Sue Lines (WA, Deputy-President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator Moore, you're in continuation.

Claire Moore (Queensland, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Women) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am. The only reason that we have this legislation in front of the chamber today is the extraordinary work that has been done by a number of people—individuals and organisations—around this nation. When there was no recognition of the fact that there was sexual abuse happening in institutions, when there was no acknowledgment about the way that people were treated so poorly without love or attention in a range of institutions around our nation, people themselves gathered together to ensure that their stories would not remain unheard. We know that across this country there are many, many people who have worked hard. It's always dangerous when you name a few, Madam Deputy President, but, as you know, this Senate has had a longstanding relationship with many people who have worked tirelessly and passionately to ensure that justice will be done in these issues. Through a range of Senate inquiries during the early 2000s, we were able to meet with people, to listen to them and to understand some of the pain through which they had gone, some of the loss they'd suffered and also the overwhelming passion they had to ensure that there would be acknowledgment of what had occurred and justice—just justice—in terms of acceptance and some form of acknowledgment from the government—or governments, because indeed this legislation covers governments across our nation.

I particularly want to put on record, as many people have, the work of the Care Leavers Australasia Network: Leonie Sheedy, Frank Golding, Vlad and many, many others. Thank you for allowing me to work with you for all this time and to continue working with you. I acknowledge Caroline Carroll at the Alliance for Forgotten Australians in Victoria, also maintaining this work for people in families who have lost connection and who are seeking fulfilment. I also acknowledge my mate Karyn Walsh of Micah Projects and Lotus Place in Queensland, which continue to work and must continue work because, as we've said, there is unfinished business.

We will vote on this legislation this afternoon and we will have a Redress Scheme, and I think that needs to be acknowledged. I have been troubled throughout my contribution by the thought of appearing negative at a time when we should be acknowledging that we have made a very important step. However—and Senator Hinch talked about having listened to the evidence that has come before so many inquiries—we are not fulfilling the expectations of the people in our community who have suffered. While this royal commission had very, very tight terms of reference and looked very clearly at sexual abuse, that was clear from the start. For people across this country who have suffered terribly through institutionalisation, that unfinished business is still a challenge for governments at every level in this nation. We will not be fulfilling our role as legislators—for the people and for the organisations to whom people have turned for help—if we don't acknowledge that and look to the future to ensure that that injustice will be identified and that there will be acceptance that the kind of abuse handed out to people across institutions was not only sexual abuse. That is for another day, but I feel it is important to acknowledge it in this debate.

There has been great movement, but there continues to be a need for more. I think we have that opportunity over the next 10 years, which I believe is the life span of this particular process. There will continue to be people who will discover that they are covered by this process. It is very difficult to understand, given all the discussions that we've had, that there are still people who repress the memories of tragic times. It will be very, very important for all of us to ensure that we maintain an effective communication strategy and be open and aware that there are people who are still at a different level of their journey towards achieving some form of redress.

We acknowledge that redress is not compensation and we must have that option open to people if they choose to go down that path. What we as a parliament can do is monitor the introduction of the process over the next few years to ensure that we continue to do what the royal commission did so superbly, which was to listen, and listen closely, to the people whose lives have been so seriously damaged by treatment that they did not deserve and did not ask for—and that finally their governments have acknowledged that their pain is real and that there should be an effective redress system.

Stirling Griff (SA, Centre Alliance) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the National Redress Scheme for Institutional Child Sexual Abuse Bill 2018. The Centre Alliance shares the concerns of both Labor and the Greens in relation to the proposed National Redress Scheme and, likewise, we do not intend to stand in the way of the scheduled 1 July commencement date. We are disappointed that the government has not adopted all of the royal commission's recommendations in relation to the Redress Scheme. There are major discrepancies between the current bills and the recommendations of the royal commission. The current bill cuts the maximum payment by $50,000. It denies survivors a minimum payment. It indexes past payments and it fails to provide survivors with lifelong counselling. This does not suggest a genuine desire to adopt a survivor-focused scheme that properly addresses the trauma these people have suffered and continue to suffer.

I would like to briefly discuss two topics: namely, the limited nature of the scheme and the role that this chamber can play in shaping the National Redress Scheme going forward. The royal commission estimated that over 60,000 survivors will be eligible to apply for redress. The scale of this abuse is unthinkable—60,000 survivors. It beggars belief that these institutions fostered the culture that tolerated and accepted the sexual abuse of vulnerable children. But we know it happened. We believe the survivors, and we as a nation believe that they deserve the justice that has for so long been denied to them. That is why we are disappointed that the National Redress Scheme excludes several classes of people from ever receiving that justice. Those survivors who do not turn 18 during the life of the scheme, those in jail, those living overseas without Australian citizenship and those with a criminal conviction of five years or more either are excluded entirely or face uncertain hurdles before they can even apply for redress.

The royal commission's 2015 report on redress and civil litigation had as its primary recommendation that any process for redress must 'provide equal access and equal treatment for survivors if it is to be regarded by survivors as being capable of delivering justice'. Take the example of those with a criminal conviction of five years or more. Before they can apply to the scheme they must first satisfy the relevant Attorney-General that provision of redress would not bring the scheme into disrepute or adversely affect public confidence in or support of the scheme.

I have a number of issues with this policy position. First, it ignores the profound impact that childhood sexual abuse can have on a person's life and the well-documented causality between abuse and criminal behaviour. Second, it will disproportionately affect Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, who are already overrepresented in the criminal justice system. Third, whether or not a survivor has a serious criminal conviction in no way changes the fact that they suffered sexual abuse as a child in an institution. Finally, it is difficult to imagine how an application for redress by such an individual could bring the scheme into disrepute in circumstances in which their information would surely remain private. In making these criticisms, I do not wish to take away from those who have laboured long and hard for the establishment of this scheme. It is not a perfect model, but it is an effective compromise. It will undoubtedly go some way to acknowledging the wrongdoing of our institutions and to compensating those individuals whose lives have been forever shaped by the unforgivable actions of those who were entrusted with their care.

I now turn to comment on the manner in which these bills have been presented to the Senate. As a consequence of the needs for the states to refer their powers to the Commonwealth and the corresponding legislation to be enacted by the states, any amendment to these bills, however minor or appropriate, would effectively derail the proposed 1 July commencement date. The government would be required to renegotiate the intergovernmental agreement; the states would need to introduce and pass new referral legislation; and non-government institutions would need to consider once more whether they would participate in the scheme. That could take years—years that we don't have. Each and every state has now enacted or confirmed their intention to enact legislation that is consistent with the current bills. All that stands between approximately 60,000 survivors of institutional child sexual abuse and their long-awaited redress is the swift passage of these bills through this chamber. It took decades for survivors' voices to be heard and for their stories to be believed. It would be cruel to now propose any amendment, no matter how well intentioned, to improve the scheme and thereby cause yet another delay in their journey to acknowledgement and recovery.

The need for state based referral legislation has hamstrung the Senate and reduced it to little more than a rubber stamp. Had it been given the chance, the scrutiny of the Senate would have made this a better scheme, without doubt. It has been hard to read through the submissions to the committee's inquiry into the bills knowing that the many legitimate concerns of survivor advocates, charities and civil rights groups could not be acted on. I know that we are united in this chamber in our resolve that we must not and will not allow the system to fail these people again. It may not be prudent to amend the bill currently before us, but that does not absolve us all from the responsibility to ensure that the National Redress Scheme is capable of delivering effective and survivor-focused justice.

