Amanda Rishworth (Kingston, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Social Services) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

We mark five years since the national apology to victims and survivors of institutional child sex abuse, and I acknowledge, with the greatest respect, all Australians who have been impacted by institutional child sexual abuse. We are deeply sorry for the suffering you endured. We're sorry for every time you spoke up but were not believed by those who should have been protecting you from harm. We hear you now. We believe you. Australia believes you. These are incredibly important words that have been spoken by prime ministers and parliamentarians, and they send a very powerful message to those that have been impacted.

The other message, though, I want to send today is that we will continue to hear you, believe you and do all we can to support you and keep children safe from harm. As the government, and as members from all sides in this place, we have accepted responsibility and we are working together and acting to address the pain of these failures that have caused your suffering. But we also need to resolve to make sure that it doesn't happen again.

I know that an apology can never take away the trauma and the pain, but this acknowledgment does bring what for so many decades was an unspoken trauma and pain out of the shadows and into the light. But we know that it must be backed by action, and it must be action that is driven by victim-survivors. As one of the ministers responsible in this area, I will continue to listen, to believe and, importantly, to ensure that victim-survivors' voices are at the centre of the action we take.

The National Redress Scheme is an incredibly important way of providing acknowledgment but also of turning that acknowledgement into action. All states and territories have reaffirmed their commitment to the continuous improvement of the scheme and to place the voices of survivors at its centre. The scheme is now almost 5½ years into its 10-year life span, and we encourage any institution that has a history of working with children, particularly those institutions that have been named in applications, to join it. While it's not compulsory to join, I believe there is a moral obligation for you to join this scheme.

There are now nearly 500 non-government institutions participating in the scheme, covering around 69,000 churches, schools, homes, charities, community and sporting groups across Australia. This has resulted in 15,000 outcomes, with payments totalling approximately $1.2 billion. Many applicants have chosen to receive an apology from the institution. Many survivors have found a direct personal response to be very important in helping them to achieve a sense of healing and to feel like something is being done to help make things right.

For many survivors, the redress application is the first time they've told anyone about what happened to them. We recognise—and I recognise—the trauma and the difficulty involved in applying for redress and in coming forward and putting these experiences into words. I acknowledge the strength and resilience it takes to share these stories for the first time and the bravery and courage it takes to come forward.

There has been strong progress towards improving the scheme thanks to the commitment from and meaningful consultations with survivors and support services. I would particularly like to acknowledge those survivors that have turned their experience and their pain into advocacy. It takes courage and bravery, and that needs to be commended. Every time I speak with survivors about their desire to make things different for someone else I am always moved.

Through the service charter, there is now an embedded survivor round table, which is so important for hearing the voices of survivors on how we can improve the scheme. We've also been able to provide more support services across Australia. I would like to take this opportunity to thank all of those on the front line of the redress support services who really do care and who, in a trauma-informed way, hold, support and walk alongside those seeking redress.

More work needs to be done and is being done to ensure that those people who are often excluded from services—people with disability, First Nations people and people from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds—are having their needs met and have a pathway for redress. Listening to the people with lived experience is how we will continue to make improvements to this scheme. I commit that I will continue to engage with survivors, advocates, service providers and frontline services to ensure that they do get the support they need.

Of course, this week our government has introduced legislation in response to the second-year review to strengthen the scheme, and I would like, once again, to thank everyone that shared their experiences through the second anniversary review of the scheme. These improvements, made in response to the review, make it easier for survivors to apply for the scheme, and include the removal of the requirement for an application to include a statutory declaration. We've committed to other improvements in the scheme, including offering reassessment of an application if a relevant institution subsequently joins the scheme, removing the restrictions on people applying from prison and further expanding access to redress for former child migrants. This is just one of the ways we are looking at how we best support people.

I do want to spend a small amount of time on prevention, and I would like to acknowledge the work being done by my colleague the Attorney-General, and the National Office for Child Safety. This office is incredibly important, and the work being done, including the national strategy, is really important. What sits alongside that national strategy is Safe and supported: the national framework for protecting Australia's children 2021-2031. This has been an important strategy that has two action plans underneath it, one of which is particularly dedicated to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children. Through these different processes, the work will continue.

