David Shoebridge (NSW, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

by leave—I move amendments (1) and (2) on sheet 2212 together:

(1) Clause 2, page 2 (at the end of the table), add:

(2) Page 47 (after line 10), at the end of the Bill, add:

Schedule 3 — Other amendments

National Redress Scheme for Institutional Child Sexual Abuse Act 2018

1 Section 6 (after the definition of sexual abuse )

Insert:

Note: See also section 6A.

2 After section 6

Insert:

6A Sexual abuse includes virginity testing

To avoid doubt, sexual abuse includes the examination of female genitalia, with or without consent, for the purpose (or purported purpose) of determining virginity.

These amendments address a problem that you'd hope the scheme would never have created for itself. These amendments provide that, to avoid doubt, sexual abuse includes the examination of female genitalia, with or without consent, for the purpose or purported purpose of determining virginity. I read onto the record a submission that was given to the redress committee by a woman who's now in her late 60s or early 70s who, as a ward of the state, was repeatedly virginity tested at the direction of the institution when she was a kid. She was insulted, she was abused, she was assaulted during those repeated tests, and, when she brought her redress claim for the sexual assaults that happened to her, her redress claim was denied on the basis that it was a medical procedure and not sexual assault. Because it was directed by a doctor, it was a medical procedure and not assault.

I still remember the kind of sickening feeling that I got when I first read that. This woman, after suffering that as a kid—the shame and the torment and the abuse that she'd had—finally had the courage to come and bring the claim. She brought the claim, with the assistance of CLAN—again, I want to record my ongoing gratitude to people like Leonie Sheedy and others at CLAN who support these women—and then had it denied in those circumstances. She said that it was like being abused all over again. She was retraumatised. I still remember reading it for the first time and then hearing from not just her but others who had had this happen to them, and I can't believe we would let that continue. In 2024, I can't believe we'd let that continue. This amendment says that that can't ever happen again. It says that, for the purposes of the scheme, virginity testing is abuse; it's sexual abuse. Indeed, it's nothing novel to the common law world. The UK has passed a law that says virginity testing is a crime—full stop. It's a crime in the UK because there's never a legitimate basis for virginity testing.

I recall, when it was raised in the committee, that I was then contacted by Reverend Bill Crews. If people don't know Reverend Bill Crews, he runs the Rev. Bill Crews Foundation. He's an institution of decency in Sydney, based in the inner west and now reaching out across all of Sydney. He's saved so many kids, and the institution has saved so many kids and provided so much support for homeless people. I regard him as a friend and an institution of decency in my home city. Bill contacted me and said, 'David, I was on the streets of Kings Cross when I first heard about this, and we knew it was wrong then, in the late sixties and early seventies.' So I invited Bill—and I want to credit the chair of the redress committee, who also invited Bill—to give evidence to the redress committee about what he'd heard and what he knew about this. With your indulgence, I'll read what Bill said to the inquiry:

In 1971 I was a research engineer at AWA MicroElectronics … Through a series of events, I ended up being involved in the Wayside Chapel at Kings Cross, particularly as a volunteer, and then later on becoming employed by them. One of the things that stuck out to me was the number of homeless, runaway and abandoned children at risk on the streets of Kings Cross. Later research I did showed that the two places where kids in trouble went, or headed for, were Kings Cross and the Gold Coast. The stories that I heard and that I was talking with kids about were just horrific, and it was wrong then! I couldn't believe how people would allow these things to go on.

There were stories kids would tell me of being raped in institutions or of being adopted and the adoptions failing and then going back into so-called care and being abused in the care. One of the stories that really got to me was of a young girl I'd talk with a lot—I've got an apology from DoCS on the wall here. She used to run away from the institution she was in. She was a young Aboriginal girl and she used to rub her skin against the bricks, hoping it would turn white so that they wouldn't have to rape her anymore. I'd find kids who had been adopted and given back to the institution and then run away from the institution. It was just appalling. It was like, 'My God!'

Then I began to hear about these young girls. They were telling me they had to undergo these virginity tests, and I said, 'What?' They were explaining that often it was done without any gloves or anything. It was just done. I used to talk a fair bit to Bill Langshaw, who was the head of child welfare at the time, and he said 'Look, we are setting up a child welfare review committee. How about you go on it?' Oh, dear! It brings me to tears. The first meeting of the committee was run by this Roman Catholic priest. The meeting started and he said, 'I haven't been in an institution for 44 years and that makes me eminently suitable to run this thing.' I got up and I talked about the fact that these virginity tests were being done and there was no need for them. Of course, they said, 'Oh, no. We have to do that.'

Reverend Crews went on and dealt with some of what happens in detail. He then said:

There were many practices in that time around children that were wrong then and are wrong now. I think it was because I came into it with no prior background and, coming from a call it a normal home, it was just obvious that it was all wrong, and I began to make a fuss. I found that the child welfare workers or whatever—I just didn't have anything to do with them in the end. There were all these sorts of practices. I came across all these young girls …

His evidence continued, and I ask members to read it.

What I say is this: anybody who was decent knew this was wrong when it was happening. They knew it was wrong. Bill Crews came to it and saw it for the first time as a young man, and, when they told him they were doing it, he knew it was wrong. He raised it with the authorities at the time, and he was shut down by the state committee responsible for dealing with it because it was chaired by a Catholic priest who just wanted it to go on. The insults that these young girls faced—they were called some of the most appalling names. Now they're being denied redress.

For those reasons we move these amendments, and for those reasons we ask that, regardless of what the institutions say about wanting to walk away from the scheme, and regardless of what else is said about how complicated or hard it is—this is not complicated—you just fix the injustice.