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Legislative Council - Fifty-Fourth Parliament, First Session (54-1)
2018-05-30 Daily Xml
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National Redress Scheme

The Hon. F. PANGALLO (15:49): I rise to speak about the National Redress Scheme. We cautiously welcome the government's decision this week to join the National Redress Scheme—a platform central to SA-Best's election campaign—for survivors of institutional child sexual abuse. It is good news. We heard a short time ago, that the Catholic Church is now opting in.

The Redress Scheme was one of the key recommendations of the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse, which estimated that around 20,000 survivors were sexually abused in about 4,000 state and territory government institutions—so widespread and so devastating to so many innocent lives. The South Australian government's announcement was a significant day for thousands of child sex abuse survivors who remain traumatised by what happened to them when they were children in institutionalised care. It follows a similar commitment by the Tasmanian government last week, which now leaves Western Australia as the only state that has not signed up to the agreement.

Many of these victims were under state government care and control at the time of their abuse, so it is only just and reasonable that government accepts the responsibility. Many are now elderly and will forever be affected by the trauma they endured, needing ongoing medical help and financial support. The National Redress Scheme will ensure that these people get the support they so desperately need and deserve.

However, while we welcome the decision to join the National Redress Scheme, SA-Best calls on the state government to put pressure on the federal government to stop the indexing payments made to care-leavers, some of whom received as little as $2,000 redress from South Australian, Queensland, Western Australian and Tasmanian state schemes. Those payments will be taxed at 1.019 per cent per annum, purportedly to account for inflation, the net effect being that some survivors will get little or nothing. This is grossly unfair.

The federal government is taking from the poorest of the vulnerable abuse victims and must reconsider this recommendation, which was made by the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse. Care Leaver's Australasia Network (CLAN), the peak support group for people who were raised in Australian and New Zealand orphanages, children's homes, missions and foster care, has been campaigning for indexation to be dropped from the scheme.

The National Redress Scheme is only weeks away from its proposed commencement on 1 July but is yet to pass the House of Representatives, let alone the Senate, with a Senate inquiry into the current bill not due to report for another couple of weeks. The proposed national scheme provides compensation of up to $150,000, access to psychological support for those eligible and provides six months for applicants to decide whether or not to accept the offer of redress. For many survivors, making such a decision will be overwhelming and emotionally fraught, especially given that only one application to the scheme is permitted.

The federal government also wants to place a $150,000 compensation ceiling on survivors, rather than the $200,000 maximum, $65,000 average and $10,000 minimum, as recommended by the royal commission. The Senate inquiry into the previous iteration of the bill heard that the decision to set the lower maximum cap was made by ministers before the Department of Social Services was asked to begin designing the scheme. This is shameful and unjust.

There are still many issues to be worked through in the proposed bill, and we hope the Senate inquiry into the latest version listens to the survivors and voices its concerns. No amount of money will ever fully repair the damage done to so many interrupted lives, but we as lawmakers must uphold our responsibilities to the thousands of survivors. If not, my Senate colleague, Senator Stirling Griff, will move amendments to do just that.

Unfortunately, the National Redress Scheme will only deal with survivors of institutional sexual abuse, but there are also countless survivors of severe physical beatings and psychological abuse, and we must acknowledge their suffering as well. We must also acknowledge those who were abused and for whom the continuing effects of their pain and suffering was too much to bear, and who sadly ended their lives. I solemnly thank each and every brave survivor who came forward to tell their deeply personal, and often harrowing, accounts of abuse in institutions.

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