I want to briefly mention the work being done by the National Centre for Action on Child Sexual Abuse. Their vision—and I thought it was important to share their vision—is:

A community where children are safe and victims and survivors are supported to heal and recover, free of stigma and shame—a future without child sexual abuse.

It is incumbent on us to take steps to repair the mistakes and the devastating impacts of what was horrific—horrific—abuse, to try and repair those parts of the past. This is exactly what the National Centre for Action on Child Sexual Abuse does. They put everything into ensuring that we stamp out this insidious, horrific behaviour.

The national centre has now launched its five-year strategy. I was so privileged to be at the launch of that five-year strategy. It has a really substantive work program that does look at healing, but it does look at prevention as well. This is a critical part of how we not only turn our words into actions, but also try and live up to what victim-survivors are asking for—that we do everything in our power to prevent what happened to so many from happening again. On those notes, I commend the motion to the House.

Bridget Archer (Bass, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I feel compelled to rise to speak on this issue, as we mark the fifth anniversary of the national apology to victims and survivors of institutional child sexual abuse. It also comes at a critical time for my home state of Tasmania, as the state government recently wrapped up its commission of inquiry into child sexual abuse in institutional settings. It is so disappointing to me that, as we stand to acknowledge the fifth anniversary of the national apology, you may be forgiven for thinking that we apologised for things that happened in the past, that don't happen anymore. But these things are happening. They're happening right across our country, and we have seen the most shocking—shocking—evidence presented in the inquiry in Tasmania.

The inquiry examined the responses of government institutions to allegations of child sexual abuse dating back more than 20 years, in out-of-home care, in schools, in hospitals and in other institutions. The 3,500-page report is harrowing, and the commission has put forward 191 recommendations that I'm pleased the Tasmanian government has accepted in full. Although it's difficult to hear, I want to share a story from victim-survivor Tiffany Skeggs, as she told it to ABC Tasmania:

Bouncing onto the outdoor courts on frosty mornings in Launceston, northern Tasmania, the naturally talented netballer was in her element.

After losing her dad in a fatal car accident a few years earlier, Tiffany found happiness on these courts—joy she thought nobody would be able to steal away.

"I would never have perceived that that would be where I met my greatest threat," …

The threat was disguised as an upstanding citizen.

He was a volunteer medic and masseur at the Northern Tasmanian Netball Association, who also worked as a nurse on the children's ward of the Launceston General Hospital.

James Geoffrey Griffin was 58.

Tiffany Skeggs was 11 …

"It was a predator in his playground," Ms Skeggs said.

Ms Skeggs said the sexual abuse started with long hugs and kissing, and quickly escalated.

Sometimes Griffin would pick her up for netball on Saturday mornings, and on the way there he would park his car and molest her.

He also sexually abused her in the first aid room at the netball precinct while he was on duty.

She said the first time she remembers being raped by Griffin was at his home when she was 15 years old.

The abuse occurred regularly, over several years, and at various locations.

According to the brief of evidence given to prosecutors by Tasmania Police, obtained by Ms Skeggs through a Right to Information request, Griffin also took sexually explicit photos of her and sent them to an associate.

He also told that associate about his offending against Ms Skeggs and abused her at parties hosted by associates of his.

Ms Skeggs said she was groomed to believe she was Griffin's only victim, until one day in 2019 she saw him surrounded by children at the netball courts.

"Something in me just clicked," she said.

"I didn't have a choice anymore.

…   …   …

… I as a victim-survivor along with every other victim-survivor out there, deserve answers to the questions that I have asked.

"We deserve to see action taken, we deserve integrity, and we deserve respect."

