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Legislative Council - Fifty-Fifth Parliament, First Session (55-1)
2025-11-12 Daily Xml
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Motions

Victims of Crime Fund

The Hon. C. BONAROS (16:26): I move:

That this council—

1. Notes the Victims of Crime Fund had a balance of $251.2 million reported as at 30 June 2025, representing an increase of $27.3 million on the previous financial year;

2. Recognises the current compensation scheme applies a reduction of 25 per cent for financial loss payments, including medical expenses, exceeding $2,000; and

3. Calls on the Malinauskas government to commission an independent actuarial review of the Victims of Crime Fund to assess the impact of abolishing the 25 per cent reduction in compensation on the position of the fund.

This is a relatively straightforward matter and I do not intend to dwell on it for too long, but we have had lots of discussions in this place about whether indeed there ought to be a discount applied to any financial losses that a victim receives following any sort of crime being committed against them. I have given examples in this place previously that victims probably are none too aware of unless they find themselves in the position of being the subject of an assault or any other criminal offence which has left them with financial losses.

I have provided examples previously of domestic violence victims. For one particular domestic violence victim, whose perpetrator was charged and convicted with assaulting her, her medical bills as a result of the injuries that she sustained came in at about $19,000-odd. The amount that she received in her pocket to pay for those was discounted by 25 per cent. Another example is a victim of crime who was the subject of an assault and required surgery. Again, the money that they received for their financial losses was discounted by 25 per cent, and it was discounted because our legislation says that financial losses are effectively capped and anything that you are entitled to beyond $2,000 will be discounted by 25 per cent.

There is no logic in my mind as to why we discount the financial losses that a victim of crime has incurred through no fault of their own. They are the victim, the innocent victim of a crime. Somebody has been charged and convicted of committing this crime against them. They have had to take time off work. They have had to undergo surgery or whatever other rehabilitation they require, and yet somehow we see fit to discount their entitlement by 25 per cent, leaving them out of pocket.

The Attorney will tell us that the reason we do this is that the Victims of Crime Fund is a fund of last resort but, as we know and as I have said in this place time and time again, the Victims of Crime Fund, which currently has about $251.2 million sitting in its balance, is also a fund of only resort.

I have done a very, very sketchy back-of-the-envelope calculation to try to figure out how it is that the Attorney, or the government, thinks that keeping that 25 per cent provision in our laws will do anything to preserve that fund. We have redress money coming out of this scheme and we are extremely worried about and extremely concerned about not dropping its limit too far, but the bottom line is that if I, based on the Auditor-General's reports, added that 25 per cent to every single claim that was made under the Victims of Crime Fund then the most—the most—that would be paid in each year is about $12 million, and of course that is not going to apply to every single claim that I have included in those calculations.

If the government's position is that we cannot afford to have that $251 million reduced by way of the fact that we have that 25 per cent discount in the legislation at the moment, then I think the least we could do is provide some actuarial figures about what the actual result will be. This motion is calling on the government to indeed produce some actuarial figures in relation to what the actual impact on the scheme would be if we were to remove the 25 per cent discount and if we were to increase lawyers' fees payable under the scheme from $1,400 to $2,500.

It is not a big ask. Right now, we are in the hands of the government in terms of the advice they give us and the concerns they have about drawing that scheme down, and I think it is only appropriate, given what we know and given their reluctance to support a bill aimed at removing that 25 per cent discount provision and increasing legal fees, that they provide some figures to back up what they are saying.

The second element of the bill that would be the subject of these actuarial figures is increasing legal fees from $1,400 to $2,500, because, as we know, that figure (a) has not been increased at all since those amounts were first inserted into the legislation, but (b) overwhelmingly, you are going to struggle to find anybody to represent you, given the low amount of pay they are going to receive.

The payment of $2,500 probably equates to about 15 or 16 hours of work for a lawyer around town and it is only fair and reasonable. It is a very modest increase. Actuarial figures would actually show us whether that would make a dent in that $251.2 million-odd fund, as would, more importantly, removing the 25 per cent discount that applies to victims of crime, who I might say do have issues navigating this scheme on their own in terms of recouping their financial losses.

This motion is very straightforward. It calls on the government to provide some actuarial figures so that we can see what the state of the fund is, how much is paid out to victims under the various categories that exist, how much needs to be in the fund to ensure that we have enough for the redress scheme, and what the impact of those two measures that I have outlined would actually be on an annual basis on that existing balance that we have today.

The fund has, as we know, increased over recent years, to the point where it has now reached that $251 million. Nobody wants to see that fund diminish so as not to enable us to pay out those victims who would be eligible for funding under the redress scheme, but based on the figures before us nothing that the government says is stacking up.

The intention of this motion is to ensure that the government provides some figures, so we can see for ourselves how it is that we can amend this legislation—underlying provisions in the legislation—to make it more fair and equitable for victims of crime who have done nothing to bring upon themselves the sorts of financial losses that have been incurred by them as a result of crimes committed by persons who have been charged and convicted of these sorts of offences.

Debate adjourned on motion of Hon. I.K. Hunter.

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