Ministerial Statement

CHILDREN IN STATE CARE INQUIRY

The Hon. M.D. RANN (Ramsay—Premier, Minister for Economic Development, Minister for Social Inclusion, Minister for the Arts, Minister for Sustainability and Climate Change) (11:30): I seek leave to make a ministerial statement.

Leave granted.

The Hon. M.D. RANN: In November 2004 the Hon. Ted Mullighan QC, former justice of the Supreme Court, commenced the Inquiry into Children in State Care. The commissioner has now completed his inquiry and submitted his report.

I have read the report including the many narratives of sexual abuse of children while in institutional, secure or foster care. The report chronicles account after account of children robbed not only of their innocence, but of their past, their present and their future.

I was sickened by what I read. I am sure all members of this parliament and all right-minded South Australians will share my abhorrence of what happened over many, many decades. I directly quote the commissioner, himself, who in the opening lines of his report says:

Nothing prepared me for the foul undercurrent of society revealed in the evidence to the inquiry; not my life in the community or my work in the law as a practitioner and as a judge.

A recurring issue that arises in the commissioner's report is the inability of the victims of child sexual abuse to talk about their experiences and the unwillingness of those around them over years to hear or listen to their reports of abuse. Victims lived in fear that telling their story would result in punishment, rejection or even more violence and abuse.

Last night I met with a number of survivors of child sexual abuse to listen to them speak about their experiences. One survivor spoke with passion and with pain when she said, 'The world needs to know the truth—no more silence.' The inquiry and this report have given voice to their truth. It has ended the silence that has disconnected child sexual abuse victims from their loved ones and friends and from the community. It has brought a greater understanding by those around the survivors of the struggle of survivors to cope and to restore their lives, their dignity and self-respect. What happened to them did not just affect them: it affected their husbands and wives, their siblings, their children and their friends.

For those victims of child sexual abuse who have not lived to give evidence to the inquiry, we rely on those who did survive to lift the curtain of silence. I know many of those who have survived feel a responsibility to tell their story so that others might understand the experience of those who did not survive.

Above all, the inquiry conducted by Ted Mullighan gives substance to the hope that the widespread abuse of children in care cannot be tolerated—can never be tolerated. Among the most vulnerable in our community is the child neglected or abused within their own family. Removing a child from a family to keep them safe is a very serious step by government authorities. It carries with it a heavy responsibility.

Tragically in many cases spanning decades children placed in care in a series of government and church institutions suffered sexual abuse. Perpetrators have included those charged with the care of children, other children in care, visitors and strangers. Children were removed from unsafe families only to face terrible situations, whether in institutions, or in other families, or out on the street. One witness described it as being 'taken out of the frying pan and into the fire', and I was told last night that children being taken away were told that they were going on a holiday, but that holiday turned out to be a living hell.

This inquiry represents a further step in the government's commitment to better protecting children in South Australia, which commenced within three weeks of coming to government in 2002, when Robyn Layton QC was commissioned to undertake a far-reaching inquiry into child protection in this state.

The Keeping Them Safe Reform Agenda, the government's response to the inquiry, has underpinned a comprehensive overhaul of our child protection system, and culminated in reforms which have almost doubled resources to our child protection agency since 2002. The inquiry documents a range of measures this government has taken in reforming the child protection system, including establishment of the Office of the Guardian, the Health and Community Services Complaints Commissioner and the Rapid Response Framework.

We have also made sure that paedophiles are brought to justice and prosecuted for their predatory behaviour against children. Until this government came to office in 2002, paedophiles and other sexual offenders were immune from prosecution for their pre-1982 offences. So, in a bizarre way of the criminal law, here we had a law in South Australia which said that people who committed offences after 1982 would be prosecuted, but if they committed them before 1982 they would not be prosecuted. That made no sense in law and it made even less sense in terms of justice. That is why we have made it that there is no immunity for anyone who committed these vile abuses of children.

We removed this protection because there must be no safe haven, no protection for any paedophile who preys on our children. The police paedophile task force was given extra resources to investigate the many hundreds of complaints about offences which occurred before 1982.

Since coming to office in 2002 we have: increased child pornography maximum penalties fivefold; made it an offence to procure and groom a child to engage in sexual acts; criminalised the filming of a child for prurient purposes regardless of consent; and given courts the power to classify and deal with a child sex offender as a serious repeat offender after two offences.

South Australia now has a paedophile register, giving police detailed information to monitor child sex offenders. In December last year, new laws came into force to allow courts to prevent convicted paedophiles from using the internet to continue their evil practices. The dangerous offender legislation adopted by the government allows the DPP to seek an order from the court to revoke the non-parole period of a dangerous offender or detain such an offender indefinitely if he is beyond rehabilitation.

As an immediate response to the Mullighan inquiry, I commit to moving a resolution in parliament making an apology to those who were abused as children on behalf of the government and the people of South Australia, and all previous parliaments and governments of South Australia. An apology must be made; an apology will be made. In the coming weeks the Minister for Families and Communities will consult with survivors of child sexual abuse while in state care about the appropriate form of an apology. I expect that an apology will be made in parliament soon.

I also advise today that the government has immediately committed additional funding of $2.24 million over three years for the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions to prosecute cases of child abuse referred to authorities from the Mullighan inquiry. In my view, every effort must be made to bring those who prey on children to justice—no matter who they are, no matter where they are—whether their crimes occurred last week, last year or decades ago. These people must be brought to justice. If the healing process, which this Mullighan inquiry is all about, is to have an effect that continues, those perpetrators must be brought to justice.