We must carefully scrutinise delegated legislation, push to ensure that new and existing support services are appropriately resourced and constantly monitor and review the scheme. All the while, we must have at the forefront of our minds the needs and wishes of survivors. This was reflected in the comments of the Prime Minister in February this year when he said:

We owe it to the survivors not to waste this moment and we must continue to be guided by their wishes.

The royal commission undertook a mammoth task. It did so in a manner that has earned widespread praise from survivors and bureaucrats alike. Its approach, findings and recommendations should guide the administration of the National Redress Scheme and those who work in it.

I would also like to add my appreciation and gratitude to everyone who played a part in the royal commission, no matter how big or small. I say to those who told their stories, to those who listened and, very importantly, to those who cared: we would not be here today without your bravery, tenacity and compassion. On behalf of Centre Alliance, I thank you.

Slade Brockman (WA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I too rise to address the bills before the Senate, including the National Redress Scheme for Institutional Child Sexual Abuse Bill 2018, which is to establish the National Redress Scheme for survivors of institutional child sexual abuse. I thank Senator Griff for his contribution. It is very important that we move swiftly on these bills and, as such, I will just make a very brief contribution this evening—but that is not to understate the importance of these bills.

The government obviously firmly believes in the introduction of the National Redress Scheme. This is a vital step in recognising the impact of past child sexual abuse. It's a shame that the vulnerable in society have had to suffer in this way. It was a betrayal of trust and it should not have happened. I do commend, however, the significant work that has been done by, in the first instance, those who have gone through the trauma of sexual and other kinds of abuse, those who've told their stories to the royal commission and those who've participated in and worked with the royal commission in its process. Dan Tehan, the current minister responsible for carriage of this bill, has done a power of work in making sure that the process that was started under this government is seen through to a successful conclusion.

I also want to commend the work of state and territory governments and institutions in negotiating and developing a framework that will now see a national redress scheme in existence. We hope that through this process of redress governments and institutions will have the opportunity to take responsibility for how this abuse happened and allow the healing process to begin.

I just want to address a couple of aspects of the elements of redress, particularly the monetary compensation side of things. There's been a lot of discussion of the figure of $200,000 versus $150,000, which I think has been very counterproductive. I think the payments involved, whilst important, are not necessarily the central feature of redress. We must also remember that the maximum payment is merely a single number. The average anticipated payment of $76,000 is actually $11,000 more than the average payment originally proposed by the royal commission. I think that's a very important point to recognise. The second point is on the access to counselling and psychological care not just for survivors but also for affected family members and, where appropriate, the provision of a direct personal response from the responsible institution. These two points are very important.

The scheme and the bill were developed through a wide range of consultation with a very wide range of stakeholders, including consideration by the Senate Community Affairs Legislation Committee, which I chair. We hope that this does go some way towards providing survivors with a sense of justice and the necessary support in the restorative process going forward.

Obviously, as Chair of the Community Affairs Legislation Committee, I have had the opportunity to meet with and listen to the testimony of many. Their stories are heart wrenching, and they have also demonstrated enormous reserves of strength and courage. It is time that we acknowledge the injustices of the past and provide these courageous people with the recognition they deserve. I commend this bill to the Senate, and I look forward to it being passed in advance of the 1 July commencement date.

Murray Watt (Queensland, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I also rise to speak on the National Redress Scheme for Institutional Child Sexual Abuse Bill 2018, this extremely important bill which has been many years in the making, and I think all Australians would agree that the changes that are being proposed in this bill are well overdue. Like Senator Brockman, I participated in the inquiry into this bill. It was certainly one of the more emotionally confronting inquiries and pieces of legislation that I've dealt with in the short time that I've been here. At the very beginning, I want to pay tribute to the many—too many—survivors of institutional abuse who have been waiting for so many years for the Australian parliament and institutions themselves to take responsibility for the awful abuse that was perpetrated against so many young people in years gone by.

Those who have read the committee's report will note that Labor's position is that we are supporting this bill. We think that survivors cannot wait any longer for the compensation, among other things, that is going to be provided as a result of this bill, but we do want to put on record our concerns that this legislation does not go far enough in a number of respects, and we would certainly seek improvement in future years to the scheme that is being put forward. However, this is one of those situations where we can't let the perfect be the enemy of the good. We want to make sure that survivors of abuse receive the compensation and the psychological support that many of them continue to need immediately. We have listened to the views of survivor groups who want to see this legislation passed while themselves having many concerns with the detail of this legislation and the fact that in many respects it does not go far enough. I, as one of the Labor senators participating in this inquiry, see this legislation and the Redress Scheme that it will provide for as a good start but not the end of this journey in ensuring that people receive the recognition and compensation that they deserve.

This is not an area of law in which I practised extensively, but I did have some exposure to it as a lawyer prior to being elected here. I will never forget the phone calls that I received mainly from men but in some cases from women who had suffered abuse at the hands of representatives of churches, sporting groups and other institutions. I clearly remember speaking to particularly some men, probably in their 50s and 60s, who were telling me about the damage that the abuse they had suffered had continued to cause them over the decades that had passed since that abuse was perpetrated. They were clearly men who had never recovered from the abuse that they suffered. Their lives had been destroyed, and it pained them so greatly. It was not only that the abuse was not compensated, as we would see in any other form of injury that someone had suffered, but the lengths that some institutions had gone to to deny responsibility and deny legal liability for the acts of representatives of those institutions. For many people, this has never been about seeking a very large amount of money, although that is certainly deserved. Simply the recognition that this royal commission and now the Redress Scheme will provide is going to at least be something for people who have suffered far too much.

I obviously also should pay tribute to the many people who've been involved in this royal commission, starting with former Prime Minister Julia Gillard. This is certainly something that I think everyone in this parliament, regardless of their political party, is very proud that a former Australian government sponsored. It was a royal commission that was long overdue. It wasn't welcomed by all parts of the community, especially those institutions who had something to hide, but it addressed something our nation very much needed to confront, and I think it will provide a lot of good in the years ahead. As I've already said, Labor's position is to support this legislation, with some reservations about aspects of the bill. We have been influenced in that decision by the representations made by many survivors of abuse who want to see this legislation passed even though it isn't exactly what they would like. We are also persuaded by advice we received from Australian government departments over the course of the Senate inquiry that, if Labor were to seek to pass amendments to the bill in the way we would otherwise seek to do, it would jeopardise the national bill that has been prepared to see this Redress Scheme go forward.

Obviously and sadly, some of the institutions in which abuse was perpetrated against young people are institutions of state governments, and it has been very important to see a number of state governments opt into this scheme. We on the Labor side are conscious that any tinkering with the bill now would put those national arrangements in jeopardy and would most likely delay even further the compensation and other support that victims are so desperately seeking, and that's not something we want to see happen.

The major concerns that Labor senators on our committee had, which are outlined in our additional comments to the report of this committee inquiry, are around the maximum payment level that has been set by this bill, the adequacy of counselling, and the equality of all survivors of child sexual abuse before the scheme. Before I go into those, I also recognise that one of the issues raised by a number of witnesses and organisations at the inquiry was the fact that the redress scheme was to be limited only to sexual abuse that occurred. We received some very powerful evidence from witnesses at the inquiry, who made the point that, without doubt, the sexual abuse they experienced in institutions had devastating impacts that, in many cases, people have not recovered from. Unfortunately, that was not the only form of abuse many people suffered. Along with the sexual abuse many people suffered in institutions came physical abuse, extreme neglect, malnutrition, verbal and emotional abuse—a litany of forms of abuse that are horrifying if you have never gone through them.