Following the police report that Ms Skeggs made, Griffin continued to work as a paediatric nurse at the Launceston General Hospital for three months. During that time, four more women contacted Tasmania Police and alleged Griffin had sexually abused them as children, in complaints ranging from the nineties through to 2012. He was charged in September 2019 with multiple child sex offences, including maintaining a sexual relationship with a person under the age of 17, an offence I note has been renamed 'persistent sexual abuse of a child'. Police also found a significant amount of child exploitation material at his home. During a formal interview, he admitted to criminal sexual misconduct and that he had met Ms Skeggs through a local sporting group.

After knowing about the nearly 40 years of abuse that children had suffered at the hands of this man, they let him walk free into the community. An internal review of police actions relating to Griffin found Tasmania Police received four information reports about him, in 2009, 2011, 2013 and 2015. CFS closed the file, and police took no further action. It was really only after reports of this surfaced in the media that action was taken to call the commission of inquiry.

I've met with many victims-survivors since the commission of inquiry was called, and I would like to acknowledge their bravery in coming forward and giving evidence to the commission, particularly Katrina Munting; Azra Beach; Tiffany Skeggs, who I've mentioned; Angelique Knight; Daisy Ford; Benjamin Felton; and Ashley Youth Detention Centre whistleblower Alysha. I think it's important to note that more needs to be done to protect people who come forward to share evidence about abuse when it occurs. I don't think that the whistleblowers who have given evidence in this inquiry have had the protection that they deserve. It is one area I think we need to do more work on if we are going to change the really awful child sexual abuse statistics that we see in Australia.

I'd particularly like to acknowledge the work of Amanda Duncan and her family in honour of her sister, Zoe Duncan, who was abused in the Launceston General Hospital. As a result of that abuse, she later died because she refused to go back to the hospital. After the report was handed down, Amanda said:

People say that Tassie air is some of the purest and freshest in the world, and I feel like I haven't, and my family haven't, been able to experience that fresh air for 22 years since Zoe was abused at the LGH. After hearing what the commissioners had to say today, and in waiting for the final report, I feel like I am able to walk out of this building today and breathe the fresh air for the first time in 22 years.

We have to acknowledge that these reports and recommendations show that abuse is still happening. It is not over for so many victim-survivors who are going through this. There is still so much more work to be done to support victims and survivors and to prevent creating more victim-survivors.

It's important to note that this is not an issue that just exists in institutions. Child sexual abuse exists in every pocket of this country, in homes across the country—in suburbia, in the city and in some of the nicest homes in the nicest streets right across the country—and we have to do more to protect children. It's not enough to just say sorry and to come every year and acknowledge that apology, when those things are still happening right across the country every day. I will spend every day that I have, in this place and beyond, fighting until we can get this changed. I'd like to echo the words of the incredibly brave Tiffany Skeggs, when she said, 'To every child out there, I will fight this battle come hell or high water for you as well.'

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

It's an honour to stand in this chamber following my colleague the Minister for Social Services, Amanda Rishworth, and the member for Bass. I thank them both for their exceptional efforts to ensure that we find justice for those who have had the most heinous crimes committed against them as children. I, too, rise to make a contribution today to mark this fifth anniversary of the national apology to victims and survivors of institutional child sexual abuse. The apology was delivered five years ago by the former prime minister Julia Gillard AC, a colleague and friend, and it marked a historic moment in recognising the tens of thousands of innocent victims of child sexual abuse, much of which occurred in what should have been our most trusted institutions.

More than 17,000 victims, survivors and advocates gave evidence at the royal commission. Having had the commission sit in my hometown of Newcastle for a number of days, sadly we have two volumes dedicated to the shocking crimes that were committed over many decades in the diocese of Maitland and Newcastle. Many, many survivors have told me that that royal commission and their experience of that was the gold standard of royal commissions, and I really congratulate, retrospectively, not just the former prime minister Julia Gillard but those prime ministers that followed, as well as the current Attorney-General, who was also the Attorney-General then and had so much to do in shaping that royal commission process, ensuring it was a safe space for survivors and that they would be able to get the evidence that was required to shine a very big light on what had previously been part of Australia's very darkest histories.

