Tony Zappia (Makin, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

On behalf of the Joint Standing Committee on Implementation of the National Redress Scheme, I present the committee's final report, entitled Redress: Journey to justice.

Report made a parliamentary paper in accordance with standing order 39(e).

by leave—The report was presented to the Senate yesterday by the chair of the committee, Senator Catryna Bilyk. But, because of the importance of it to the tens of thousands of people who are directly affected by the scheme, I take this opportunity to make a few brief remarks. Having read the remarks made by the chair, I cannot say it any better than how she did when she presented the report to the Senate, so I will quote directly from her speech. But I won't quote the speech in full; I'll just stick to what I think are the key areas, which will at least give some guidance to anyone who's following the presentation of this report. In saying that, I note you, Madam Deputy Speaker Vamvakinou, were a member for the committee, as was the member for Paterson and the member for Bass, who are in the chamber here today. It's good to have them here whilst the report is being presented.

I will quote directly from Senator Bilyk's statement:

On 28 November 2022, the committee resolved to inquire into and report upon the operation of the National Redress Scheme. A key focus of the committee's work was to examine the experience of First Nations applicants and applicants with disability in their dealings with the scheme. The committee also examined the accessibility and effectiveness of support services and legal advice for survivors and their advocates.

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A critical concern of the committee is that the time left for the scheme is running out. The scheme closes to new applications in mid-2027 and ceases in 2028. Unless changes are made, some survivors could miss out on redress. To address this, the committee has recommended that the Australian government work with states and territories to extend the life of the scheme … We recommend increasing funding for the Department of Social Services, knowmore Legal and other support services to ensure all applications can be finalised on time, and we recommend undertaking a publicity campaign to ensure that survivors are aware of the deadline. The scheduled eight-year review should consider how the scheme will close, how to maximise the number of applications dealt with in the time remaining, and alternative options for survivors if redress cannot be offered because a responsible institution does not fulfil its intention to join.

The committee received evidence relating to the experience of survivors within the scheme. Retelling their stories as part of their application is traumatising for so many. Frankly, many of them deserve a lot better. The committee has recommended improvements to the way the Department of Social Services deals with clients …

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More than 900 institutions have been declared into the scheme, including a number that are listed on the website as 'intending to participate'.

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We think the scheme would be improved by regular information from the Australian government on the names of institutions that have refused to join.

In addition, the government should consider, before the scheme closes, what penalties will be directed to institutions that did not participate.

The committee received numerous examples of inconsistent outcomes from the scheme. We were told that sometimes two applications describing very similar events can lead to drastically different outcomes. A critical recommendation is that decisions on eligibility should be considered by panels of independent decision-makers, or, if this is not possible for all applications, those found ineligible should be automatically escalated to a panel review. Further, we heard that a number of applicants are afraid to ask for a review of their decision. To address this, we recommend the legislation be amended to especially provide that a review of a redress determination cannot result in an offer being reduced or reversed.

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The importance of having support services available is paramount. The committee has made several recommendations regarding better targeting of services to support survivors applying for redress. In particular, the committee recommends that funding for support services should be extended until two years after the expiration of the scheme … The committee recommends that a consistent approach to virginity testing in Australia be articulated, and this should be the subject of a separate inquiry.

As I said earlier, I believe that those comments from the chair of the committee, Senator Catryna Bilyk, wrap up the key parts of the report, but the report is much more in-depth than that. For anyone who wants to know more, I point them to it and suggest that they read it. It was, in fact, from my experience, one of the perhaps more delicate and sensitive inquiries that I have been a party to. I have to say, I heard some incredibly emotional stories with respect to the experiences of survivors that have now applied for some sort of redress. For the benefit of the House, as of 9 August, some 46,280 claims have been lodged. Of those, 16,214 offers were accepted and there has been about a $1.5 billion payout to those.

In closing, I say thank you to all of the people who appeared before the committee, particularly those who were survivors themselves, and I thank them for the evidence that they gave. It must have been incredibly traumatic for them to do so, but at least they presented us with a truthful account of what took place. I also thank all of those agencies that have helped those people along the way. In particular I, on behalf of the chair, thank our committee members for the work that they did in working through this step by step, because it was sensitive and it did truly matter to the lives of those people affected. Lastly, I thank the secretariat, who, again, had an incredible role in trying to ensure that everything was handled in a very sensitive and delicate way. They did that, and my thanks go to them. With those comments, I present the report.