Abuse survivors have been failed by redress scheme
THE redress bill for survivors of child sexual abuse should help give them all support. Instead, it departs from Royal Commission recommendations to favour institutions, writes Michelle James.
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YESTERDAY a national redress scheme for survivors of child sexual abuse at long last became a reality.
It’s a key moment and one that enacts one of the major recommendations of the Royal Commission — a reform that has been championed by survivors for decades as a momentous step forward.
However, the reality of what we have ended up with by way of a redress scheme is sadly a long way from what was recommended by the royal commissioners, with the scheme on many key aspects now best described as a reform that will benefit institutions rather than survivors.
It is worth noting that there are close to 20 key differences between the national redress bill that recently passed the Senate and the recommendations of the Royal Commission.
Overwhelmingly those differences relate to aspects of the scheme that were not even canvassed by the Royal Commission — aspects that instead seem to have been introduced freely by the Federal Government for the benefit of institutions, rather than survivors.
Much has already been made about one of these fundamental differences — the capped amounts of compensation to be made available for survivors under the scheme. As is now widely known, the Royal Commission recommended maximum payments of $200,000, yet the scheme will only provide a $150,000 capped amount.
The backward steps on this important reform and the rights of survivors however unfortunately do not stop there.
The new scheme may also exclude people who have already made an application for redress elsewhere from joining the scheme. It may exclude some people who are in jail, or who have security notices in place. None of these elements were recommended by the Royal Commission.
Counselling capped at $5000 are also a part of the new scheme. The Royal Commission did not recommend any caps on counselling and indeed even suggested that lifelong counselling supports should be provided if required.
Under the new scheme, survivors seeking to access redress will also be subjected to a six month time limit to consider any offer, when the Royal Commission recommended a year. While this is a step up from the three months initially floated by the Federal Government, it is still nowhere near enough time for vulnerable people with complex cases to consider offers of redress for harm caused.
More worrying still is that the government has built in criminal charges for anyone who makes public the processes that are used to assess a potential claim for redress.
Notwithstanding the terrible optics of introducing an offence for transparency on redress for survivors of sexual abuse, this again is not something that the Royal Commission considered or recommended. And after decades of abuse and recalcitrance from institutions to accept claims and silence survivors, it defies logic that institutions and victims alike are now required to keep secret the frameworks that will apply to assess claims under the national redress scheme.
In another win for the institutions, the new scheme also outlines that a failure to accept an offer of redress within the acceptance period will be considered a decline of the offer, excluding the survivor from making any future claims.
Once again, this was not something raised by the Royal Commission but included in the proposed scheme regardless in what can only be seen as another concession made overwhelmingly for the benefit of institutions rather than survivors.
The national redress scheme undoubtedly has a key role to play in providing access to justice for survivors and deserves to be supported.
Indeed, it’s a scheme that should be an important and final part in the range of choices available to victims now looking for support in dealing with the wrongs committed against them, and exposed by the Royal Commission.
Yet with so many aspects of the scheme now skewed towards institutions, the reality is that it is becoming increasingly harder to support the scheme as being fair for survivors to seek redress.
If the national redress scheme is to effectively perform its role then it is vital that the rights and needs of survivors are put first. This must start as an urgent priority by ensuring that the national redress scheme is consistent with the recommendations made by the Royal Commission.
Federal Labor has made clear they will continue to pursue amendments to the scheme to deliver that consistency which is welcome, and the Federal Government must now also commit to the same.
Institutions have had decades of dictating the terms when it comes to the rights of survivors. It is well past time to reverse that imbalance once and for all, including in any national redress scheme.
Michelle James is a Principal Lawyer and the national head of Abuse Law at Maurice Blackburn Lawyers.