Page 2434 - Week 08 - Tuesday, 9 August 2016

Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . . Video


With those brief remarks, I am happy to support the bill today.

MR CORBELL (Molonglo—Deputy Chief Minister, Attorney-General, Minister for Health, Minister for Police and Emergency Services and Minister for the Environment and Climate Change) (10.41), in reply: I would like to thank members for their support of this bill today. The government is proud to be implementing recommendations of the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sex Abuse. The work of the royal commission has been groundbreaking. Their painstaking and heart-wrenching work must surely serve as a turning point in the way Australia deals with child abuse.

The commission has acknowledged that the impacts of child sex abuse work against survivors being able to disclose abuse, “let alone seek legal advice and commence proceedings”. Survivors also have difficulties identifying the connection between the abuse they have suffered and the resulting psychological impacts they endure. They may have been subjected to ongoing or repeated abuse where it is not possible to pinpoint an actual point in time in which the injury was done. It may have been perpetuated by more than one person, who may be deceased or no longer within the institution. The institution itself may have ceased to exist.

Often victims must proceed in litigation against large and authoritative institutions, meaning that there is the possibility of a significant and continuing power imbalance between the survivor and the institution. This imbalance, coupled with the long-term impacts of child sex abuse, leave many survivors less able to confront these situations.

Survivors who do commence proceedings against institutions risk the issue of limitation periods being raised, resulting in lengthy litigation about whether or not the claim that they have made can even be brought. Institutions often have far more resources than individuals and are often better able to finance lengthy legal proceedings. The royal commission stated that this “involves substantial legal costs without any consideration of the merits of the case”, and that “this risk is enough to prevent many survivors from commencing civil litigation”.

All of these factors contribute to the limited capacity of survivors of child sexual abuse to seek compensation by way of common law damages for distress and trauma caused by the abuse they suffered as a child. This bill aims to remove these barriers and allow survivors to seek compensation for the impact the abuse has had on them and their lives. The bill sends a strong message to institutions that traditions and cultures of secrecy, unaccountability and obstruction should not prevent them from being sued and publicly held to account for the damage they have caused if they are responsible for that abuse.

The bill also makes minor and technical corrections to section 68N(6) and section 680(4) of the Supreme Court Act 1933 so that these sections apply where the acquittal occurs on the day the Supreme Court Amendment Act 2016 commenced, not just before or after that day, as it is currently worded.


Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . . Video