I recognise that a number of witnesses had concerns that, in limiting the redress scheme to sexual abuse, this scheme does not go far enough. That is something Labor senators—and other senators, I'm sure—have considered. However, we are limited by the fact that, in the royal commission that was established, the terms of reference were clearly looking at sexual abuse, and that is why the redress scheme is also focused on sexual abuse, but I think it's important to recognise that the forms of abuse many people suffered went well beyond sexual abuse. There probably is some work still to be done by governments and this parliament to ensure that the other forms of abuse that people suffered, horrifically, are adequately dealt with in the years ahead.

I turn to the major concerns that Labor senators had, and continue to have, with this bill. The first concern is around the monetary cap that is being provided by way of compensation under this bill. This bill provides a system where the maximum amount of compensation someone will receive as a result of sexual abuse they experienced is $150,000. In some ways that's a large amount of money, but as a former lawyer I'm aware that people could very rightly expect significantly larger sums of money if they were to take legal action, whether it be for sexual abuse or for other forms of injury that people have suffered. Most importantly, not only is that amount of $150,000 below what someone might otherwise receive through legal action but it's also below the maximum that was recommended by the royal commission itself. Labor has taken very seriously the recommendations that the royal commission made, having done exhaustive work over a number of years. We think that it is important that the royal commission's recommendations are listened to, particularly in respect of the maximum amount of compensation that should be payable to survivors of institutional abuse.

We've never really received an adequate answer from the government as to why the monetary cap being provided for in this bill is below that recommended by the royal commission. As I was saying that I remembered very clearly that, when we asked departmental representatives about this in the inquiry, we were told repeatedly that the decision to cap compensation at $150,000—below the royal commission's own recommendation of $200,000—was a decision of government. While I haven't been here that long, I've come to understand that that means that that's something that has really been imposed on the department by the minister rather than something that has been recommended by the department to the minister. It would be good if at some point over the course of this debate we finally received an answer from a minister of this government as to why the monetary cap has been set at $150,000—below the maximum that was recommended by the royal commission—because we certainly haven't had an answer at all, let alone an adequate answer to date.

It's also important to recognise when we're talking about the amount of compensation that people may receive that it's not as if every survivor of institutional abuse is going to receive the maximum of $150,000. The maximum is what it says—a maximum. It's very likely that many people who experienced sexual abuse of a horrific nature are going to end up receiving a payment well below $150,000. I seem to recall receiving evidence over the course of the inquiry that it's estimated that the average amount someone will receive in the Redress Scheme is $70,000 to $80,000. I think that was the modelling that the department put forward at the inquiry—and I can be corrected if that's incorrect. It is important for people to recognise that, while the maximum may be $150,000, there is absolutely no guarantee that that's what they will receive. Over the course of that inquiry we did receive some extremely disturbing evidence from representatives and support groups that there were many people around Australia who, understandably, having waited so long for recognition and some form of compensation, were already making plans and budgeting in anticipation that they will receive that maximum payment of $150,000.

We on the Labor side think that the maximum should be higher. It should be in line with what the royal commission recommended, being $200,000. Having said that, we will support the legislation in its current form to at least ensure that there is some redress scheme available for people, but this is something that we think should be looked at in the future.

I also note the evidence that we received—obviously from some legal representatives and other groups—that it's so important for people to receive proper legal advice about their rights so that they are making an informed choice whether to accept a redress payment or not. In some cases it may be that someone would quite reasonably expect to receive a significantly larger amount by way of compensation if they were to take legal action. Of course, legal action does come with costs, both monetary costs and emotional costs. It's not easy to start litigation in any situation, let alone if that litigation is based on extremely traumatic experiences that people went through, in some cases many decades ago. It is important to make sure that people get proper legal advice. I'll certainly be monitoring as this scheme goes forward the legal advice that is available to survivors of sexual abuse under this scheme. We certainly received evidence from survivor representatives that they had concerns about the level of legal representation that was being made available by the government. I mean no disrespect to the very able and determined lawyers, particularly at knowmore legal, which is the legal body that the government is funding to provide legal representation to survivors of abuse; they are doing a fantastic job. But there certainly were concerns that the legal representation being made available was not enough and was not well-funded enough and that people were going to be forced to make very important decisions in a very short amount of time.

One of the other issues that I wanted to raise, around which Labor continues to have concerns, is the matter of lifelong counselling. Labor senators on the committee and in this parliament continue to support the recommendation of the royal commission that access to lifelong counselling be made available to those survivors who accept an offer of redress. We do continue to have concerns, especially based on the evidence that we received in the inquiry, that the amount of counselling support that will be made available to people as part of the Redress Scheme will, again, not be adequate. We need to understand, as I said earlier in my contribution, that in many cases people who have survived sexual abuse have undergone decades of trauma that is not properly dealt with. Simply offering a small amount of counselling to some of these people is not enough, and we would want to see the counselling that is provided in the future expanded. I note in particular that the arrangements in this legislation that are being put forward in terms of counselling are actually inconsistent with the government's own response to the committee's final report from the inquiry, so I think that it is important to make sure that people do receive adequate counselling in the years ahead.

One other matter that I wanted to deal with, just before I wrap up, is the exclusion in this legislation of survivors of sexual abuse who have a criminal history. It hasn't had a lot of attention over the course of this inquiry, and I know that it's not always politically popular to talk about the rights of criminals. But it was very disturbing to see, in the draft legislation and now in the final legislation, that the government is going to exclude survivors of institutional sexual abuse who have a criminal history from receiving a redress payment. The argument that was put at the time by the minister essentially seemed to come down to a populist decision that taxpayers wouldn't want to see their hard-earned money being paid to criminals. Most of the time, I would think that's probably right: most taxpayers wouldn't, in general, support huge compensation payments being made to criminals. But I think we need to again accept and recognise the weight of the evidence that was provided in this inquiry, which was that there are a disproportionate number of people currently in prisons across Australia who are themselves victims and survivors of sexual abuse, particularly in an institutional environment. There are immense amounts of research available that draw the link between suffering some form of sexual abuse in childhood and going on to perpetrate similar crimes in the future as an adult or perpetrate other crimes as well.

The proportion of prisoners in Australian prisons who have suffered sexual abuse is astronomical. To deny survivors of sexual abuse in an institutional environment their rights to be recognised and to be compensated for the sexual abuse that they experienced is, I think, profoundly wrong and is something that we need to revisit in the future. I will never forget the evidence that we received from one man, who I won't name, in the inquiry. He freely admitted that he had not led a perfect life; he had not led a blemish-free life. He had committed a number of robberies. This was a man who was in his 60s, from memory, and he traced the way that he had gone off the rails back to the abuse that he experienced as a child. That is a story that can be told so many times by prisoners. So I do think that we need to revisit this matter into the future.

