A law firm working with survivors of abuse in State care
is disappointed by the Government’s pre-Budget
announcement about redress for survivors, which fails to
uphold most of the recommendations made by the Royal
Commission of Inquiry into Abuse in Care (Royal Commission)
and the Redress Design Group.
Cooper Legal’s
Principal Partner, Sonja Cooper says the Government’s
pre-Budget announcement regarding redress is a further kick
in the guts for survivors.
“The Royal
Commission told us that the current redress system does not
work, so has the Ombudsman and the United Nations. Yet here
we are, simply pumping more money into a system that we know
is completely failing survivors.
“The
Royal Commission published its interim redress report in
2021. This outlined a comprehensive, independent redress
scheme for survivors. Today the Government told us it does
not intend to implement that scheme, or any scheme remotely
like it. Which makes one ask, what was the
point?
“We have clients who have been waiting for
decades to have the State acknowledge what it did to them as
children and vulnerable adults, and unfortunately, now we
will have to tell them that they probably will never see the
effective redress they are entitled to under international
and domestic law.
“That is the reality we are
facing. As lawyers dealing with survivors on the front line,
we see on a daily basis the harm the State has caused them.
We consider this announcement is simply causing further
harm.
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“We know we cannot trust the current State-run
redress schemes. Time and time again, we have seen survivors
disbelieved, discredited and further traumatised by these
schemes. For some reason, this Government considers it is
appropriate to continue to treat survivors in this
way.
“The Royal Commission was very clear, survivors
should not have to go to the agency that abused them, bowl
in hand, in order to obtain redress. Survivors need an
independent body to completely assess their claims that is
free from bias.
“Today, our Government put a big
cross through this recommendation and said to survivors that
the agency that abused them is the best agency to assess
whether their lived experiences actually happened to
them.
“We know that Ministries, such at the Ministry
of Social Development, undermine survivors and try to avoid
liability for what happened to them. Which begs the
question, why do we not change something we know is
unquestionably broken?
“While we acknowledge the
small increase in funding available to survivors, this does
not even account for the increase in the cost of living and
for inflation.
“If we are serious about redress, we
need to provide wrap-around support services and real
figures for compensation for those who have been abused by
the State. We need to see this as an investment to break the
intergenerational cycle of abuse and acknowledge the harm
that the State caused.
”We need to see redress not
as a cost, but as an investment”, Ms Cooper
concluded.
