$38.5m made in Tasmania under Redress Scheme, but survivors slam ‘redress scam’

To date, $38.5 million has been paid to Tasmanian child abuse survivors under the National Redress Scheme. But survivors have slammed the scheme as a “scam”.

TO DATE, $38.5 million has been paid, or is about to be paid, under the National Redress Scheme to 571 people who were sexually abused as children in Tasmanian government institutions.

But victim-survivors are continuing to raise the alarm on a scheme they describe as a “scam” which they say retraumatises them, pays tiny fractions of the amounts they deserve, deducts previous payments at indexed rates, and makes them wait years for compensation.

The Department of Justice confirmed this week that 770 people have so far made claims against the Tasmanian government, with offers made to 571 survivors.

That’s about half of the money put aside in the Tasmanian government’s 2021-22 budget, which committed $70 million over 10 years to meet the cost of claims under the scheme.

The scheme was touched upon during Tasmania’s child sexual abuse commission of inquiry public hearings, which wrapped up last week.

But a departmental spokesperson said there hadn’t been a recent spike in claims, despite the publicity generated by the hearings.

Attorney- General of Tasmania Elise Archer. Picture Chris Kidd

“There have been 70 requests received from the scheme in response to claims against the Tasmanian government made since the commission of inquiry hearings commenced in May 2022,” they said.

“(That) is comparable to the 73 similar requests received in the pre-hearing period, November 2021 to May 2022.”

While the National Redress Scheme is run as a litigation-free way of providing compensation to the massive numbers of victim-survivors harmed in the state’s institutions, it has also been widely criticised – including that it caps payouts at $150,000, with an average of $80,000 per claim.

Comparatively, a survivor who sues the state government through the courts could be compensated up to $200,000 for pain and suffering, and $1 million or more for economic loss.

Survivors like Azra Beach, who was abused in Tasmania’s out-of-home care system from the age of three, has slammed the scheme as the “redress scam”, describing it as “dirty hush money”.

Steve Fisher CEO of Beyond Abuse at his office at his Dowsing Point office.

She said she was initially only offered $64,000 after a previous payment of $27,000 was deducted, with an extra $10,000 taken out as the original sum was indexed at today’s rate.

Ms Beach said she was so traumatised at going through the redress process, digging through the “nightmares” in her head as she was forced to “dig through every bit of trauma”, that she hadn’t been able to work since.

“It’s not just, it’s not fair and it needs to be stopped right now,” she said.

Finally this year, after waiting 18 months since lodging her claim and fighting “tooth and nail”, Ms Beach was compensated $105,000 – too traumatised to spend years taking on the government through the courts.

“It took minutes, seconds, for our childhood to be taken and our innocence to be taken away,” she said.

“It should not take years and years and years to get some kind of justice.”

Ms Beach, like other survivors, can now never sue the state government as a caveat of receiving money through the Redress Scheme.

Tasmanian woman Azra Beach.

Steve Fisher, church abuse survivor and founder of Beyond Abuse, said any survivor should see a lawyer before “even looking” at the scheme – “if they’ve got the strength to do it”.

“The royal commission brought in the scheme on the advice of survivors and it was a pretty fair scheme. The government got hold of it, ripped it to shreds,” he said.

“What started off as a good thing is certainly not anymore. Forget about it, that’s what I’d say.”

Mr Fisher slammed the scheme’s “matrix” – a mathematical formula that comes up with a dollar figure for survivors.

“You’re basically put into a rabbit hole. If you were raped, you will get more than if you were abused in other ways. So it becomes very demeaning,” he said.

Nearly every government, church, sporting and charitable organisation in Tasmania has now joined the scheme.

An exception is the Devonport Community Church, one of five organisations nationally to not have joined, and has since had its charity status revoked as a result.

The University of Tasmania has not yet joined the scheme, but plans to.

Some other Tasmanian organisations – such as Hobart Christadelphian Ecclesia and the Burnie United Football Club – have attempted to join the scheme but did not meet legislative requirements.

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