Jordon Steele-John (WA, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

[by video link] After years of raising the reality and the alarm that the privacy protections in the royal commission were insufficient, today the disability community and the Greens have succeeded in bringing forward an amendment bill that will ensure that people are able to give information to the royal commission and to come forward to that investigation with trust. It is with an incredible range of emotions from pride and happiness in the effort of the community over that time alongside the Greens to achieve this and with a solemnity borne of the knowledge of the seriousness of the evidence that will now be taken by the commission that I speak to this absolutely important bill today.

The changes before the Senate will ensure that evidence that is confidential which is given to the commission will remain confidential after the commission ends, at the moment along a timeline of 2023. Initially, it has stronger whistleblower protections for those who bravely come forward and give evidence in relation to, and blowing whistle upon, the failings of governmental departments, of corporations or, indeed, of institutions.

With the passage of this legislation, we encourage everyone to come forward and share with the commission their experience of violence, abuse, neglect or exploitation. This bill will now ensure that, in sharing an experience with the commission, the experience and the evidence is included, and that the commission are able to hear the information needed from all of us to gain a total picture of what violence, abuse, neglect or exploitation is occurring, the settings in which it is occurring and the nature of the abuses perpetrated all across the country. It is vital to ensuring that this investigation is able to do its work.

In the context of the passage of this bill, I am also reminded of the many other investigations that have preceded it in relation to vital issues, from Aboriginal deaths in custody to the bushfires to aged care. It has been said to me, and it occurs to me very strongly at this moment, that often these investigations result in recommendations which are very slowly enacted, if at all. It will be so vital, when recommendations come from this investigation, that those recommendations are championed in the parliament and that they are swiftly and comprehensively implemented in the next term of parliament if that is when they are delivered.

To that end, I am very hopeful and I am very excited about the prospect of an increase in the Greens' representation post the next election, which would deliver us to a balance-of-power situation whereby we would be able to continue the work with the community to see those recommendations swiftly translated into comprehensive legislative reforms and the changes that we need to end violence, abuse, neglect and exploitation wherever it exists; to hold perpetrators, whether they be individuals or organisations, to account; and, on behalf of survivors, to achieve the compensation that is needed and the recognition that is needed. Doing all of these things and ensuring that programs like the NDIS function in the way that people need them to, so that they are able to access these programs and supports, will be a key priority of the Greens, going forward, as we understand it is the most vital need of the disability community. And doing all of these things in the context of an investigation that is able to hear people's evidence and to guarantee them protection, security and privacy in that process is the opportunity that is now before the community.