Linda Burney (Barton, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Families and Social Services) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the National Redress Scheme for Institutional Child Sexual Abuse Amendment (Funders of Last Resort and Other Measures) Bill 2021 and move the amendment circulated in my name:

That all words after "That" be omitted with a view to substituting the following words:   ."whilst not declining to give the bill a second reading, the House:

(1) notes:

(a) the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse estimated 60,000 survivors would be eligible for redress;

(b) as of March 2021, after almost three years of operation, the National Redress Scheme had seen only 5,275 payments made;

(c) the average processing time for a claim under the Scheme is over a year; and

(d) the Government has not implemented all the recommendations of the two-year review of the National Redress Scheme; and

(2) calls on the Government to work with states and territories to:

(a) lift the cap on Redress payments to $200,000, as recommended by the Royal Commission;

(b) fix the assessment matrix so it properly takes into account the impact of abuse; and

(c) provide ongoing support for survivors".

The journey of the Redress Scheme goes something like this. The royal commission announcement was in 2012, made by former Prime Minister Julia Gillard. Then we saw the interim report in 2014, which recommended the establishment of a redress scheme. Then we had the royal commission's final report in 2017, and the Redress Scheme began in July 2018, four years after it was recommended. In October 2018, which we all remember, of course, was the apology.

Throughout this journey, the government of Australia called on survivors of institutional sexual abuse to do some of the hardest things, promising it would be a journey the people and the government of Australia would support. Survivors were told that after years and decades of not being heard, Australia would listen to their stories. Survivors came forward in trust and bravery to tell their stories, often reliving the most traumatic experiences of their lives. While the Redress Scheme cannot right the wrongs of the past, it can go some way to providing a sense of justice. This was part of the pact Australia made with no survivors—that we would hear their stories, that we would do something about it and that we would believe them.

Survivors deserve a scheme which acknowledges the stories they told. They deserve that scheme to be in place and working now. They have waited long enough. The scheme we have today needs changes to make sure it delivers on the promise Australia made. Access to justice through the scheme is too hard and too slow. It leaves so many survivors behind and retraumatises too many along the way. The royal commission estimated, as I indicated in my second reading amendment, that 60,000 survivors would be eligible for redress. The government has simply not done well enough to give people access to the scheme.

As of 31 March 2021, the scheme had received 10,047 applications and 5,275 payments had been made. A Senate estimates hearing last year revealed that the average processing time was 12 to 13 months. Many take longer. The Joint Select Committee on Implementation of the National Redress Scheme heard it took 17 months for one applicant to have their application finalised, and that is way too long. I have met with survivors whose applications cannot progress at all, whose institutions have still not joined the scheme or who have faced years of delay because institutions simply will not do the right thing. A redress scheme focused on helping those who need it would not make access so hard. A redress scheme focused on helping those who need it would not compound trauma and retraumatise. A redress scheme focused on helping those who need it would not take a year on average to decide on an application.

Labor has listened to the recommendations of the royal commission. Labor has listened to the second-anniversary review. Most importantly, Labor has listened to survivors and what they say they need from the scheme. The government seem determined not to listen; they seem determined to put their responsibility to survivors to one side. This bill introduces two changes from the list of changes the scheme needs: firstly, it allows the government to take on the role of funder of last resort if no organisation exists to claim against or the organisation does not have the financial capacity to participate in this scheme; and, secondly, it improves the naming and shaming rules for institutions that do not join the scheme. Labor welcomes those two changes. We have been calling on them for a long time.

These are changes Labor has been calling for because we have listened to survivors. They are changes the government could have made earlier. Indeed, they are changes the government should have made earlier. These changes are yet another example of the government being dragged years too late to things they could have done immediately. It doesn't need to be this way. The government could listen to Labor, to survivors, to their own reviews, and do the right thing now. They don't need to take years to come around on doing the right thing, the thing Labor and survivors have been calling for. They don't need to make the changes we're calling for months or years apart. They could do it now.

This bill goes some way to being Labor's call for governments to act as a funder of last resort. The reality is that, for many survivors, there are no surviving institutions that can be held to account. People should not miss out on redress because of this. Government, on behalf of all Australians, has a moral responsibility to step up and help provide justice. This bill will not automatically make government the funders of last resort; that will remain a case-by-case decision. I implore all governments to make quick and compassionate decisions about becoming a funder of last resort. It is the right thing to do.

Labor supports this change as an improvement to the scheme overall, but the government could and should go further—including by taking up Labor's suggestion that, where a recalcitrant institution refuses to join the scheme, a payment can still be made to a survivor, with the government responsible for recouping the cost from institutions through the tax system or other means. Even with the changes in this bill, there would still be thousands of people who cannot access this scheme, simply because the responsible institution has not joined the scheme. I am not arguing that institutions should be let off the hook; that would be morally wrong. But there is more the government could do to secure redress for survivors. Too many organisations are still ducking their responsibilities.

Everybody in this place knows how powerful transparency is. The changes in this bill improve the operation of the public register of institutions who are not participating in the scheme—the name and shame register. That will bring the power of public opinion to bear on organisations not doing the right thing and living up to their responsibilities. These changes represent improvements to the scheme and will be supported by Labor. It is over three years since the Redress Scheme started. This is pressure that should have been brought to bear long before now. At the same time, these changes will not result in a scheme that sees Australia live up to its promise to survivors.

