Murray Watt (Queensland, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Northern Australia) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Labor is pleased to support the Royal Commissions Amendment (Private Sessions) Bill 2019. In 2013 this parliament amended the Royal Commissions Act 1902 to allow the chair of the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse to authorise a fellow commissioner to hold a private session to receive information from victims and others affected by child sexual abuse. A traditional royal commission hearing setting will not generally serve as the best way to facilitate participation in the royal commission by those people affected by child sexual abuse. For many, telling their story will be deeply personal and traumatic. The use of private sessions made it possible for as many as 8,000 victims of child sexual abuse to tell their stories to the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse. Such a regime is likely to prove equally valuable to victims of elder abuse and to people with disability who have been subjected to abuse.

This bill will enable other royal commissions to hold private sessions where a regulation is made under the Royal Commissions Act authorising it to do so. In effect this would extend the private sessions regime that applied to the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse to other royal commissions in appropriate circumstances, including the disability and aged-care royal commissions. I commend the bill to the Senate.

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

The Greens support the main thrust of this legislation, the Royal Commissions Amendment (Private Sessions) Bill 2019, and are happy that this Senate continues to do the work of facilitating the Royal Commission into Violence, Abuse, Neglect and Exploitation of People with Disability, and getting it underway. We know, very clearly, that private sessions create a vital opportunity for survivors to tell their stories in appropriate settings. We know from the experience that was undertaken during the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse that the opportunity to give evidence in this setting is vital for royal commissions to be able to hear evidence from folks that have been mistreated and subject to systemic failures in the most horrendous ways. In fact, the opportunity to give their evidence to a royal commissioner, have their story heard, have their experience validated, plays an important secondary role in the healing journey that many survivors are on after years and years of being disregarded, of having their stories shut out of the public view, of being described as liars or fabricators. The opportunity to have their lived experience validated by a royal commissioner is often critical to the healing journeys of survivors.

We do have a number of concerns with the subsequent provisions of this legislation and the effect that they might have on that vital survivor experience. Centrally, the provisions relating to the ability for senior commission staff and so-called assistant commissioners to be appointed to the role of leading those private sessions, we believe, could be highly problematic in the eventual effect of the royal commission. That is why we have been working with disabled people and their organisations for the last couple of weeks to draft amendments that might remove that potential negative effect from the legislation.

I have always said, when it comes to the issue of the royal commission, that if parties are willing to come together and work in a bipartisan way to try to get this process right then that is what we must do. I am heartened by some very positive conversations that I've had with folks in the government and in the opposition. I understand that the government will be moving amendments to address the concerns of disabled people and of the Greens during the further course of debate.

Debate interrupted.