Premier Peter Gutwein reveals raw personal experience of sexual assault

A senior government minister has apologised for his comment in response to a question about child sexual abuse in state parliament on Thursday.

A senior government minister has apologised for his comment in response to a question about child sexual abuse in state parliament on Thursday.

Minister for Education Children and Youth Roger Jaensch interjected during a question Opposition leader Rebecca White was asking on behalf of a victim-survivor of sexual abuse.

There were groans from the government frontbench and Mr Jaensch was heard to say: “Oh, come on”.

“I don’t think it helps anyone for me to try to explain any of that any further,” he said on Friday.

“To the person who was hurt by my behaviour in the parliament yesterday I am deeply sorry for that and I apologise without reservation.

“I have reflected deeply on it overnight. I support the Premier and his apology and his statements also today, but to the person who was offended by my behaviour I am deeply sorry to them.”

The woman whose question Ms White was asking says the response made her wonder how committed the government was to addressing the crisis of child sexual abuse.

Roger Jaensch, Minister for Education, at Bowen Road Primary School where he released the COVID-safe schools' operational plan. Picture: Linda Higginson

“Given the ministerial roles that the groaners hold, I have zero confidence that they genuinely care and zero confidence they will do everything in their power to implement the recommendations of the Commission of Inquiry,” she said.

The woman said Mr Jaensch should explain his behaviour.

“It is unfathomable and I cannot for the life of me comprehend why he and his colleagues would behave in this manner,” she said.

“It is utterly disgraceful and I look forward to his personal apology, assuming he, like Mr Gutwein, takes it upon himself to reach out to me.”

Premier Peter Gutwein on Friday revealed his own experience as a victim-survivor of abuse as a young man.

The woman said she and others who had experienced abuse felt “minimised and disregarded”.

“I empathise with him, and every other victim-survivor. However, it does not remove his responsibility to the people,” she said.

“He cannot use it as a distraction to avoid answering my questions. The Premier clearly cannot comprehend what so many of us have suffered.”

She said the other government frontbenchers involved in the groaning still needed to account for their actions.

‘I was a victim’: Premier reveals experience of child sexual abuse

PREMIER Peter Gutwein has revealed that he is a survivor of child sexual assault, detailing his harrowing story of abuse at the hands of a former teacher.

It follows an apology he made in state parliament yesterday after groans were heard from the government benches when Opposition Leader Rebecca White asked a question of the Premier on behalf of a victim-survivor of child sexual abuse.

Mr Gutwein apologised in parliament and he had since contacted the victim-survivor via email to seek to arrange a discussion with them over the phone.

“To have a victim-survivor that felt that this government wasn’t being supportive was something that deeply troubled me,” Mr Gutwein said at a media conference in Hobart on Friday afternoon. “It’s one of the first nights that I’ve lost sleep for a long period of time.”

“I’m going to do this once and I’m not going to speak about it again.

“I have great empathy for people that are victim-survivors.

“You’d all be aware that I crossed the floor back in 2002 to bring on a commission of inquiry that ultimately could have completely derailed my own career.

In 2003, Mr Gutwein crossed the floor to vote in support a Greens push for a Commission of Inquiry into child abuse. He was stripped of his shadow treasury, education and employment portfolios by then opposition leader Rene Hidding.

“I’m the first premier in this state that has taken the steps to have a Commission of Inquiry (into the Tasmanian government’s response to child sexual abuse in state institutions).

“The reason that I’ve done that is that I have great empathy because I’ve walked in their shoes.”

An emotional Mr Gutwein then went on to reveal his own personal experience of abuse.

“When I was a young man, in fact, when I was 16, I was a victim of child sexual assault,” he said. “It was by a former teacher.”

“I’d left my high school and was home for the Christmas holidays before going off to either Launceston College or taking on, as I did at a later stage, an apprenticeship.

“And I was asked to go to their home to have a beer. Which I thought was fantastic. I’d known this person for a long period of time. They’d spent a lot of time around the football clubs that I was involved in.

“Whilst I was there, they placed their arm around me and they grabbed on my groin. They tried to get their hand down my pants.

Tas Gov new minister

“I was big enough and strong enough to get them off me and to get away.”

It was due to his own traumatic experience that Mr Gutwein said he was so passionate about righting the wrongs of the past when it came to child sexual abuse.

“In terms of the person yesterday who took offence, I hope that she will provide me with her phone number, so that I can have a conversation with her,” he said. “Because I’ve walked in her shoes.”

“I know what the loss of trust feels like. I know what the shame feels like.

“And I want to get to the bottom of this through this Commission of Inquiry so that, once and for all, we have a framework moving forward, that parents like me today can be absolutely certain that their children are in the safest possible place when they are in the state’s care.”

Follow @rg_inglis

Originally published as Premier Peter Gutwein reveals raw personal experience of sexual assault