Jason Clare (Blaxland, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Communications) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Can you imagine growing up without a mum or a dad and never meeting your brothers or sisters—never even knowing that they existed? Imagine being alone in a big orphanage and being neglected, hurt, abused and monstered by the people who were supposed to look after you and protect you? This is not a Charles Dickens story. This is what happened here in Australia. Hundreds of thousands of Australians were neglected and abused in homes and orphanages, many of whom are still with us today. Over the last decade, their stories have slowly come out of the shadows. First there was a Senate inquiry and then there was an apology by this parliament. More of what happened to these helpless boys and girls has now been revealed in the chilling evidence that has come out of the testimony, the oral and written evidence, provided to the royal commission.

The royal commission has done an extraordinary job of shining a light on a dark and terrible part of our past. I hope that this week the government will finally introduce legislation to establish a national redress scheme. It's a key recommendation of the royal commission and one that's long overdue. No amount of money can properly compensate for the brutality that many of these children suffered or repair the damage that was caused to them, but it will help. That compensation should be paid for by the governments and by the organisations that ran the places where they were harmed. But some people will still struggle to get access to the scheme because the records of their time in an orphanage have been destroyed. For some people, the only way to prove that they were ever there are the police records that show that they absconded—that they ran away—and that they were picked up by police and brought back to the place where all of the harm was happening.

These records are in police gazettes. Some states and territories provide access to these gazettes but others don't. One of those that do not provide access is New South Wales; you can't get access to the police gazette until 70 years have passed. The practical impact of this is that some people can't get access to the sorts of services offered by the New South Wales government—things like counselling services, help with family reunions or help finding their own parent's grave. I've written to the New South Wales police minister, asking him to make the police gazette available, but he has said no, and I think that's appalling. We're talking about kids who were flogged and raped and ran away, and they can't prove they were ever there, because police won't provide the records that show it. I ask the New South Wales government to please reconsider this genuine request. Given everything that's happened to these poor people, I think it's the very least that we can do.