In conclusion, this debate is a very important one for our country. The Redress Scheme, as I say, is not a perfect arrangement to compensate people for the terrible abuse that they experienced, but it is a good start. There are a number of aspects that do need improvement, and I look forward to playing a role in continuing to improve this scheme into the future, but this is a good start. It does recognise the awful abuse that was perpetrated against too many people in years gone by. By recognising that and providing some level of compensation, we're going to at last allow some people who really deserve our support to get on with their lives.

David Leyonhjelm (NSW, Liberal Democratic Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the National Redress Scheme for Institutional Child Sexual Abuse Bill 2018. I want to start by acknowledging that none of us can be anything other than disgusted by the horrific crimes that were revealed by the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse. The failures of both government and non-government institutions to protect the most vulnerable people in our country were disgraceful. Child abuse, whether physical, psychological or sexual, is a crime. Those guilty of these crimes should be subject to the full weight of the criminal law, and the institutions in which these abuses were allowed to occur should be liable as well. I have no qualms with the desire of those who've been sexually assaulted to seek redress. I do, however, oppose this scheme. I don't think the government has got it right.

The National Redress Scheme is designed to operate over a 10-year period, offering to those seeking financial redress a capped $150,000, which will be paid from a central government fund contributed to by government and participating institutions. The scheme removes the right of appeal from participating institutions in an attempt to make it more claimant focused. There are several reasons why I cannot support this bill. The first is that I don't think this scheme serves any kind of redress at all. Those who have been abused deserve to have that abuse acknowledged by both the individual who has committed a crime against them and the institution that failed to protect them. This scheme removes this interaction and instead provides an anonymous, government-run, taxpayer funded cash pot to effectively pay them off. How does this serve to heal psychological wounds?

The second is a related issue. The bill creates a perverse situation, particularly for those abused in government institutions, where the wronged will be paying for their own compensation through their taxes, a double blow if ever I saw one.

Third, removing the right of appeal in these cases is a breach of justice. The explanatory memorandum explains this measure as ensuring that the scheme is 'survivor focused and trauma informed by maintaining the principles that the scheme be a low-threshold and non-legalistic process for survivors who have already suffered so much'. Understandable as it may be to seek to reassure those who have been abused, it is still the responsibility of this parliament to ensure that the principles of justice that have served us since Magna Carta are applied to both individuals and institutions. These principles serve healing and restoration. The accuser must make the case against the accused, and the accused has every right to defend themselves, including seeking judicial review. This bill removes that right.

Lastly, news reports tell us that non-government institutions are already signalling their support for joining the National Redress Scheme. Though this may indeed be a signal that they are prepared to own the past failings of their institutions, it is perhaps also an indication that this represents better business. A cap of $150,000 for an individual is well below some of the known payouts that claimants have received to date. The scheme heavily emphasises money as compensation, yet almost none of those who will be paying the money are guilty of the abuse and there is the perennial question in law as to whether money is the appropriate compensation for abuse. Does receiving money lessen the physical harm, the psychological harm, the loss of self-respect, the feeling of helplessness, the humiliation, the complete degradation? I don't believe so. Indeed, I think it has the potential to make it worse, because there will be an assumption that, having been paid money, victims should no longer suffer. I believe the victims would much prefer that those responsible, both the perpetrators and those who allowed it to happen, apart from the court processes, face the victims and admit what they did was wrong, admit they are miserable failures of human beings and commit their lives to ensuring nobody ever has to suffer like that again.

Sitting suspended from 18:30 to 19:30

Sue Lines (WA, Deputy-President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise tonight to make a contribution to the National Redress Scheme for Institutional Child Sexual Abuse Bill 2018, which is before the Senate. I do so because I feel strongly, as many senators—I think all of us in this place—do, that the time is overdue for us to really confront the issues of abuse in institutions and make sure that redress is dealt with quickly so that we can finally put to rest a very sad part of our history.

I want to start by talking about my dad. For those of you who have not read my first speech in this place, I talked about my dad on that occasion. My dad, sadly, passed away last year at the age of 94, but he was sent out to Australia as a child migrant and he lived for a significant period of time at Fairbridge. Thankfully, my dad was not sexually abused, but to suggest he had an easy life at Fairbridge, even given that it was the 1940s, would be completely wrong. He had a very tough life at Fairbridge because those children that were sent out as unaccompanied child migrants by the UK government were really sent here to be farm labourers and domestics, the boys as farm labourers and the young girls as domestics. Dad, thankfully, never had his name changed. He was 11 when he came out, so he well and truly knew who his parents were. It was his stepfather who put him into a home in Birmingham in the United Kingdom because he didn't want him and it was easy enough to do in those days. Dad spent two years in that home in Birmingham from which on many occasions he ran away and went back to Coventry where his family lived. His stepfather would take him back to the institution on every occasion that dad ran away.

Dad willingly came out to Australia, but you'd have to ask if an 11-year-old in the late 1930s would have absolutely understood what that meant. Many years later, I met some of my father's sisters. He came from a very large family of 16—not all of them with the same father, but 16 children—and dad was a bit of a troublesome lad, along with his brother, Arthur. They were the older boys, so I guess it was easier for the stepfather to put them into a home than to consider dealing with them himself, as they were not his children. Dad's sisters who were older than my father clearly remember the day that dad left. They talked about dad being put on a train and him waving goodbye, and they knew that they'd never see their brother again. They knew that, but I don't think it had really dawned on dad that he was going to spend 10 or 11 weeks on a ship. He came from the inner city of Coventry and went from the inner city to these wide-open spaces out at Pinjarra in Western Australia when he landed at Fairbridge. I'm sure he had no idea of what was about to happen.

Those kids would have to get up very early. Dad had to milk cows and do a whole lot of farm work before he went to school, and they were never dressed appropriately. In this day and age we would say what happened to my father was abuse. He milked cows in bare feet, and they had a very strict houseparents who did not think twice about sparing the rod if children were naughty. As I said, dad's records were not hidden. He knew his name. He knew his parents. He knew his sisters and his brother. Indeed, I suppose at one level dad was fortunate, because his brother was sent out two years after he was sent to Australia, so at least he had a relative with him eventually.

When you read dad's school records, dad had been at school for one week when the teacher said: 'William'—that was my dad's name—'will never really amount to much. He's a pretty quiet child.' Gee whiz! Even though I laugh about this, this is quite serious. You've been put into a home—where you will spend two years—by a stepfather who really didn't want you, you've spent 10 or 11 weeks on a ship, you've come from inner-city poverty in cold, dark Coventry to these wide-open bush spaces at Fairbridge in Pinjarra and, after one week, a teacher makes this assessment about you. Actually, my father was a very successful person. He was a carpenter and he led a great life. He wasn't particularly good at marriages and he wasn't the best dad in the world, but he was my dad and I loved him, and I'm proud of his achievements. When you consider where he came from, I think he did really well for himself. And for a teacher to put that on dad's record—that he'll never amount to much—when he'd been in this country for one week is astonishing.

When you think about that and you then think about the thousands of children who were abused, many of them sexually, and who didn't just have the hard life that my dad had growing up at Fairbridge—they had the hard life, plus the beatings, plus the sexual abuse—it's something that we should know more about. It is a shameful part of our history and, yes, it's really good that we are now at the point where we are going to acknowledge that. It should never be brushed aside, because these children were wards of the state; the state was responsible for my father's wellbeing. And if that was taken to its ultimate extreme, nobody could say that my father was looked after well—nobody could say that. There's nothing to suggest that he wouldn't have equally thrived if he had been left in the UK.