The royal commission certainly did expose the horrors that thousands and thousands and thousands of Australian children experienced in places where, as I said, they should have felt safe. Their courage in coming forward and reliving their trauma cannot be understated. It was the result of that courage that, finally, after many years of living with untold trauma, their perpetrators got exposed and the institutions that in some cases turned a blind eye—or, even worse, engaged in acts that covered up what were clearly explicit crimes—were held accountable. The excellent work of the royal commission and the subsequent establishment of the National Redress Scheme have gone a long way to validating survivor experiences and reminding us all of the need to always ensure that our responses are survivor focused and that everything we do is, indeed, trauma informed.

I do wish to make note of a recent High Court ruling that has paved the way for many survivors of abuse from perpetrators now deceased to go ahead and seek justice. The significance of this decision is enormous. We're yet to see it really play out in Australia, but it means that survivors of child sexual abuse will no longer be excluded from a pathway to justice simply because their abuser has died before this matter has come forward. The High Court decision to overrule the infamous dead man's defence is especially important given that we know that it takes an average of more than 20 years for a survivor of child sexual abuse to tell someone about that experience. The case will put to an end, as I said, the shocking misuse of the dead man's defence, ensuring that more survivors can pursue justice for the lifelong trauma of the horrific abuse they experienced as children.

Bridget Archer (Bass, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! We're going to have to suspend the Federation Chamber, as we've lost quorum.

Sitting suspended from 10:5 1 to 10:5 3

( Quorum formed)

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

Given the prevalence of institutionalised child sexual abuse in the Maitland-Newcastle diocese and the extensive use of permanent stays in New South Wales, there will be many survivors in my community who will be greatly relieved by this High Court decision. They may now even dare to hope that justice, albeit long delayed, is within reach.

I'd also like to acknowledge the work of the Albanese Labor government in making sure that the National Redress Scheme for Institutional Child Sexual Abuse Amendment Bill is now fairer and more transparent. I sat in the chamber yesterday listening to the minister as she introduced the National Redress Scheme for Institutional Child Sexual Abuse Amendment Bill 2023.As deputy chair of that committee that was set up to oversee the National Redress Scheme, I was there from 2017 to 2022. This work is deeply important to not just my community but also to me and my work in this parliament over many years now. I am and remain deeply committed to seeking justice for survivors of child sexual abuse, and some of the most harrowing evidence given in the royal commission came from Newcastle and the Hunter region. We have much work to do to ensure that those people are supported to heal and to seek the justice they deserve. It's for those people, their bravery and their commitment to ensuring the abuse they experienced never happens again that this work is so important.

I acknowledge some people in Newcastle—survivors—who have been steadfast in their advocacy in this work. I acknowledge Bob O'Toole and his group, the Clergy Abuse Network; Peter Gogarty, now an associate lecturer at the Newcastle School of Law and Justice, who has been an absolute champion; Audrey Nash, who lost her beloved son, Andrew, through suicide as a result of the abuse he experienced in his life, and her other children—Geoffrey and others—who have been dogged in their insistence that justice is served. I want them to know that I stand beside them each and every day in pursuing that goal too.

I echo the words of the minister and acknowledge the powerful advocates who have called on the government to do something about addressing those wrong of the past. There have been many more from across the nation, and this helped shape the legislation that was put before the House yesterday. The bill has some key changes to allow applicants to provide additional information when they're requesting a review of their decisions, reducing the circumstances where applicants must undertake a special assessment process. This is particularly important for people with criminal convictions or who are doing time in prison, removing restrictions that prevent incarcerated survivors from lodging an application. We know that so often many of those people in prison have been survivors of child sexual abuse, so enabling that to progress and a reassessment of final applications if a relevant institution joins the scheme down the track, has been an important amendment.

I understand there are now 496 nongovernment institutions that are participating in the National Redress Scheme. There have been 13,400 payments, totalling $1.2 billion, that have been paid to survivors to date, but this is not a note of self-congratulation here. This is just the tip of the iceberg. We know that. The royal commission estimated some 60,000 people would seek to make use of the National Redress Scheme, and only 13,400 have been paid out. There is always room to improve the scheme, and we will continue to do that. I acknowledge the terrific work of the national centres now established to focus on the eradication of child sexual abuse in our country, and I thank the House for the opportunity to speak today.

