acknowledged the profound and ongoing impacts that this abuse has had, scarring the lives of too many Australians.

As a federal member, in my own seat I meet constituents who have experienced the hell of being abused as a child. I meet with them to discuss opportunities for them to access some form of support, because many have kept it bottled up within for a long period of time. One gentleman, who was at Leeuwin, talked of his experience—the feelings that he had, but, more importantly, the fact that he couldn't tell his wife what happened to him, because he was worried that his relationship would suffer. This is like so many of the people I meet and talk with—including a man who wanted to meet with me to talk, and we went into a shopping centre. He knew the owner of the shop. We sat out the back of the shop on boxes. He shared with me the story of what happened to him when he was in Castledare—the daily beatings, the treatment, the sexual abuse, but also the vivid memories.

If we think about this, every one of us when we have experiences have a visual recollection or imagery within our minds of the event that has occurred, from both pleasurable through to what people who were abused would have experienced. The element of touch becomes something that they wish to abstain from but, in order to cope with life in relationships, they allow that to occur. My own understanding and journey in two cultures is that we have had two reports—this report, which is 17 volumes of the experiences of people whose harrowing childhood memories are based on the lack of trust and the betrayal of trust by those who had a responsibility to care for them and look after them.

Over 17,000 survivors came forward to the royal commission, and nearly 8,000 of them recounted their abuse in private sessions to the commission, resurrecting the memories of the things that had happened to them, the experiences that robbed them of their innocence, the experiences that would leave them marked for life. Whilst we are resilient as human beings, you cannot erase the things that have hurt you the most. One of the elements of the conversations I've had with people in my own electorate was the issue of the betrayal of trust, the failure of adults to listen to their stories, the failure of those who they thought they could go to. In recent times, I still hear of experiences within communities where children are still being abused, whose innocence is being destroyed for the pleasure of another who they trust. And I think of their life for the future, those who have taken their lives because the memories are too great.

I think of the boys of Kinchela in New South Wales when I was there. I listened to their stories of what happened to them and how those memories cannot be erased. But the challenge that's become more marked for me is being the Minister for Aged Care, where I have people from the CLAN—Leonie. I have people from Fairbridge. I have people from other institutions who say to me, 'I am not going into an aged-care facility, because the abuse I experienced in an institution I was associated with as a child I do not want to revisit in my ageing years.' And the sad part is that some have said, 'I would rather commit suicide than go into an another institution.' That's an indictment on our nation. It's an indictment that we couldn't say to these children, 'We believe you.'

An apology does make a difference, but it doesn't undo the scars of what has happened to you. Those scars are as real as the scars after surgery except they are within the mind, in the heart and in the psyche of an individual. And so the work that we do as members of this parliament is to ensure that the recommendations of this royal commission are implemented. It doesn't matter which side of politics we're on. This is about the consideration of those who have lived with the experience. I know there are many still who have not talked about their experience, because they fear what they will feel when they reopen the wounds of the past and that the challenges that they face in sharing it with family are always going to be a challenge for them emotionally.

The Prime Minister announced further actions to support survivors with annual reporting on the progress of the royal commission's recommendations and working with survivor groups to establish a national museum to ensure their stories are recorded. But what I want to see is that we don't see stories recorded from contemporary Australia today. We should all be vigilant and call out those that we suspect. We should listen to a voice that reaches out to us to say, 'Something is happening to me that's not right,' and we should have the courage to ensure that an action is taken.

I think of a town in WA where I have written to all the relevant state ministers of the information that I have been given. What frustrates me is the slowness of bureaucracy in responding to the actions that need to be implemented on the ground to intervene and to put into place interventions to protect children. I cannot comprehend any adult who determines in their own mind that it is right to be a paedophile, to abuse a child in a way that you would not expect a decent human being to ever do. I have seen too many scarred people over my lifetime who were abused as children sexually. They cope to some extent, but there are times in which that coping mechanism of theirs gives way and they experience the memories of those traumas. Their health suffers and their whole life and interaction on a social basis is impacted by the memories of the past. And the other part that has been very telling are those who have said they have been cheated because the person who was the perpetrator has passed away, when they had an opportunity to seek to charge, to seek to have them held accountable. And in those circumstances it's always hard.

But children should always feel safe and be protected from abuse. Children's safety is a paramount consideration. To all of the people that I've met and to all those who were here in the House and those who weren't able to be here: we are truly sorry for what happened to you. We're truly sorry that many of the things that happened to you happened under the supervision of adults who should have shown far greater responsibility and civility. So, we will work together in this House and in this parliament to ensure that the future is safe and, more importantly, to look at ways where we recognise and take care of the elements that made your life the hell that you experienced.

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