I now turn to the work of the inquiry itself. In 2004, against a background of escalating allegations of child sexual abuse of children in care, the government decided to establish an inquiry. It was critically important that the inquiry could consider these allegations while protecting the privacy of the individuals concerned and without prejudicing any potential criminal prosecution of the offenders. This led to parliament establishing the Commission of Inquiry into Children in State Care.

The government hoped that, in establishing the inquiry in the way that it did (in particular, by allowing it to determine its own evidence-gathering processes), people who had previously been silenced would gain sufficient confidence in the inquiry to come forward and tell their stories, because you have to remember that for decades people lived in fear of telling their stories. They were frightened that, if they came forward, they would be punished. They were frightened that, if they came forward, they would be rejected again or, even worse, that they would suffer more violence, more rape, more abuse. It was also hoped that the inquiry could provide a measure of healing to the people who came forward. In establishing the inquiry, the Minister for Families and Communities said:

The essence of this inquiry is a healing process and critical to that is to give people a forum at which they can tell their story. The telling of their story in a way which is respected and honoured in itself is part of the healing process.

This aspiration for the inquiry was a bipartisan one. The then leader of the opposition (the member for Frome) said at the time:

We are never going to be able to give them back their youth and innocence, but we can give them a measure of justice by allowing them to tell their story and seeing that they are taken seriously.

To meet this aspiration, the choice of commissioner was critical. The government appointed former Supreme Court justice Ted Mullighan as commissioner. Former justice Mullighan was a jurist of impeccable ability and competence. His integrity both as a judge and, formerly, as a barrister, is beyond reproach. Importantly, he brought to the task a compassionate and common-sense approach. It was his ability to gain the necessary trust of vulnerable people, whose experience of authority, whatever form, had often been hostile, that made the inquiry such a success. Without his ability to create that relationship of trust, witnesses simply would not have come forward.

So, I want to pay tribute to justice Ted Mullighan; there could not have been a better commissioner to head this inquiry. I know from speaking to survivors last night that his own personal approach, as well as his dignity and his standing in the law, made this process so important—the process of giving evidence was made much easier by Ted Mullighan because of his empathy with the people involved.

Commissioner Mullighan adopted what might otherwise be regarded as an unconventional method to gain the confidence and trust of witnesses, including reaching out to potential witnesses in correctional institutions and by taking the inquiry to rural and regional areas. So, again, I want to officially place on the record the government's appreciation for the sensitive, compassionate and understanding way in which commissioner Mullighan and his team conducted the inquiry.

Commissioner Mullighan took evidence from 792 people who said that they were victims of child sexual abuse; many said they were telling their story for the first time. He determined that 242 people were children in state care at the time of their alleged abuse. Many of the allegations arose from incidents in the 1960s and the 1970s. In fact, many of the bigger institutions closed in the 1970s.

There were a total of 826 allegations against 922 perpetrators. Of these allegations, the inquiry has referred allegations to the police from 170 people, involving 434 alleged perpetrators. Even before it reported, two suspects were arrested and a further 13 reported as a result of referrals from the commission of inquiry. Fourteen of these matters have been referred to the Director of Public Prosecutions.

As I have said, the government has acted by committing funds to the DPP to ensure that the matters that have been referred can proceed to trial quickly. The commissioner's recommendations relating to resources for the Legal Services Commission and the courts will be considered as part of the government's deliberations over the remaining recommendations.

I now want to talk about the former children in state care who gave evidence to the inquiry. These are people who for years have borne the pain of their experiences in silence. One witness told the inquiry, 'I thought perhaps for the first time in my life someone would be willing to hear my pain.'

I want to pay tribute to the survivors for their courage in coming forward and telling their stories and, in so doing, uncovering their truth that has been buried for years. This has been an extremely difficult, painful, yet also powerful time for them. It has also been a difficult, yet rewarding, time for their families and friends, and I want to acknowledge the incredible support they have provided to the witnesses and the role that they have played in ensuring that these stories can be told.

A commission such as this, which allowed people to tell their truth, was always going to be about more than a report or its recommendations. In coming weeks, my government will consider the report and, by 19 June 2008, as has already been set out, will deliver to the parliament a detailed response to each of the report's 54 recommendations. For those who will find that the report re-opens old wounds in a way which is difficult to cope with, we have provided support. Families SA Post Care Services will connect those seeking help with someone who can provide support.

I also want to address all the children currently in state care. While many terrible events have been disclosed in the report, it should be understood that the overwhelming majority of foster parents provide care and a safe environment, but the report will help us find additional ways to keep our children in state care safe.

I want to address our foster carers, past and present. Foster carers are people who open their homes and their hearts to our vulnerable children. The government could not do its job to protect children without the many decent, honourable people who offer their support as carers. We know that the great majority of foster carers were—and still are today—decent people doing a selfless thing for someone else's children, and for that we thank them.

As I have indicated, there are 54 recommendations in the report, and we will return to parliament with a response to each of them by 19 June. The presentation of this report to parliament is not the end of the story for victims of abuse and neglect in state care. They will never forget what happened, and nor should we. The commission of inquiry has given people a chance to tell their stories and to have their truth about their lives acknowledged. It has allowed us as a community to acknowledge a cruel undercurrent in the history of our state. But for this parliament, and those who came before us, we must listen, we must understand and we must act. By coming to terms with the past, we can demonstrate a determination to ensure that the same mistakes are not repeated for other children.

I table the final report of the Children in State Care Commission of Inquiry, and I now move that this parliament authorise the publication of this absolutely important, historic, painful but powerful report by Commissioner Mullighan.

Report received and ordered to be published.