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

I'm very pleased to rise to make a contribution to the debate today on the National Redress Scheme for Institutional Child Sexual Abuse Amendment (Technical Amendments) Bill 2020 and to strongly support the amendments moved by the member for Barton to really help set the Redress Scheme back on path to deliver on its promise to actually be a survivor centred and focused scheme.

The Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse was indeed a necessary and essential response to one of the darkest chapters in Australia's history. We remain forever grateful to the then Prime Minister Julia Gillard for having the courage to launch this royal commission. It uncovered some of the most heinous abuse of innocent children, often inflicted by the very people who were charged with their care. There is no greater betrayal of trust than what occurred under the watch of people who were charged with a duty of care.

The National Redress Scheme was launched in 2018, and it was one of the key recommendations of the royal commission. The commissioners saw it as a very necessary pathway whereby survivors could seek redress for the injustices against them without having to go through the time, trauma and expense of legal action. The legislation before us today makes a number of largely technical amendments. Regrettably, these changes won't solve many of the serious structural issues and deficiencies that we know exist within the scheme. We know that because survivors tell us so every day.

As the deputy chair of the Joint Select Committee on Implementation of the National Redress Scheme, as well as the deputy chair of the former committee that inquired into the same matter in the last parliament, I've been following the rollout of this scheme very closely, as have my Labor colleagues, since 2018. These are committees of parliament that have always operated in a multipartisan manner. Regrettably, the take-home message from the work of both these committees has been that the National Redress Scheme is not delivering on its promise to be survivor focussed and to be trauma informed. There are still too many examples where that is simply not the case, and we have taken extensive evidence from survivors, from experts, from community organisations and from government agencies that this scheme is slow, is difficult to navigate and, as I've said, is not sufficiently survivor focused. One of the key issues of the scheme is the take-up. I think it is deeply worrying that, even though it has been operating since 2018, only a fraction of the eligible survivors have signed up. Indeed, the royal commission estimated 60,000 survivors would be eligible, but as of last month only 4,620 payments had been made following 9,232 applications. That has to be ringing some alarm bells for government. That is an appalling participation rate by any measure. Indeed, at that rate you would be looking at 32 years for all 60,000 survivors to receive redress. Clearly that is untenable.

I believe that one of the fundamental problems is that the scheme that was ultimately rolled out by the government did not ever fully realise the recommendations of the royal commission, and each and every time we have deviated from those recommendations it has been to the detriment of survivors. As a parliament, we have stepped away from survivor needs, and it has to stop. That's why Labor has proposed a number of amendments to the bill before us today to bring the scheme back in line with what the royal commission envisaged. The amendments include increasing the maximum payment to $200,000, which is what the royal commission said and what survivors deserve and expect; removing indexation of prior payments when calculating the redress payments; removing consideration of any other payments that don't relate to abuse that are currently being caught up in those assessments; ensuring that the government acts as a funder of last resort for institutions that aren't eligible to take part. This is a very real and live issue before the parliament today.

Other amendments go to the provision of ongoing psychological counselling and support. I'm the member for Newcastle, an epicentre for this kind of child sexual abuse in the religious institutions. It is a shameful part of our history. I work with many, many survivors on a very regular basis, and it is the issue of ongoing access to psychological counselling and support that they feel utterly betrayed by. The royal commission couldn't have been clearer: 'You need to provide ongoing psychological and counselling support. It needs to recognise the episodic nature of abuse and trauma.' We do this for veterans in Australia. It is unforgivable that we have not been able to deliver the same kind of psychological and counselling services to survivors of child sexual abuse. I cannot fathom why we have a situation where different jurisdictions have different kinds of caps and access issues. It is untenable and unforgivable.

Labor's other amendments are to improve the framework to better recognise the impacts of abuse. We have an appalling system of an assessment matrix that exists at the moment that failed to learn the lesson of the royal commission—that is, you must put an emphasis on the impact of the abuse as opposed to the strict definitional nature of the abuse that took place; it is the impact that we need to be mindful of.

Labor will move amendments to create an advance payment scheme for the elderly and very unwell survivors. This is a system that the parliament in Scotland has been able to roll out very successfully. We, in Australia, absolutely should be delivering a similar scheme here. People should not be dying whilst waiting for redress but that's what's happening, and I don't think anyone in this parliament should be kidding themselves otherwise.

