Grace Tame backs campaign to stop pedophiles hiding wealth
Former Australian of the Year Grace Tame tells what she wants done to ensure sex offenders do not get away with their crimes. Listen to the podcast.
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Child abuse victim-survivor advocate Grace Tame said child sex offenders avoided accountability by exploiting “systems to their advantage”.
Tame, who has thrown her support behind a campaign to close loopholes allowing pedophiles to claim bankruptcy while hiding significant wealth in superannuation funds, said laws needed changing to stop them in their tracks.
“One is in superannuation legislation and the other is in the bankruptcy act,” she told former detective Gary Jubelin on his I Catch Killers podcast.
“If they’re facing civil litigation where they’ve been asked to pay compensation to their victim or victims, what they will do is divest their assets into their superannuation account and make themselves look cash poor on paper, then cry bankruptcy,” the former Australian of the Year said.
The Super for Survivors campaign, launched by lawyer Andrew Carpenter, aims to close those legal loopholes, enabling offenders to avoid compensating their victims.
The Grace Tame Foundation has backed the campaign alongside child sex abuse survivor and actor Madeleine West and Adam Washbourne, founder and president of Fighting Against Child Abuse Australia.
Tame said also adding their support to the campaign is Sonia Ryan, whose daughter Carly was killed by a pedophile after she was groomed online.
Jubelin said most child sexual abuse was reported more than 20 years after the offending took place.
“And the conviction rate is 0.3 per cent,” Tame responded.
“When we think of adult sexual offending, that conviction rate is pretty low. It’s about 1.5 or 1.7 per cent.
“At the moment [Australia] is the easiest [country for child sex offenders] because it is the most unpunished crime in Australia.”
Under current federal bankruptcy laws, there is no provision allowing perpetrators’ super to be used for compensation or redress.
Earlier this year, Assistant Federal Treasurer Stephen Jones announced plans to change the laws, however the proposal only gave survivors access to “additional” contributions made into an offender’s super fund.
Mr Carpenter’s and his campaign supporters want the changes taken even further.
He also rejects any offender’s defence of consent, which further victimises the abused child, a point Tame is also passionate about.
“And this is this is why I say child sexual abuse is in a class all of its own,” she said.
“You know, a child can’t consent for myriad reasons. It’s not just a legal construct.
“Child sex offenders (have) got a very long script where they try to argue as if this is a debate.
“But a child can’t consent because they are physically, socially and more importantly, neurologically still developing. So, the power imbalance between an adult who is a self-governing, independent individual and a child who is a dependent, who is reliant upon their caregivers to provide their needs and to model behaviour, that power imbalance is heavily weighted, multi fact orally in favour (of the perpetrator).”
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