Richard Marles (Corio, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Defence) Share this | Hansard source

With a degree of concern and with a heavy dose of sadness, but ultimately with a complete sense of amazement, I stand here today in support of the National Redress Scheme for Institutional Child Sexual Abuse Bill 2018. I've been connected to the issue of those fellow Australians—half a million of them—who grew up in orphanages around Australia for as long as any issue I've been connected with in this place. Indeed, I started my connection with this issue prior to becoming elected to the House of Representatives. I was the preselected candidate for the electorate of Corio when Leonie Sheedy, director of the Care Leavers Australia Network, affectionately known as CLAN, rang me and told me about this issue. She said I had an obligation to make this a key part of my work in this place and she invited me to become a patron of CLAN. This was out of the blue. I wasn't sure what to make of this phone call, but, after two hours, I absolutely signed up.

The basis on which she said I had a particular obligation to become a patron of CLAN was the particular story of Geelong—the city on which my electorate is based—as to those who grew up in orphanages. There were more orphanages in Geelong than in any other non-capital city in Australia. That means, I suppose, that today there is a higher proportion of those who have grown up in orphanages in my electorate than in perhaps any other in the country. The issue of those people who have been in orphanages and the abuse that they have suffered is a national story, but there is a very strong Geelong story which is a part of it. It became clear to me that being a patron of CLAN was something that I needed to do.

It was also a point of connection with an existing member of the class of 2007, Jason Clare, the member for Blaxland, who also knew Leonie Sheedy and became a patron of CLAN at the same time. Very quickly, Jason and I teamed up in providing advocacy around this issue. Now there are many people in this place and in the other place who are patrons of CLAN.

Those who grew up in orphanages suffered sexual abuse, as has been outlined by the royal commission. But it was more than that. People were removed from their families—often from situations of no more than simple poverty—and placed in large institutions where there was an absence of familial love. The point that Leonie made to me is that the overwhelming, consistent feature that has been experienced by everyone who has grown up in an orphanage is that: an absence of familial love—not being seen as being special to anyone, which is at the heart of a healthy childhood and something that those of us who have grown up in families take completely for granted.

In 2009, along with Steve Irons, the member for Swan, and Senator Claire Moore, we worked with the minister for family and community services at the time, the member for Jagajaga, on having an apology made to the forgotten Australians and the former child migrants. This occurred in 2009 in this building, and it was a remarkable day—a day soaked with tears, but a day on which, for the first time, people who had horrendous stories, which they had been telling all their lives and which, by and large, had not been listened to, finally were acknowledged as having told the truth.

In November 2012, the then Gillard government followed up the apology by announcing the establishment of the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse. The final report of that royal commission was handed down in December of last year. It recommends the establishment of a national redress scheme, which is, of course, the subject of the bill that we are debating today.

The royal commission was a remarkable phenomenon for the country and for those who participated in it, many of whom I have spoken to. It was a place of pain. It was an unexpected place, which took this story in directions that none of us thought it would go. But ultimately it was a place of healing. The ability to have individual stories told and listened to and acted upon was deeply powerful. To this day, I think that the royal commission stands as one of the lasting achievements of the Gillard government.

So, as I stand here today, I'm filled with emotion. I'm filled with emotion about the journey that it has taken to get to this point. I'm filled with emotion in thinking about the people who I've met along the way—people who, when you look at the cards that they were dealt in life, were given a horrendous set of options for their life and yet faced up to them with enormous bravery and determination and, in the process, changed our nation. They are the bravest people I have met in this role. They are the people from whom I have taken the most inspiration in what I do here. This makes this debate that's going on in the House today enormously significant.

I do have mixed emotions, because there are aspects of this legislation which are not perfect. The quantum which is being provided via this legislation is $50,000 less than that which was recommended by the royal commission. It's a pity that the full $200,000 was not provided as the cap. The indexation provision for those people who have received payouts via other actions previously feels unfair. That indexation over a number of years, measured against what payment may be available through this process, may see some people getting not much at all. It would be better if that were changed. Part of the story, very sadly, of those who have grown up in orphanages, those who have suffered sexual abuse as children, is the path that it set them on in their lives, and often that is a path that has led to incarceration for themselves. It is a very significant number. It is a community that is overrepresented in our custodial institutions, and that people with significant criminal records will be prevented from gaining compensation through this redress scheme is also a pity. It denies a fundamental justice to people who started their lives with profound bad luck. The other point to make—and it goes back to the terms of reference for the royal commission to begin with—is that this only relates to people who have suffered sexual abuse. There were, of course, so many other forms of abuse which occurred for people in orphanages, and they are not part of this scheme.

