Linda Kirk (SA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise this afternoon to inform the Senate of the findings of two reports about child sexual abuse in South Australia and to raise issues around child protection in the wider community more generally. The first report is that of the Children in State Care Commission of Inquiry, which investigated allegations of sexual abuse and death from criminal conduct and which was presented to the South Australian parliament on 31 March 2008. The second is the Children on the APY Lands Commission of Inquiry, a report into sexual abuse, which was presented to the parliament of South Australia on 30 April 2008. Both of these inquiries were headed by a former justice of the Supreme Court, the Hon. EP Mullighan QC.

Commissioner Mullighan and his team began the Children in State Care Commission of Inquiry in November 2004. They conducted some 809 hearings of alleged victims of sexual abuse, heard from general and expert witnesses and received hundreds of written submissions. During the course of the inquiry a considerable body of evidence was received that pointed to sexual abuse of many Aboriginal children living in communities in the Anangu Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjatjara lands—known as the APY lands—in the far north-west of South Australia. These children from the APY lands were not actually in state care, so, as a consequence, a separate inquiry was established to specifically look into allegations of sexual abuse in these outback communities.

The state care inquiry reports on allegations of sexual abuse and death from criminal conduct in South Australia dating from the 1930s right through to 2002, and it is these findings in relation to sexual abuse that I will be focusing on in my time here today. Before the inquiry there were 406 males and 386 females who came forward and made nearly 1,600 allegations of sexual abuse against individuals. After looking at relevant records the inquiry found that, of these people, a total of 242 could be confirmed as having been children in state care at the time of the alleged abuse. Here is one person’s story which, I warn senators before I begin, is very disturbing. This particular woman told the inquiry that, as a young child and soon after her mother died, she had been placed in care at a Catholic church-run institution which held around 130 children in the mid to late 1950s. She alleges that a man, who she believes may have been a priest, started to sexually assault her soon after her arrival at the orphanage. She said that a nun took her to a room on the ground floor where the man put her face down on a table, lifted her dress, removed her undergarments and sexually assaulted her. He allegedly told her that she was worthless, that she deserved to be treated in this way and that she should never tell anyone because no-one would ever believe her. She said that she bled badly. The man returned her to the nun, who then put her to bed. This woman told the inquiry that this abuse occurred possibly twice a week over some time and would follow a similar pattern. Sometimes the nun who took her to the man would beat her and she would try to run away only to be taken back again. This woman did not tell anyone about the abuse at the time because she thought that she would not be believed. She recalled that she felt: ‘So lost, so lonely, so sad, so worthless. I cried every day. I cried myself to sleep every night. I used to go off into the toilet any time and I would just sob.’

Most of the people who said that they disclosed sexual abuse as children were not believed. Many witnesses also told the inquiry about the effects of child sexual abuse on them as adults. One person who came forward said: ‘I just wish it had never happened; that’s all. That’s all I’ve got to say. I don’t think people realise how much it really plays on your mind. It’s not so bad when you are in your 20s but, you know, you get older and it plays on your mind a lot. It still does. I reckon it’s a lot worse.’

Commissioner Mullighan said that he had substantial evidence to suggest that the victims who gave evidence to the inquiry were, in fact, just the tip of the iceberg. Also, these incidents and this problem are not simply of the past. In July 2007, just last year, 16 children living in residential units were identified as frequent absconders who were considered to be at high risk from sexual exploitation.

The APY lands inquiry, also headed by Commissioner Mullighan, took evidence from Anangu men and women, service providers and government staff. It established that the incidence of child sexual abuse on the APY lands is widespread. There was substantial evidence of sexual abuse and it was established that more than 140 children in a community of about 1,000 had been subjected to this kind of abuse. The full extent of the abuse could not be established as there were no disclosures made by victims of sexual abuse themselves, due in part to a high level of violence in the communities and also the fear that exists in these communities, as well as the consequences of telling what really happened.

We know that child sexual abuse is more widespread than even these two harrowing reports suggest. Inquiries in other states have uncovered similar allegations. We know that sexual abuse has occurred not just against children in state care or children in Indigenous communities; amongst the community at large, up to one in four girls and one in seven boys are sexually abused. However, 31 per cent of respondents in a recent Australian study stated that they would not believe children’s stories about being abused. So denial of the truth of what is happening to our children is not limited to the state care system and remote communities; it applies to our society at large. The two reports that I have referred to contain story after story of abuse and a culture—our culture—of failure to believe disclosures, failure to read the signs of severe trauma in both perpetrators and victims, and failure to respond appropriately. At so many levels in our society, we have been turning a blind eye, denying the truth and seriousness of the situation, and consequently not dealing with it effectively.

So what is going to happen in response to the findings of these two significant inquiries? In South Australia, Premier Mike Rann has committed to making a formal apology to the children who were in state care who had been mistreated. During the course of his inquiry, Commissioner Mullighan said that many people described how helpful it was to have someone in authority acknowledge and believe them, when in the past no-one had believed them when they were abused as children. An apology would demonstrate that the parliament believes that abuse did in fact happen to these children in state care and that the parliament as an institution takes some responsibility for the fact that this happened. As a society, if we believe that we have a responsibility for what has occurred in the past, we will support measures to promote recovery, provide protection and prevent future abuse. If we fail to take serious action, the benefits of the revelations of the Mullighan inquiry and others like it will not be realised and the iceberg will simply submerge again only to resurface later on down the track as an even bigger problem.

The South Australian government has already committed to addressing some of the recommendations of these inquiries, including posting extra police, social workers and child protection workers and building a new police station and additional housing for workers and residents on the APY lands, in partnership with the Rudd Labor government. The state government has also committed extra funding to the Director of Public Prosecutions to prosecute cases of child abuse and has said that in the coming weeks it will make further announcements in relation to the recommendations. The recommendations include a number of prevention and early intervention measures. Prevention and early intervention programs for children in state care and for all children are very limited throughout Australia. Child protection services are struggling to cope as it is, with high numbers of notifications and the 39 per cent increase in the number of children in care in just the last four years.

A campaign was launched this year by Child Wise. The name of the campaign is ‘Speak Up’. Child Wise is an Australian charity that is dedicated to the prevention of child abuse. Child Wise’s helpline has been inundated with calls, predominantly from parents seeking support to act upon their children’s verbal or behavioural disclosures of child sexual abuse. This experience suggests to us that, if we give the opportunity for children and their carers to have a voice, to be believed by people in authority, we will in fact have to deal with huge numbers of victims who have been suffering in silence. Given that only about three per cent of children ever disclose their abuse, parents, carers and teachers must be educated so that they can look out for the warning signs and know how to respond to them.

The financial and resource implications for governments accepting responsibility for sexual abuse of children in state care, assisting with the recovery and protection of victims of abuse, providing opportunities for the rehabilitation of perpetrators, prosecuting perpetrators and preventing future abuse are substantial. There are substantial financial and resource implications; however, a commitment must be made today in order to protect both present and future generations of our children. We need to own the extent and the seriousness of sexual abuse of our children in and out of state care. It is only by creating an environment that allows the horrors of child sexual abuse to surface that we will own the enormity of the problem and respond to it.