The list of important and necessary reforms is much longer than what is addressed in this bill. From the second-anniversary review of the scheme alone, the government has failed to act on the following recommendations: face-to-face application processes for First Nations, CALD and disability communities; lifelong access to counselling for all survivors; improving the quality, scope and geographic spread of support services, including financial counselling; developing a survivor service improvement charter to set expectations around service privacy standards; changing the limit of one application so that changes in circumstances and additional information can be taken into account; allowing applications from noncitizens, non-permanent residents, prisoners, those with serious criminal convictions, and care leavers if they were abused in care between 18 and 21—21 was the age of majority until 1974; amending the standard of proof to reasonable likelihood; fixing the assessment matrix so that penetrative abuse is not the sole indicator of the severity of abuse and the existence of extreme circumstances, so that higher payments can be received by more people who have suffered abuse, something that is particularly important to survivor organisations; combined payments for the recognition of abuse and the impact of abuse—currently payments depend mostly on the type of abuse, not its impact; removing the term 'penetrative', in acknowledgement that trauma is caused in many ways; making the assessment guidelines public so survivors know how decisions are made; introducing a minimum payment of $10,000 even where a prior payment would otherwise have reduced the payment to a lesser amount—currently some people are receiving payments of $5,000 or less; ending the indexation of prior payments, another issue very important to survivor organisations; changing the internal review process so that there is more information and a simple template and an initial payment cannot be reduced by review; ensuring that government is the funder of last resort for all applications where there is no participating institution; improving the consistency of decision-making; giving both survivors and institutions input into the scheme's operation; ensuring that payments to stolen generation survivors for non-sexual abuse are not deducted from redress payments; significantly improving the redress IT system; significantly increasing the staff cap on the scheme and stopping relying on contract staff; and, of course, improving communications and outreach to different communities and building trust.

I spoke just yesterday to a survivor who had been, in my view, duped by some legal firms out there who are cashing in on this, and I think it's reprehensible. Labor spent many years calling for the introduction of early payment schemes to ensure the elderly or unwell do not miss out on redress. The government finally came to the table a little earlier this year. It should not have taken years for the government to come around and do the right thing. By definition, it would have helped those very people who have died waiting for redress—such a shame—or become so ill and frail that they are limited in what they can do with any payment. How long this has taken is particularly sad because it doesn't even cost anything; it just brings forward part of people's payment. A government that had the needs of survivors at front of mind would not need years of pressure to make simple changes that don't cost anything but make a massive difference in people's lives.

Survivors have also criticised the scheme for caps on payments, indexation of prior payments and the deduction of unrelated prior payments, including stolen generations payments, which I have referred to. There are concerns that this is pushing survivors to give up or seek justice outside the scheme, through more difficult, costly and lengthy civil claims. These are the very things the schemes were designed to avoid. Currently some survivors are receiving, as I said, payments of $5,000 or less. Labor is once again calling for the indexation of prior payments to cease completely, as well as to ensure that unrelated payments are not deducted. This includes, as I said, stolen generation survivors of non-sexual abuse.

We are also again calling on the government to lift the cap on payments from $150,000 to $200,000 as recommended by the royal commission. The government should also build in a guarantee that a review of an offer of redress will not result in the offer being reduced. This is what survivors have been calling for, and it goes to the heart of my second reading amendment. This is what the royal commission recommended, and this is the scheme Australia should have.

The government has again failed to change its assessment matrix, a change survivors have long been asking for. The government's assessment matrix sets low the arbitrary payments for the impact of abuse based on the kind of abuse, not the scale of its impact on survivors' lives. This is yet another deviation by the government from the original recommendations of the royal commission. This is why Labor has called on the minister to remake the redress assessment framework to properly recognise the impact of abuse when calculating redress payments. The government should also make the assessment guidelines public so that survivors know how decisions are made.

The second-anniversary review has called for a change in the internal review process so that there is more information for survivors or applicants and a simpler template, as well as the provision of an additional payment that cannot be reduced by the review. It also called for the amendment to the standard of proof to 'reasonable likelihood'. The whole purpose of the scheme was to end the hurdles and high barriers to access justice that civil litigation presents. It's time the government honoured the purpose of the scheme and gave survivors access to the justice they deserve.

The scheme, as it stands, fails to provide the ongoing psychological support that survivors have been calling for and the royal commission originally recommended. The changes in this bill do nothing to address the needs of survivors. In many cases, people have been provided with as little as $1,250 to cover future counselling and psychological care. Many survivors will likely need counselling and psychological care from time to time throughout their lives or for their whole lives. A redress scheme that took the needs of survivors as its first focus would provide lifetime psychological support and counselling. That is what Labor has been calling for, because that's what survivors say they need.

In conclusion, the government always claims that the changes needed to make the scheme everything it should be require agreements from the state. They're right; they do. That's not a reason to stop trying. That is a reason to take action and to show leadership. That's what Australians expect. That's what survivors deserve. If the minister has found any state government resisting doing the right thing, tell us who they are. Don't let them stand in the way of this country doing the right thing by survivors and doing it now.

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