One of the other things that happened to my dad, and this would have happened to thousands of other children, is, finally, the British government made an apology in the parliament to the children it had shipped off to Australia, Canada and other parts of the world, and it made available a scheme to enable those children to go back. So, at the age of about 92, my dad did go back. His older sisters had passed by this stage, but he met a sister who wasn't even born when he left the UK. Sylvia was not even born then. Yet, it was if she and dad had this bond of brother and sister that had always been there. It was quite incredible, and beautiful to watch. Dad, at 92, and Sylvia, in her late 60s, meeting for the first time just clicked. They look alike. A missing piece for my family fell into place when suddenly we had these records of the Lines part of my family: my father looks like my grandmother. I had always wondered who my dad looked like. Well, he was the spitting image of his mother. So, now I've got this new extended family in the UK, really thanks to the fact that dad went back at such an old age and he and Sylvia created a bond—one that had been denied them all of their lives—in the short time that they were together.

Again, these are the sorts of things that happened to children in this country in our name. We should never forget that. We need to try and put ourselves in their shoes and try to understand what it was like for them. As I said, dad was never abused sexually, but to suggest that he had some free and easy ride would be beyond the pale. Fairbridge also sought to control dad's life even after he'd left Fairbridge. They placed him as a farmhand, where he was really abused—he wasn't paid and all sorts of things. He would constantly have to report back to Fairbridge, and Fairbridge, by this time, saw my dad as a troublemaker. Dad was a bit of a lad. He liked to have a few drinks, liked to go out with young women and liked to party. He got labelled as a bit of a troublemaker. I think that's one of the other things that happen to children in institutionalised care. It happens to children in our education system. Make a few wrong steps, and suddenly you're labelled as difficult or not to be believed or all sorts of things.

So I want to thank Julia Gillard for having the courage to put together the royal commission. The kinds of truths that we've seen come out of that royal commission are horrendous. Those stories are now on the public record, but there are many stories which we'll never hear, because people are still so ashamed of what happened to them. I want to thank the Labor senators in this place and senators from the government, senators from the Greens and other crossbenchers who have personally followed this issue for many years. I heard Senator Moore's contribution, where she thanked people personally by their first names. If you feel some sense of justice, some sense of concern, some sense of people's wellbeing, you can't help but become involved to a much greater extent.

I want to just re-emphasise that these were children we are talking about, children who the government was responsible for, for whom it had a duty of care, and yet that was overlooked. For many, many, many years the stories of survivors of sexual abuse were not believed, and institutions fought back. The Catholic Church and many other institutions denied that anything ever took place. They protected the bishops and the priests, and yet we saw horrific abuse finally emerge. I think there are now very few people in Australian society who don't believe that very bad things happened and that children were sexually abused.

But children weren't just sexually abused. I guess that's where Labor is disappointed, and it's unfinished business. It's clear that the royal commission was set up to deal with sexual abuse, and it's dealt with that in the best way it can, but I think we've got to also acknowledge that there are many out there who won't ever be able to tell their stories, so we don't really know the full extent of it. There are children who were clearly abused much worse than my father. We know some horrific stories coming out of Western Australia in relation to abuse that children suffered, not sexual abuse but other sorts of abuse. They were told they were worthless. We see that.

There's a case at the moment where children were abused in a hostel in the suburb that I've lived in for most of my life, in Victoria Park. That carer told those children that nobody cared about them, and he told them over and over again. He told them all the time, and he sexually abused those children. Now, thankfully, some of those children have had the courage to stand up and to take him on, and he's now waiting to be sentenced. But imagine: as a vulnerable child, you're in a home; you may or may not know why you're there, but you know you're not with your parents for whatever reason—and, yes, sometimes there are good reasons to take children. I'm not shying away from that. But when the carer, the person who is responsible for your wellbeing, tells you over and over again how worthless you are and that nobody wants you, what a shocking thing to say to children. Imagine the long-term damage that that is doing to those children. Imagine the shame they feel—the confusion. And then, on top of that, to sexually abuse them! It is unforgivable.

So it is really important that we've got to this National Redress Scheme. I know that in Western Australia the McGowan government was very concerned about the legacy issues coming out of institutions like Fairbridge and didn't feel that the state should have to fund that entire cost. I'm pleased to say that WA has managed to get its point across and will actually join the scheme.

But I also want to talk about my mother. She wasn't institutionalised, but she taught in Western Australia at a school called Queens Park Primary School. What's important about that primary school is that that's where the children from Sister Kate's went. Sister Kate's also has a shocking history of abuse, including sexual abuse, and that's of First Nations children. So children from all over the state were institutionalised at Sister Kate's and they went to Queens Park Primary School. Many of them my mum became friends with, and we used to visit them. I remember going with my mum to visit some of those children when they were adults, but also going to the Sister Kate's fetes. My mother must have confronted abuse and sexual abuse in her role as a teacher, because when children are reticent or are not learning in the classroom you know that there is a reason for that. My mother was a highly regarded teacher. People thought she was a pretty good teacher—pretty strict but very fair—and children did open up to her. I'm sure that children at Sister Kate's would have opened up to my mother in the many years that she spent teaching at Queens Park Primary School.

I was particularly moved during the Senate inquiry—and unfortunately I wasn't able to attend all the hearings—to hear the contributions made by Dr Hannah McGlade, a First Nations woman from Western Australia, and Laurel Sellers, another First Nations woman from Yorgum. They talked about the need for a scheme to include the whole of the family and that in Aboriginal communities it's not just one person who's the victim; it's their family and their extended family. They gave very powerful evidence as to why the scheme should treat First Nations people differently. Certainly they both talked about, as Senator Watt has here today, the need for counselling to go for much longer than what's on offer. We know that it can take people a very long time to come forward and acknowledge what has happened to them and then also to see that they may need to have counselling. Not everyone who we may think needs counselling is going to be open to that. These things take a while.

Both Laurel and Hannah gave very strong evidence that it's not just about the client; it's also about their families. That comes from their firsthand experience. Hannah gave evidence that she experienced institutionalised abuse as a child intermittently from the age of three and a horrific sexual assault at the age of 15 perpetrated by people who were members of the Catholic Church. Hannah spent some time also at Sister Kate's. Hannah's an amazing woman. She's put herself through university, she's got a PhD and she is very open about what has happened to her. But her evidence was definitely about families and about the need for First Nations people to be treated differently and that it isn't just about any individual experience. If we look at what happened when children were taken away from Aboriginal communities, particularly in Western Australia—and I'm sure this was the case across the country—they were forbidden to speak their language, they were regimented and they were badly treated as well as being sexually abused. So I do thank Laurel and Hannah for their evidence because it may make a profound difference to how we treat First Nations people.

Senator Watt also talked about the issue of those who find themselves in jail. We know now that we've got very high levels of children in out-of-home care, and there's a very strong correlation between kids in out-of-home care and offending. It almost goes hand in hand. That's something we need to seriously address. We know as well that children who were sexually abused often went on to commit crimes. To deny them is unfair. Labor senators certainly believe that, if you've been a victim of child sexual abuse in an institution, the Redress Scheme should apply to you. It's no longer appropriate to try to box people into categories. It really isn't. If someone has been a victim of sexual abuse when under the care of the state, it is our responsibility to compensate them if that's what they're seeking. It is very simple. For me it is black and white.

