Cathy McGowan (Indi, Independent) Share this | Hansard source

I was three-quarters of the way through this speech on Thursday when we ran out of time, so I am continuing today. I had been acknowledging the CLAN group of care leavers in my electorate. I had been talking about the impact of the royal commission and, in particular, the impact of the diocese of Sandhurst, which is in my electorate. I had got to the stage in my speech where I was talking about the role of alternative models of redress that were being used by the Victorian Women's Trust and I was about to outline three principles that the Victorian Women's Trust has found useful. They talked about them in their publication The paradox of service. The three main principles that they use are: having a champion in your corner, transparency of institutionalised responses and education about the nature of abuse.

I will take a few minutes to talk about the importance of having a champion in your corner. The Victorian Women's Trust talks about the experience they've had with nuns who have left religious orders. The trust talks about their ability to advocate on behalf of the nuns to get appropriate redress. They said that each of the formerly religious people have been able to rely every step of the way on having an advocate who is trusted and effective in representing their position and in their efforts to gain some personal relief.

The trust also talks about a significant aspect of this experience: religious orders have come some way in profound recognition for past hurt. In a large measure this is because they've not just had to listen in the right spirit to the formerly religious people but also had to deal with trusted brokers with a commitment to see some form of redress. That seems to me to be a really important element in what we're trying do with the survivors that we're addressing today with this redress system: the need to have a champion in your corner—someone who'll stand up for you.

The second principle is the transparency of institutionalised responses. It can't just be done in private. We need public recognition from our institutions that serious hurt has been caused, that they are going to make appropriate changes to the way they do things and that they are going to work with survivors to improve the situation—not just to make it better, but to actually improve the situation. While I understand some of the institutions have gone some way in this regard, I think there is a lot more in terms of humility and in terms of practical signs of sorrow that they could show to our survivors.

The third principle is education about the nature of abuse. Again, this is a major area I think we need to do a whole lot more work on, particularly the major religious institutions. There are many recommendations in the royal commission about what the institutions should do to improve the education, the culture and the understanding within our institutions about what causes abuse, why it happens and to then make the necessary changes that it never ever happens again.

In bringing my comments to a close, I would really like to acknowledge the work of the care leavers in my electorate, to Rhonda and her team—what a fantastic job you've done—and to say how grateful I am for the work that they do. My final comment is to use the dictionary definition of 'redress'. Redress means to rectify, to repair, to cure and to heal. My hope is that, in passing this legislation, we are able to do that in some way to the many, many survivors of our institutions. I'd like to finish by acknowledging, honouring and thanking them for their resilience, their persistence, their empathy, their tolerance, their patience and, most of all, their courage.

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