So those are Labor's amendments. I know the member for Barton has gone to great length articulating the detail of those amendments. I thank her for that and for her tireless work on behalf of survivors to try to get this redress scheme working again.

Labor are seeking to ensure that the amount of redress won't decrease if survivors request a review of their offer—another shameful consequence, perhaps unintended, but it is a consequence of what is in place now. If you seek a review of a decision you could end up with even less redress than you did before. Let's not forget, the redress that is being offered to people is extremely modest, considering the lifelong trauma that has been experienced.

These amendments go to the heart of the core problems that have been identified in the parliamentary committee's work. Indeed, many of them have been recommended by one or both of the committees in various reports that have been handed down before this Australian parliament. So it really is time for some action. Labor has also extended a very genuine offer to the government to work together in good faith on making the redress scheme the very best it can be. We are committed, and I have no doubt there are many members opposite on the government benches who are deeply committed to ensuring that this redress scheme is improved and delivers on its promise. We just need to ensure that everyone, in fact, is onboard and does the necessary heavy lifting when it comes to legislative reform and, indeed, those negotiations with various state and territory jurisdictions that need to take place.

There is limited time left in the debate. I would like to look at some of the detail of the amendments, the first one being around the maximum payment amount. It remains a thorn in the side of survivors that we are unable to explain to them why we deviated from the royal commission's recommendation that the cap would be at $200,000 yet, by the time the legislation came to this parliament to pass, that cap was reduced to $150,000 and there are all sorts of conditions attached to who can receive that maximum payment. This goes to the problem of the assessment matrix as it currently exists. To be very blunt, without penetration, you cannot receive the maximum amount of redress. That is an insult and it flies in the face of the recommendation of the royal commission around the way that that assessment matrix should work. It flies in the face of all the research that we know around impacts of child sexual abuse and it remains an absolute insult to people that they would be assessed through this matrix that defies all of the best research. Really, the way that this is now structured, it prevents people who have been profoundly impacted, who have lifelong trauma, from ever receiving a maximum payment in the National Redress Scheme because of the way that matrix currently works.

I have often explored the issue around indexation in this parliament in previous debates. It is not okay to be capturing payments that were made under other schemes or other capacities to provide some redress whilst royal commissions were underway or this parliament was sorting out what the National Redress Scheme would look like here. As I said, people are getting quite modest and sometimes very small payments out of redress. It's not okay to have them further reduced by these other payments, some of which are not even directly related to the redress issue. I know the member for Barton has raised before that survivors from stolen generations are having payments—payments resulting from the trauma they experienced due to the stolen generations—taken into consideration to reduce their redress payment. Those two should not be counting each other out in any way, shape or form. It is obscene that, when an offer is put on the table and you seek to have a review, you could actually come back with an even smaller offer at the end of the day. We need to make sure that survivors aren't afraid to seek a review of decisions because they are fearful that they would have money taken away from them.

I will go straight to this issue of funder of last resort, because I think it is a very significant issue that this government has to get its head around, and it has to resolve the problems sooner rather than later. There is an urgent need now. There is a huge problem in the National Redress Scheme around the lack of an adequate funder of last resort provision. There are currently 11 organisations that, despite wanting to join the National Redress Scheme—we can't blame these organisations for not wanting to join—are unable to do so because they do not meet the eligibility requirements. An example of this that is on the public record—I am not breaching any confidence here—involves the Retta Dixon Home in Darwin, where many children, many of whom were from the stolen generation, were horrendously abused over three decades. That organisation is unable to join this scheme, because it cannot assure the scheme that it is financially secure enough to pay redress to the victims, both current and future.

Labor believes that the federal government, as the deliverer of the National Redress Scheme, has a moral obligation to step in as the funder of last resort in these areas, and we have submitted an amendment to that effect. I hope the government looks very seriously at that. We need to have a system where we can make sure there aren't further injustices against survivors. We have a lot to say around how you might improve measures on tax deductibility and levy schemes for organisations that might try to dodge and avoid tax constraints. I would bring the House's attention back to the Scottish incentive around an advanced payment scheme. The Australian parliament could well adopt a similar scheme.

See this speech in context