The unfinished work, which Senators Moore and Watt raised, is that future governments really do need to look at the issue of broader abuse—at what happened in Australia and is still happening. So, yes, let's get on and do this redress. Let's get it done. But let's not acknowledge that we've finished the job.

Barry O'Sullivan (Queensland, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Thank you, Senator Lines. That was a very powerful contribution.

Lisa Singh (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on National Redress Scheme for Institutional Child Sexual Abuse Bill 2018. In doing so, at the outset I'd like to thank other senators for their contributions so far—particularly just now sitting here and listening to Senator Lines's contribution, but also the contributions of Labor senators and other senators who were part of the Community Affairs Legislation Committee's inquiry into this particular piece of legislation. It was in 2014 that the then Prime Minister, Julia Gillard, set up the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse, and it obviously has been a long journey since that time. When she announced the establishment of the royal commission she remarked:

There have been too many revelations of adults who have averted their eyes from this evil. I believe in these circumstances that it's appropriate for there to be a national response through a Royal Commission.

So, here we are at this point in this place, some five years later, debating this particular recommendation for there to be a Redress Scheme as part of the national response coming from the royal commission.

I want to particularly acknowledge and thank Leonie Sheedy and everyone at Care Leavers Australasia Network, CLAN, and all of the contributors who have been part of this very difficult but important process to ensure that justice is delivered finally in some shape or form. I'll get to that shape or form shortly, but first I want to remark on how far we have come just in this short five-year time period. Over the course of time during the royal commission, some 57 public hearings were held over 444 days; there was evidence from 1,300 witnesses; commissioners held almost 8,000 private sessions to listen to personal accounts of survivors; and there were some 2,500 referrals to authorities, including the police. The royal commission estimates that around 20,000 survivors were sexually abused in state and territory government institutions. Of course, that's not even including those who weren't sexually abused but were still abused. I think it is important to recognise those people as well. Out of that, they found that there were more than 4,000 institutions where sexual abuse took place and that thousands—thousands—of vulnerable children were subjected to truly, truly horrific sexual abuse in institutions right across Australia. In fact, I don't think there is any state or church in Australia that was untouched by this awful, awful abuse served on children.

We know now, very clearly, some of those stories. We know the impact of this institutional abuse has destroyed lives. Some of those lives have now been lost. We also know that it has left a lasting scar on victims who were just children. Some had horrific childhood trauma that led them down a terrible path of their own abuse and criminal dysfunction. All are people—all of them—who were let down by the institutions that should have been protecting them, institutions that should have stood for something in terms of the values that those institutions represented. For the trust that those young children put into those elders that looked after them in those institutions to have been abused in that way—what happened to them would be just so abhorrent for them to think of now that they have come into adult life, and I pay my respects to them, as I would like to do for those that are no longer with us. They are victims that we have too long forgotten and to whose struggle we turned a blind eye. While no amount of money can make up for their pain, suffering and abuse, they very much deserve redress for the terrible crimes they were subjected to as children.

The royal commission's recommendations outlined the formation of a National Redress Scheme. This is a serious commitment, one that was not made lightly. There is no question that recommendations of the commission, including this one, should be implemented faithfully and as soon as possible. That is why I'm pleased that we are debating this in the Senate. We know that these survivors have waited far too long, so any more delay or inaction in the delivery of this Redress Scheme is simply unwarranted. That is why Labor stands ready for this legislation to pass, but that is not to say that this legislation is in the perfect form we would have liked. As we start from this point, though, it is up to us as lawmakers to ensure that, after the passing of this particular piece of legislation, we continue to meet our responsibility to those members of the community and do not let them down.

Along with my other Labor colleagues I, as a member of the Community Affairs Legislation Committee, attended hearings that addressed this particular piece of legislation. We heard again from survivors, legal experts, community support groups and government departments. We overwhelmingly heard that the need for redress was real and that redress must cover all victims. We know that doesn't happen in this legislation. We are dealing only with the victims of child sexual abuse in this legislation, so I acknowledge the fact that so many others were abused but may not have been sexually abused, and I hope that is considered for future deliberation.

I have some disappointment in the way that this legislation falls short of those key recommendations of the royal commission across a number of areas, some of which I would like to address now. In addressing them we stand here in this place and acknowledge that we have unfinished business to do. More needs to be done after the passing of this legislation. We need to ensure those recommendations of the royal commission that community groups and survivors have outlined are addressed.

Firstly, the royal commission outlined a cap on payments of $200,000, yet the government has chosen to lower that by 25 per cent. I don't understand why. Why not just implement the recommendation? Why have this debate? Skimping and saving here and there on something this fundamental, which was reached after such an awful and long process, by cutting it down to $150,000 makes no sense. We heard through the inquiry that the government made this decision in the face of the opinions of legal experts; in fact the government's own Independent Advisory Council on redress was not even allowed to provide advice on this cap. We should continue to address that issue. Accepting an offer will mean signing away any rights a survivor may have to pursue their claim for compensation through litigation. I think this is also why it's important that the amount of redress available under the scheme is adequate; it's so that survivors also have enough time to consider and to make a decision that they are comfortable with and not to be rushed into some time frame that cuts off the options of what the right thing for them to do is in their own circumstances.

Of course, we also know that this bill limits the eligibility for the Redress Scheme to only people who are living in Australia or who are Australian citizens. We know very well that the horrific abuse also occurred in institutions that cared for child migrants and that the abuse of children has also occurred in immigration detention. So, again, this limiting to particular groups of people is incredibly short-sighted. We are also very concerned that these people simply won't be able to access redress if they return to their country of birth. So, we do call on the government to confirm that that provision will be made for these groups of survivors to access the Redress Scheme.

I'm also concerned—and Senator Watt, Senator Lines and others have pointed this out—about the issue that the counselling provided to survivors through the Redress Scheme will not be adequate. There is simply no understanding as to why the government has done this. The royal commission recommended that recipients of redress be able to access counselling for the rest of their life. This is not some kind of magic bullet such that all of a sudden some provision of compensation is provided and their suffering goes away, their pain goes away. Part of the healing process for them is to ensure that they've got the support they need. Limiting counselling is incredibly short-sighted and, again, shows a lack of understanding by the government.

The bill only provides access to state-provided services for the length of the scheme or a payment of up to $5,000 to be put towards counselling. That is woefully inadequate. That is not what the royal commission recommended. So, we do call on the government to give assurances that this will be addressed. In fact, when I think about counselling I think about one of the witnesses before the committee inquiry that we had into the Redress Scheme bill. He was someone who appeared in a private capacity, whose name was Mr Andrew Collins—that is how he named himself. He talked about his experience, and it was incredibly heartbreaking to hear it and also to hear about the fact that he had to talk about it. He made that so clear when he said:

It's been reported in the media that politicians have said that survivors are happy that they were able to tell their stories to the royal commission. That's rubbish. The last thing we wanted to do was to publicly stand up and tell the world what happened to us … the repercussions have been immense in some cases, with family and friends turning away from us. We are now forever known as 'those people who were raped as children', and our families have had to endure the great toll it has taken on our mental and physical health. We didn't want to tell our stories, but we did it because we wanted justice.

