Lidia Thorpe (Victoria, Independent) Share this | Hansard source

by leave—The National Redress Scheme was recommended by the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse. It was set up to acknowledge the harm done to people who experienced child sexual abuse while in so-called care. The scheme, in many ways, operates as an acknowledgement of the truth of the abuse of children within Australian institutions—in churches, in schools, in hospitals, in prisons and more. It is an attempt to respond to the failure of the Commonwealth and other government and non-government institutions in upholding human rights obligations, including the right of every child to protection by society and the state, and the right of every child to protection from all forms of physical and mental violence, injury or abuse, including sexual exploitation and abuse.

However, there are deep flaws in the scheme and the government, at this point, has not prioritised the proper funding or administration of the scheme, despite knowing how difficult and hard it is to navigate. The application process is hard, complex and traumatising. There are different schemes in every jurisdiction, making it even harder. The wait times to process an application are, on average, 11.8 months. The amount the Redress Scheme offers is way less than you could claim in a court, with the average payment being around $88,000. And accepting a redress offer forces you to give up all rights to make a future claim in court.

The Redress Scheme is supposed to be a more accessible and safer avenue for compensation compared to the long, expensive, traumatising court process. Help and support is supposed to be available to those putting in applications. However, without changes the Redress Scheme will reflect the same problems as the court system—a long, traumatising process with little help along the way, less money for compensation and it lets those who committed the abuse off the hook for future court proceedings. Ultimately, there can never be actual redress for the pain and generational consequences that have been caused by the abuse that was suffered, and my thoughts are with all who had and who continue to have to endure this.

It is also important to point out the large proportion of the applications to the scheme are likely to be members of the stolen generation's survivors. We have already lost too many who will never ever see any justice. The stolen generations are a result of the genocide in this country, which continues to this day as First Nations children are taken from our families at alarming and increasing rates and extremely disproportionately to what is happening to non-First Nations children.

The impacts of intergenerational trauma from past and ongoing government policies of forced removals are well known, evidenced and documented. The Australian Institute of Health and Welfare has reported on the poorer health, social and emotional wellbeing and economic outcomes experienced by stolen generation survivors and their descendants. Their descendants are experiencing the exact same systemic abuse. There are currently over 25,000 First Nations children removed from their families—in 2024. First Nations children are 26 times more likely than their peers to be incarcerated. The Yoorrook Justice Commission in Victoria has found that First Nations children in Victoria are on a pipeline from out-of-home care to prison from before they are born. These are places that continue the abuse on our children rather than prevent or redress it.

This is what systemic racism looks like. This is what apartheid looks like. This is what genocide looks like. The practice of First Nations child removal in this country—under the Labor government, mind you—involves both systemic racial discrimination and genocide as defined by international law, and this is what the 1997 Bringing them home report found. It seems the government has learned nothing. While it spends millions on compensation for past abuse, it traumatises and abuses a whole new generation of First Peoples children at the same time.

In saying all of this, I do want to acknowledge the importance of the scheme, especially for those who it has helped. It is now in its sixth year of operation, and for survivors and their families the National Redress Scheme for Institutional Child Sexual Abuse Amendment Bill 2023 makes important changes which remove some of the barriers to applying. Importantly, this includes changes so that those who are currently being held in prison will be able to apply.

It is important to remember that prison is not a place for what you call 'bad people'—in fact, the people responsible for the worst atrocities and pain caused to others are most often not held to account. The reality is that there are more survivors of rape and sexual assault in prison than there are rapists themselves, and there is well-documented evidence on the overrepresentation of child abuse survivors in the prison population. And, horrifically, this country's prisons are, as you know, full of First Peoples who have been targeted by the racist police dogs their whole lives for nothing more than the colour of their skin. Our women are the most incarcerated population in the world. First Nations women are the most incarcerated women in the world, though our women have cared for and sustained the oldest living culture in the world and these beautiful lands for millennia.

While people in prison can now apply to the scheme, some people with some serious criminal convictions may still be barred from accessing redress. The Parliamentary Joint Committee on Human Rights has pointed out that these restrictions could be in breach of the entitlement of survivors to claim redress and limit the right to an effective remedy. It is also against equality and nondiscrimination. The Parliamentary Joint Committee on Human Rights also noted that victims of violations of human rights within Australia's jurisdiction are entitled to a remedy, irrespective of their residency or citizenship.