‘Protect victims of crime, not the perpetrators’: Adelaide MP Louise Miller-Frost fights to change laws which protect paedophiles’ assets

A key Labor MP is lobbying for urgent changes to a legal loophole that protects pedophiles from having to pay compensation to their victims.

Boothby MP Louise Miller-Frost, pictured with Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, will fight to close a loophole that protects the superannuation of convicted paedophiles. Picture: Keryn Stevens

A key Adelaide-based Labor MP is vowing to help fight to close a loophole that protects the superannuation of convicted paedophiles.

Louise Miller-Frost, who last May became Labor’s first elected member in the seat of Boothby in 73 years, has thrown her support behind a young South Australian man, also championing for change, who shared his story in last weekend’s Saturday Advertiser.

Early this month, Edan van Haren, 27, was awarded $1.4m in damages and court costs for the psychiatric harm caused to him as a teenager living in regional New South Wales by habitual paedophile Maurice Van Ryn, a former chief executive at Bega Cheese.

It is not yet known if the serial abuser serving time for crimes against 10 children will pay, or claim he doesn’t have the money to do so.

Edan van Haren is lobbying for urgent changes to correct a legal loophole that protects pedophiles from having to pay compensation to their victims. Picture: Ben Clark

Louise Miller-Frost says it is victims, not perpetrators we should strive to protect. Picture: Dean Martin

At the time of publication, he had not responded to a formal directive that payment be made.

As it stands, sexual predators can hold onto their nest eggs even if ordered to pay compensation to victims.

But Ms Miller-Frost said it was victims of crime, rather than their perpetrators, who ought to be prioritised and protected.

“I think fundamentally, if you have a choice between supporting the perpetrator and supporting the survivor/victim, then we should be supporting the (latter),” she said.

“If it has been found the offence did occur and compensation has been awarded, then we should endeavour to ensure that compensation (is paid).

“If we have a choice between the perpetrator living in poverty, or the survivor/victim living in poverty, then we should back the survivor/victim.”

Ms Miller-Frost said it was frustrating the issue persisted in 2023.

“It doesn’t seem to make any logical sense to me … (if) compensation has been awarded, and the perpetrator has assets of any type, that you would exclude one part of it,” she said.

“I think it is a bit of a no-brainer (the law is changed).”

Maurice Van Ryn, the former CEO of Bega Cheese, is in jail for sex crimes against 10 children.

Adelaide lawyer Andrew Carpenter is lobbying for changes to prevent paedophiles from being able to hide assets in their superannuation. Picture: Naomi Jellicoe

A former charity boss, Ms Miller-Frost said she had seen first-hand the long-lasting ramifications of abuse, including sexual abuse, on children.

“My background has been working in the homeless sector … I ran Catherine House homeless service for women; what we find with people who are homeless, men and women, is that an awful lot of their problems come from childhood,” she said.

“You have survivors of child sexual abuse as well as survivors of other abuse who are over-represented in the homelessness population.”

Ms Miller-Frost has lodged a submission as part of the federal government’s consultation into “access to offenders’ superannuation for victims and survivors of child sexual abuse”.

“My response was, ‘I want us to go further’ … but absolute full credit for actually moving on this,” she said.

The consultation phase has now closed and it is not known when recommendations will be made.

Adelaide lawyer Andrew Carpenter, who specialises in child sexual abuse matters at Websters Lawyers, has long argued for change.

“It is all about getting justice for survivors … we are seeing offenders get off lightly and we see many people who don’t face justice at all,” he said.