That said, this redress scheme, and that it will be happening on 1 July this year, is hugely significant. It is a hugely significant moment, and I can barely believe that, from the time that Leonie Sheedy first said to me that this is what needed to occur, and it seemed to me unlikely that it ever would, we stand here in this place in a bipartisan way, knowing that a national redress scheme will be in place from 1 July this year for those who grew up in orphanages who suffered child sexual abuse. Of all that I've seen in this place over the last decade, that is as remarkable a set of events and as remarkable an achievement as I have witnessed, and I spend a moment to contemplate that.

I want to acknowledge the Minister for Social Services, the member for Wannon, for what he has done in bringing the redress scheme to a point of conclusion, to a point of operation. He deserves credit. I want to acknowledge the member for Jagajaga. From the outset, she was the person who carried the policy debate. She did so with wisdom and practicality, but she did so with an enormous sense of purpose, and her judgements in dealing with difficult issues were done with a sincerity and an integrity which represent a form of inspiration, I think, for all of us in this place who seek to represent Australians through the political process. She is an inspiration for our calling.

I want to acknowledge Leonie Sheedy, who is the head of CLAN. She is a force of nature. Her own story is tragic, and she has had her own personal demons to deal with throughout her life, and it would have been understandable if it had taken her down a more destructive road. But instead she has created a phenomenon. She is compassionate, she is generous, she has empathy, she has determination, and the number of hours that she has spent listening to the stories of those who have suffered renders her an angel. The achievement of the national redress scheme is as much hers as it is that of any person in this nation, and she deserves to be very much acknowledged at this moment.

But I want, finally, to remember her brother Anthony Sheedy, because Anthony is a person who will miss out. Anthony was dealt just the most appalling set of cards during his life in orphanages, and this was detailed in a wonderful piece written by Danny Lannen in the Geelong Advertiser. He says Anthony:

… became state ward 69411 and his 16-year journey to adulthood was spent within 10 institutions, including Geelong's St Augustine's boys home.

He entered these institutions at the age of two. Anthony tells this story from when he was 12:

"I first saw my parents at 12 years when they came to see me at St Augustine's. I didn't believe the Christian brother who told me to go upstairs to get dressed to see your parents.

"I said no because I didn't think they were my real parents. So I got the strap by the Brother and forced by his hand to go to the front door.

"My mother said 'Why are you crying?' I said 'Brother hit me for being naughty', as this is what the Brother had told me to say."

That was not the beginning, at the age of 12, of a wonderful homecoming: Anthony's parents left that day and he stayed at St Augustine's. He continued to live there.

Danny takes the story up again of Anthony, aged 15. He said:

He told of being held in solitary confinement at Melbourne's Turana home, forced to sleep on a mattress with no blanket, and of being transferred as a young teen by train from Turana to Bendigo Training Centre in handcuffs.

He told of beatings and sexual abuse by fellow state wards and the people charged with his care …

That began a life that Anthony lived on the edge. For 30 years—for 30 years!—he didn't see any of his siblings. It was a life that was soaked with alcohol, which he ultimately weaned himself off in his late 40s because he had seen so many others go down a path of ultimate destruction by pursuing the drink. He said:

"My life has been terrible. I have been lonely just about all my life until I was 62 years old.

It was at that age that he opened, after six months, a letter that had been sent by his sister Leonie, who was in search of him. It gave him nine years of comfort, a number of which were spent volunteering in my office. The person we knew was actually cheeky, he was cheerful, he was diligent, he was a keen supporter of the Geelong Football Club, he loved Frank Sinatra and he loved talking about Frank. In fact, he would continue to talk as much as we would let him talk.

On 22 June 2011, Anthony died very suddenly. He died on the very day that a letter, sent by his lawyers, for a settlement conference for compensation had arrived at his house. He will not get compensation. He is one of thousands of those who grew up in orphanages for whom 1 July is too late. This is a day on which we need to remember Anthony and everyone like him. Ultimately, for its failings, this scheme is a huge achievement for this country; it will make an enormous difference for thousands of Australians. In the process, though, today I remember Anthony Sheedy.

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