A division having been called in the House of Representatives—

Mark Dreyfus (Isaacs, Australian Labor Party, Cabinet Secretary) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

22 October marked the fifth anniversary of the National Apology to Victims and Survivors of Institutional Child Sexual Abuse. I wish to commemorate this anniversary and highlight the essence of the apology's message. To reiterate the words that victims and survivors, their loved ones and their families should have heard all along: we are sorry, we believe you and we will do better. In the wake of the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse, the apology acknowledged our country's history. It is a history of children being sexually abused by people and institutions that they should have been able to trust. The royal commission gave an opportunity for thousands of victims and survivors to be heard. For many, it was the first opportunity they had to speak about their ordeals. I commend the extraordinary people who shared their experiences and spoke of the abuse suffered at the hands of institutions and I commend the people who spoke when others could not. I'm very proud of the role that I played, as Attorney-General at the time, in the establishment of the royal commission and ensuring that people who engaged with the royal commission received the legal support that they needed.

Knowmore was launched in 2013 as a free legal advisory and support service to assist people to tell their story to the royal commission. The value of the service was acknowledged in the final report of the royal commission, where it recommended that knowmore should not only continue but expand its services. Knowmore now provides legal advice and support for all victims and survivors of child sexual abuse. I'd like to take this opportunity to acknowledge Mr Warren Strange, who retired earlier this year after guiding knowmore from its inception and with unwavering commitment for more than a decade.

I'm honoured to stand here today and speak of the progress we are making to give effect to the royal commission's recommendations. The Australian Centre to Counter Child Exploitation has marked its fifth anniversary this year. The ACCCE has a vision to keep children free from exploitation and a mission to drive coordinated responses to counter online child exploitation. Demonstrating their success in this mission, over the past five years the Australian Federal Police have charged 877 alleged offenders with more than 7,000 child abuse offences. It's also the fifth year of operation for the National Office for Child Safety. Recommended by the royal commission, the national office is working across the Commonwealth, state and territory governments and the community in a coordinated approach to prevent and respond to child sexual abuse and to support and empower victims and survivors. The national office overseas the delivery of the National Strategy to Prevent and Respond to Child Sexual Abuse 2021-2030, which launched two years ago and responds to approximately 100 royal commission recommendations.

Following the national apology and the royal commission, significant progress has been made in addressing child sexual abuse, and this year has been no exception. I'd like to name a few achievements from this year. We have launched a national awareness raising and behavioural change campaign called One Talk at a Time. The campaign is aimed at helping adults understand that child sexual abuse is preventable and encouraging ongoing, proactive and preventative conversations. It's the first national campaign of its kind. I'm incredibly proud to be able to say that the campaign has reached over six million Australians since launching in October, sparking important conversations across the country. We have released guides for media reporting on child sexual abuse to promote reporting that raises community awareness of child sexual abuse, reduces stigma and empowers victims and survivors when they share their personal experiences with the media. We have launched minimum practice standards for specialist and community support services responding to child sexual abuse to promote safe and effective services that support individuals who've been impacted by child sexual abuse. And we have supported implementation of the National Principles for Child Safe Organisations, including delivering child safety risk management resources.

I acknowledge and thank all the individuals and organisations who are working so hard to prevent and respond to child sexual abuse. In particular, I thank the victims and survivors who have so generously shared their experiences. It's because of your bravery that meaningful change can be achieved. There is so much more work to do. The recently released Australian Child Maltreatment Study revealed that one in four Australians aged 16 and over have experienced child sexual abuse, underscoring the importance of the work under way to combat child sexual abuse. The fifth anniversary is a milestone in our journey to address child sexual abuse. We will continue upholding the royal commission's recommendations and striving to do better for all victims and survivors. To the community, I ask for your continued support. To victims and survivors, I say again: we are sorry, we believe you and we will do better.

Debate adjourned.