I think that's a very powerful statement by Mr Collins that draws very much on the importance—now that they've had to go through this process that they didn't want to have to go through and the trauma that's caused for them and for their family members—of them at least being entitled to an adequate amount of counselling, when and where they need it, for the rest of their lives. If the government would just wake up and listen, go back through some of the evidence from this royal commission and through our committee inquiry process and understand the pain and suffering it has caused some of these survivors, then surely they would find it necessary, beyond doubt, to provide adequate counselling for the rest of the time that these survivors require it.

I also want to draw attention to the fact that survivors who are granted redress late in the life of the scheme could also be disadvantaged, because they will not be able to access services for the same length of time as survivors who are granted redress earlier in the life of the scheme. I think it is important to take that into account in future reviews. For survivors who receive the $5,000 payment, this amount of money will not provide access to support adequate to their needs, and I think it's critical that that issue is addressed urgently.

Something else this government, for some reason, found it necessary to resort to was to place restrictions on access to the Redress Scheme for survivors who themselves had a criminal history. That is incredibly unfair, and Labor has been very clear in outlining how unfair it is. The bill requires that those who have been sentenced to a term of imprisonment of five years or more have special permission from the scheme operator to access the scheme. That is just bizarre. The rule, of course, ignores the strong evidence that people with a history of childhood abuse and trauma are more likely to be incarcerated later in life. Putting this limit on that particular group of people is like punishing them all over again. It is absolutely short-sighted and ridiculous, and it makes no sense that it should be in the legislation. Our first Senate inquiry was inundated with evidence from a variety of witnesses and submitters that this rule is not only cruel but, in fact, likely to increase recidivism. So this is just ridiculous, and Labor believes that this policy should definitely change.

We do recognise, however, that the implementation of a redress scheme is a complex task. It's encouraging to see that my home state of Tasmania has finally come on board—as have Victoria, New South Wales, the Australian Capital Territory, the Northern Territory and Queensland—and publicly announced that it will participate in the Redress Scheme, because for justice to truly be done the Redress Scheme must be a national scheme. There should be no boundaries when it comes to this scheme. That whole point of it, to be national, means we do need all states and territories to be on board.

Finally, I want to pay tribute to so many who have helped get us to this point, whether they be those who've experienced difficulties throughout their lives, whether they be those in the legal profession or whether they be policymakers on the outside who have been trying to influence government for so long. I think it's so important that we continue to work together to right the wrongs of years gone by and to ensure that these events can never be repeated, so that children who are entrusted into the care of institutions actually are delivered that care and not led down a path of abuse and sexual abuse of the type we have heard throughout the stories of the last five years. It's incumbent on us as parliamentarians, though, to work together on future improvements to ensure that we get the best possible implementation of redress for survivors. We can only do that if we get rid of the politics and come together to ensure we stand for the humanity of these people who have been so terribly abused. It has taken five long years from when Prime Minister Gillard announced the royal commission to reach this point, but the abuse that victims have suffered will last a lifetime. We must get this done and we must do it right.

Deborah O'Neill (NSW, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Innovation) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

In this place and in this role it's a remarkable privilege to offer an opinion as a member of our community and try to put on the record the sentiment of the nation at this particular time around a matter of such importance. I know that before I came to the parliament I'd be driving along listening to the debate and never be able to predict exactly what it was that the parliament was going to be discussing. I'd pick up the threads of the conversations of our time and people trying to do the best that they can in this place to make sure that things that matter to ordinary Australians are acknowledged and given their proper recognition and that we do something good in the time that we're here.

Much of what we do in this place is maligned in the public media and in social media, and people can lose heart and hope. In my contribution tonight, not only do I want to address the specifics of the legislation that's before us—which have been well aerated by my colleagues who participated in the debate prior to me—but also I want to acknowledge the power of a great journalist to reveal the underbelly of any time in history. In particular, in my remarks I want to acknowledge the profound and important work of a great Central Coast journalist by the name of Joanne McCarthy, who has been awarded high recognition by her media colleagues for her dogged pursuit of an abuse of power and authority that she investigated in detail in Newcastle. With her dogged determination to tell that story she started to reveal an underbelly to our nation that is a great shame on all of us.

To anybody who has had the sorts of experiences that this legislation is seeking to redress in some small way who might be listening this evening, to anybody who loves somebody or knows of somebody through their workplace or through the community work they do who experienced the sort of predatory abuse that has sadly been a mark of some of our biggest institutions across the country, I want to put on the record that I, like so many Australians, am profoundly sorry for the experience that you've had. I don't want to pretend for a moment that the legislation that's before us can ever actually redress what's happened to these survivors of abuse by adults who should have known much better. To these survivors of abuse by adults who should have known much better, and whose crimes against young people were completely overlooked by people in positions of responsibility who could have done something, we can never go back and restart the clock. The experiences that people have had can never be undone. It's in the powerful telling of those stories by those brave enough and strong enough, despite their experience, to advance the telling of their stories through the media that we began this journey some several years ago.

I want to put on the record the comments at the time of the former Prime Minister Julia Gillard, who announced a creation of a national Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse. There was a lot of opposition to this royal commission commencing. I recall speaking with Nicola Roxon, who was the Attorney-General at the time, about the process to put in place a proper and thorough capacity for the commission to do the work that needed to be done. The care that went into delivering the terms of reference for this commission, and providing it with the resources that it was able to use to undertake the work that it did finally, was a journey of political will but also a journey of the heart. I can remember conversations with Nicola Roxon about the care and about who could be the right kind of person to undertake the leadership of such a commission into such a horror in our own time.

I think the point where we have now arrived at can only be called an imperfect response—a very imperfect response. But we're at a point that's much further down the track than where we were in November of 2012 when Julia Gillard said these words:

These are insidious, evil acts to which no child should be subject.

Australians know … that too many children have suffered child abuse, but have also seen other adults let them down—they've not only had their trust betrayed by the abuser but other adults who could have acted to assist them have failed to do so.

There have been too many revelations of adults who have averted their eyes from this evil.

I believe in these circumstances that it's appropriate for there to be a national response through a royal commission.

And that's how it commenced all those years ago.

The survivors of childhood sexual abuse have been waiting not just for that period of time—and I can think of so many things that have happened in my life in the last five years; it's a long time. People have been waiting for decades for somebody to accept their story and to give them the recognition that they deserve for the truth-telling of their experience. And I think about the words that have been put on the record just in the contribution prior to me by Senator Singh about the reality of actually coming forward and putting on the record through the commission your experience, and the personal toll of the retraumatising experience of going through telling the stories of your experience again—not just the recollection of experiences that people would rather never have had, let alone have to remember, but the personal toll in terms of the dark secrets of the past being revealed to others in the real time of their life right now. The decades washing away and the connection between the terrible experiences of these children and the reality of where they are today met up in the course of these last five years.

The good thing that we are doing here this evening in debating this piece of legislation is that we are debating a form of national redress scheme that goes some way to acknowledging the real and lived experience of thousands of young Australians. It goes some way to providing acknowledgment of the pain and suffering that they have experienced through a redress, through a payment of money and compensation. We've made some efforts at other forms of support, including through counselling, but I think it would be really incorrect of anyone in the chamber to indicate that this is a perfect response to those problems that were documented so thoroughly and awfully in the royal commission itself.

