Rob Mitchell (McEwen, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

MITCHELL () (): The national apology came as a result of the five-year Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse. This is something that was done by former prime minister Julia Gillard, and something that I still rate probably as the pinnacle of my career was being part of that and seeing that develop and grow to actually do something genuine that helped victims and survivors of child sexual abuse. It's up there with the NDIS as two of the great things that we have done in government. It's an absolute monument to Julia Gillard's integrity that she went and did that at a time when there were people in this place who thought it was wrong to do that. They thought it was a witch hunt against certain religious organisations. But, as the then Prime Minister said, this is about the victims.

So the royal commission was started, and it went through some of the most harrowing and terrible things that we can imagine. When we went through that process of putting it together, we, as government MPs and opposition MPs, went out into our communities and spoke about it. It's something you hear of; it's something that you might occasionally come across; but I was absolutely blown away by how many people came forward at that time and gave their stories in my community. It's something that just sticks with you when you sit down and you hear the stories—just how appalling they were. But the thing that really stuck in my craw was how the victims were never believed. It was always systematic abuse that was happening. It was always the child victims who were the ones left to carry the burden and, unfairly, to carry the pain for many, many decades.

I think about a couple of stories that come to mind whenever I talk about this. One was a friend of mine. When we spoke about this, we went to a meeting and we talked about why the government was putting together a royal commission and why it needed to be done. And he contacted me and said, 'I've never, ever told my story, but, after listening to what you're doing and what your government wants to do, I'm actually going to come out and talk about what happened to me.' I thought that was just so amazing—that what we were doing was giving people the opportunity to have their say.

Another story that I always remember is speaking to a bloke one day after the apology. I went outside to have a cigarette, and he was there, and we had a chat. This fellow had had a pretty rough life. In and out of institutions, he had really done it tough. I remember him sitting there holding a piece of paper, and he said: 'This is the most important document in my life, because finally someone believes me. All the years I've gone through and all the pain that I went through, and I was always the one that was never believed, but now, finally, it's been recognised.' Certainly, in the past 12 years, that rates to me as one of the high points in this place. There are many things that we do together and things that we do opposite that have impact, but it was, I think, finally standing up and saying, 'Yes, we do hear you, we do see you, we listen to you and we believe you.'

And then we moved on to going after the perpetrators. Some of these things, as I said, were just harrowing. I can remember sitting with a lady in my office. They were talking about one particular parish where offences had occurred. What did they do? They moved that priest out and put another one in, who continued to abuse children in his pastoral care. What's the chance that you would have two in a row? You'd think, 'Wow, that's a real problem,' but imagine the shock when we found out there were three—three priests in the one parish. They just rotated them through. I'm not going to repeat the stories of what happened with those kids because it just turns your stomach. How people could do that to children is just beyond me—absolutely beyond me.

We went through the royal commission, we went through all of that, we had the reports done and then a national apology was given. It was great that it happened. It should have happened a lot earlier—hindsight's a wonderful thing—but it did happen. And I think it happened because members of parliament actually put down their armour and said, 'We've got to fix this; we've got to do something.' It happened because we had a Prime Minister of courage, conviction and the only former Prime Minister in this country that I've worked with for whom I have absolute respect for the way she conducted herself in the parliament and after the parliament, and particularly around this issue which was so important and so close to home. It was an example of where we can get together and do good and address a situation that should never have happened.

So when the apology was given, it was an absolutely positive experience to be there and see that happen and to know that what we were doing was righting a wrong, a wrong that happened to so many vulnerable kids who had no say in it. They were treated badly; they were treated appallingly. And for many, many years they had to carry a burden of guilt.

We know there are over 600 non-government organisations—from charities and community groups to churches and schools and universities—that have signed up for the Redress Scheme, which was established following the royal commission. Some 70,000 sites are participating in the scheme, and to date the scheme has received over 20,000 applications and has delivered close to 11,000 outcomes. That's great, but it's still not enough.

The Victorian government, again to its credit—this is where you need to have good, progressive governments who want to do the right thing—has joined the National Redress Scheme for children abused in institutional care. These are the things that should matter to us: the way we want our nation to be, how we want our children to be treated and the values that we carry inside us. Sadly, there are organisations who don't want to participate in the Redress Scheme, who are holding out. They're not admitting they have done wrong and they're certainly not accepting their responsibilities. That is a national tragedy that we should continue working on. We should start forcing these people to accept their responsibilities and right the wrongs that they played a part in.

It was Prime Minister Morrison who gave a speech that addressed the situation. At the time it was something we all needed to do, to get together and have this apology happen and start on that path to fixing it up. But one thing that has been very strong is that, on our side of the chamber, it has been something that is very close to all our hearts. We want to make sure that our children are looked after properly. And those that have been—I will say tortured for want of a better word, but I don't know if it is because they've been tortured physically and mentally. We should look after them and we should give them the help and the support they deserve.

To the victims that have gone through these harrowing experiences: you've got a government that's on your side, that will continue to fight for survivors and will work to make sure that the culture that harboured these things ends and is destroyed. We want to see those who perpetrate these heinous crimes swiftly, quickly and harshly dealt with. We hear you and we believe you, and we are all sorry for what you have had to put up with.

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