Sharon Claydon (Newcastle, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I'll pick up where I left off. I was acknowledging the work of the former Liberal Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull in establishing the National Apology Reference Group, which I was very privileged to be part of along with Steve Irons, a member of this House; former senator Derryn Hinch; and current Greens Senator Rachel Siewert. In addition to the parliamentarians there was a diverse group of representatives of survivors. I want to acknowledge my fellow National Apology Reference Group members: Cheryl Edwardes, the chair of the reference group, from Western Australia; Caroline Carroll; Christine Foster; Craig Hughes-Cashmore; Hetty Johnston; Leonie Sheedy; and Richard Weston.

The reference group undertook a really extensive consultation program. We had 58 face-to-face consultations around Australia and took a very significant number of submissions in order to help provide advice to the Prime Minister—as I mentioned, it was Malcolm Turnbull that we were providing advice to at the time—to ensure that the apology, as much as possible from the government's point of view, would reflect the wishes of survivors. Regretfully, on the eve of the apology, there was a change of leadership and Malcolm Turnbull was no longer Prime Minister. So that work had to very swiftly transition across to advising the current Prime Minister, Scott Morrison. To the current Prime Minister's credit, he delivered an apology that went a long way to address the issues that had been raised through our reference group consultations.

I really want to bring attention—given that this is the second anniversary of that national apology—to one of the very core components of the advice that we provided to both prime ministers. That was that the national apology needed to be meaningful and, importantly, supported by real concrete substantive action to bring about powerful, lasting reform that would ensure that, as far as possible, that level of systemic child sexual abuse was to never re-occur in this fashion. While I appreciate that it is difficult to say the word 'never' in this context, that absolutely must be the goal that we all seek to achieve.

I want to put on the record my concerns around the lack of progress that this parliament and the Australian government, in terms of its leadership, have made in terms of ensuring that the National Redress Scheme, which was one of the critical components of our response to the royal commission recommendations, lives up to the expectations of what that redress scheme should be. It really is lacking in so many ways, and I am deeply worried about its capacity to live up to expectations of the survivors of child sexual abuse of what that redress scheme should be. Their expectations are very grounded in the actual royal commission recommendations. As I have said before in this chamber—and it is worth repeating—each and every time the government have chosen to deviate from the actual recommendations of the royal commission they have done so to the detriment of survivors.

It is very timely for this parliament to reflect on this now. We will soon be debating some amendments, I believe, to the National Redress Scheme, and I am forever hopeful that the government will indeed take on some of the big reforms that are necessary. I have tabled in this parliament reports in April 2019 and recommendations in April 2020 that have given this government every piece of advice and guidance that they require to make this National Redress Scheme the scheme that the royal commission envisaged it to be. I know that the shadow minister, Linda Burney, is undergoing negotiations with government to try and get bipartisan support for key reforms of the Redress Scheme. It is appalling that it is not survivor focused and guided by trauma informed practice; that must be at the centre of the Redress Scheme. Labor and survivor groups have long argued for a change to the matrix to increase the cap, to ensure that nobody can be disadvantaged if they seek review. There is much work to be done and there is no time to waste. Frankly, I have tabled way too many reports with way too many recommendations for this government to refuse to listen any further.

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