We know that 1,300 witnesses came forward and gave evidence and we know that commissioners, through the gruelling work of 8,000 private sessions, listened to personal accounts of survivors. And through all of their work I'm sure that they had great hopes for what we might do. I'm sorry that this piece of legislation doesn't rise to the level of the recommendations that the commission has made but, as has been said here by, I think, Senator Watt, we should not let the perfect be the enemy of the good. I know we're never going to get to perfect in this. The only way we'll get to perfect is by being able to rewind the clock and prevent these egregious acts of terrible violence that have been inflicted on young Australians and visitors from other countries to our nation. We can't do that. We can never completely redress, but the bill that we have does something. It is a step in the right direction towards acknowledging this pain and suffering that's part of our lived history.

The bill establishes in response to the royal commission's final report, which was delivered on 15 December 2017, a National Redress Scheme for institutional child sexual abuse. It's intended that it should operate for a 10-year period from 1 July 2018, providing a payment of up to $150,000 to survivors. In addition, it sets up a redress capacity to provide access to counselling and psychological services to survivors, and it provides an option for survivors to receive a direct personal response from the responsible institution.

Firstly, let me put on the record that Labor absolutely understands that no amount of money—no amount of money!—can make up for the pain, the suffering and the trauma experienced by survivors. But redress is a vital step along the path to healing for survivors of child sexual abuse, and it is a vital step for us, as fellow citizens in this nation who have been lucky to avoid that experience, to acknowledge that this is an appropriate response from us as a community—that their pain and suffering is borne by all of us in some way.

The royal commission recommended that the Australian government announce a willingness to establish a single National Redress Scheme by the end of 2015. I think it's a shame that here we are in 2018 and we're only just getting to this now. This Redress Scheme that we're debating this evening should have been operational no later than 1 July 2017. Why, given the exposure of the trauma that we have had documented for us, has it not been a priority for this government to bring forward this bill prior to today? I can only say that this is a government—in so much of its legislation—that continues to reveal how completely out of touch it is with the things that matter to Australians. Shame on this government for its delay in response to this important national issue.

I am pleased as a representative of the great state of New South Wales that the New South Wales parliament has already passed redress legislation and, indeed, that it was the first state to do so. That commenced the deep thaw of responses from other legislative jurisdictions.

For the record, let me indicate concern as a Labor member about, in particular, the time that people will have to consider the offers that would be made, the limits that exist around the scheme and the eligibility criteria. In particular, I come back to the counselling side of things. In my role as the assistant shadow minister for mental health, I've been out across the country talking with providers and people seeking access to mental health services. They are describing a country that is in crisis in terms of access to those services. The capacity to get to counselling, let alone the quality of the counselling experience, is so variable from place to place across this nation. This structural reality has been exacerbated by this government's determination to cut funding to health services from the day that they arrived here in Canberra to form government: the dissolution of the national partnership agreements, the withdrawal of funding for state service provision and community benefits that are really important to our community more broadly, and the freeze on access to GPs. All of these things create a context, and now, when we decide that we are going to provide redress and counselling support for people who have suffered institutional violence, the system is already compromised.

In addition to that, Labor is concerned that the adequacy of the offer of counselling is completely disproportionate to the profound need that exists for some individuals—there is a sense that you can get your counselling over and done with in one shot and leave this behind. I'm very pleased to think that that's possible for some people, but for so many these concerns that require counselling and support can be latent for many years and crop up when other life circumstances create a context in which the reliving of the trauma becomes a reality.

This government, through this bill, only provides access to state-provided services for the length of the scheme—that's the offer—or a payment of up to $5,000 to be put towards counselling. I think this is wholly inadequate. Survivors often consider the government responsible for their abuse and they don't want to use a state-run institution, and who can blame them after what they've been through? This needs to be taken into account by the states when they're delivering services. We know that survivors who are granted redress late in the life of the scheme will potentially be disadvantaged because they're going to be unable to access services for the same length of time as survivors who, once this law becomes a reality in this country, take up an offer of counselling early in the life of the scheme. So there's one very practical problem that exists in the bills before us.

I also have significant concerns about the timing: offers of redress will be made and this bill gives applicants six months to make a decision. It should be noted that the royal commission recommended a year. This is one more recommendation of the commission on which this out-of-touch of government has decided it knows better than the commission, despite the fact that the commission spent five years listening to thousands and thousands of people giving testimony. There are some of the most lucid observations embedded in the report, but the government has said: 'No, we won't go there. We'll just chop it back. We'll just cut it back.' So it is six months instead of 12 months. There's no policy rationale for rushing this process.

As Senator Watt indicated, in the time we've been in this place we keep hearing the department tell us, 'That's a decision of government.' We know that, without rhyme or reason—and certainly without policy recommendations based on facts, evidence and good judicious thought—this government makes arbitrary decisions that have the potential to completely derail a structured, holistic response, which is what was offered in the recommendations of the royal commission.

The bill places an upper limit of $150,000 on the amount of redress that will be payable to any survivor. This also differs from what the royal commission recommended. It recommended that $200,000 be the maximum payment, $10,000 be the minimum payment and the average payment be about $65,000. Again we see the government say: 'No, we know better. Trust us. We'll just make it up on the spot without the department advising us and without the commission. We'll get it right.' I don't think people believe that anymore of this government.

There have been a number of comments put on the public record about eligibility to access this scheme. The reality of the trauma of their experiences in institutional care—where they were not only abused in person but abused by a system that failed to accept the truth of their telling—means that we have before us an imperfect bill that begins to address the major concerns that were raised amongst Australians and by Australians for our Australian brothers and sisters who we are very sorry experienced institutional child sexual abuse.

Concetta Fierravanti-Wells (NSW, Liberal Party, Minister for International Development and the Pacific) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank my parliamentary colleagues for their contribution to this debate on the vital issue of redress for the survivors of institutional child sexual abuse. We all have our own stories of how this Redress Scheme will benefit someone we know or someone who has contacted our offices. Today we can end a process that began seven years ago. With the passage of this bill, the Commonwealth, with the assistance of all state and territory governments and many non-government institutions, will now be able to implement a significant and meaningful National Redress Scheme for survivors. It is time to acknowledge the wrongs of the past and provide survivors the recognition they deserve. I commend the bill to the Senate.

Kimberley Kitching (Victoria, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The question is that the second reading amendment moved by Senator Siewert by agreed to.

Question negatived.

Rachel Siewert (WA, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

by leave—I would like the Hansard to note that the government and Labor voted against it. I didn't call a division so I didn't disturb everybody.

Kimberley Kitching (Victoria, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Thank you, Senator Siewert. I'm sure your consideration is appreciated.

Derryn Hinch (Victoria, Derryn Hinch's Justice Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I, and also on behalf of Senators Pratt, Griff, Siewert and Storer, move:

At the end of the motion, add:

", but, while the Senate:

(a) welcomes the establishment of a National Redress Scheme and the announcement of a National Apology; and

(b) appreciates that survivors have been waiting a long time for a National Redress Scheme, and that the implementation of such a scheme is urgent and overdue;

the Senate notes its concerns that:

(c) the Scheme does not fulfil all of the recommendations of the Royal Commission; which were the product of extensive consultation with victims and survivors; and

(d) critical issues, such as the adequacy of the maximum payments and the counselling available to survivors under the Scheme remain of concern to survivors and their representatives; and

(e) relevant prior payments should not be indexed under the Scheme."

Question agreed to.

Original question, as amended, agreed to.

Bills read a second time.