Tanya Plibersek (Sydney, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Education and Training) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It's been seven years since former Prime Minister Julia Gillard announced the creation of the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse. That happened on 12 November 2012. It was one of the last acts of the Gillard government. It's been two years since the findings of the royal commission were handed down, and it's been a year since our Prime Minister gave the national apology. For many victims of child sexual abuse in institutional care, of course, the sentence is a never-ending one.

The most important job we have as human beings is to protect the next generation. There really is no more important an obligation for any of us in this building or for any Australian. The royal commission was a stunning insight into just how poorly we had done. None of us can ever right the wrongs inflicted on too many of our nation's children, but the commission's 409 recommendations propose significant reforms to ensure that children in the care of any Australian institution can be safe.

We saw some phenomenal humans, some incredibly brave Australians, give evidence to the royal commission, and I want to thank them for that bravery. Without their bravery, the royal commission could not have done its work. One man who contacted me was Robbie Gambley. He was not much older than a child when he was groomed by his science teacher and eventually forced to live with him. He was humiliated on a daily basis and assaulted every day at school. Robbie waited for more than 40 years to hear those all-important words: 'We believe you.' He sent me this photograph of himself as just a child, with his horse. He loved the horse and he told me that, for him, this photo represented the last innocent photo of his childhood. I kept this photo by my desk while we were doing the work relating to the royal commission, because I wanted to be reminded that every one of those thousands of people who gave evidence had been a child, just like this child, who'd had their innocence stolen. Robbie went on to write a book about his childhood. He made me this horse. This is a beautiful sculpture, one of many that he has made, to remind me of the horse that was such a companion for him in his childhood. He was so phenomenally brave to share his story, not just with the royal commission but with the media as well.

Many of us in this place, I know, would be familiar with the Care Leavers Australasia Network, CLAN, and the phenomenal work of Leonie Sheedy and all of those who've worked with Leonie over very many years. We know the support that CLAN has given survivors of childhood sex abuse, helping them come forward, helping them tell their stories, and helping them by picking up the pieces once they've done so. The retraumatisation of giving evidence to the royal commission or coming forward after years of keeping a secret has really taken its toll on so many, and CLAN has been there through all of it. Leonie has given so much personally.

I'm very pleased to have been asked to be one of CLAN's parliamentary patrons, because their resolve and their strength are continually inspiring. I visited their Australian Orphanage Museum, which provides an incredible permanent monument.

A division having been called in the House of Representatives—

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In continuation, I want to mention the Australian Orphanage Museum, which the Clannies have set up with all the incredibly touching artefacts that care leavers had given to the museum. I also wanted to mention my dear friend Pamella Vernon, who, with the Alliance for Forgotten Australians—the survivors of institutional care in Australia—has also been a fierce advocate for those who were abused in institutional care.

Of course, not everyone who was in an institution was sexually abused, but too many were. There are so many other individuals, like Carl Beauchamp, who wrote the phenomenal book Come Home, You Little Bastards, which is about growing up in the inner-Sydney area—Erskineville, Newtown, Glebe—and ending up in the Charlton Boys Home. Carl tells the story of the shocking abuse that he and his brother Neville suffered in different homes. The amazing thing about this book is not only that it details this shocking abuse but also that Carl comes through it intact and loving. He is the most generous, beautiful man, and that shows through the book. I urge people to read it.

I say again to the commissioners of the royal commission, led by the chair of the royal commission, the Hon. Justice Peter McClellan, the 680 members of the royal commission staff who worked with such dedication over five years, Prime Minister Gillard, who I already mentioned, Minister Jenny Macklin, all of those involved in the royal commission and, most particularly, to those who gave evidence: we are absolutely indebted to you.

I would say that redress is a vital recommendation from the royal commission. The Redress Scheme was enacted too slowly and it is operating too slowly now. Only 600 payments out of more than 5,000 applications have been processed as of last month—just over 10 per cent. That's just too slow. Institutions that have not yet signed up should be absolutely ashamed of themselves.

When we look at the abuse that occurred in those institutions to thousands of children over many, many years, surely one of the lessons that we must learn from this is that we need to do better at protecting children. When a child says, 'I don't feel safe,' or, 'I am not safe,' or reports abuse, we should believe that child. We must investigate and take the complaint seriously.

But it is not just Australian children that we have a responsibility to protect. I was shocked last week to hear of Westpac's 23 million violations of the Anti-Money Laundering and Counter-Terrorism Financing Act 2006, including allegations of 3,057 money transfers following through bank systems to pay for suspected child sexual exploitation, including in the Philippines. Of course, no Australian business should be facilitating child abuse and child exploitation overseas. The scale of this problem is shocking. In 2014, 250 Australian child-sex offenders who went to the Philippines alone were charged by the Australian Federal Police. They were all types of people. There was a 51-year-old Australian businessman from Sydney who was sentenced to three life sentences in prison for operating a child cybersex den and exploiting children in the Philippines; a medical supplies salesman who sexually exploited 47 boys in South-East Asia and Australia; a 61-year-old man from Perth—a father of five and former train driver—who groomed, molested and attempted to rape a girl over the course of 2½ years, from when she was about five years old; a 63-year-old grandfather; and a 39-year-old woman from Sydney who was involved with live-streaming a 12-year-old's abuse on social media. How many weren't caught? Australians are deliberately flying to where poverty and corruption make people desperate and vulnerable. Frankly, it is beyond me what sort of person does this.

It's not just the physical, real-world abuse of children that we need to stop; it's also online child exploitation and child pornography. Every time someone looks at child pornography, they incentivise and monetise the abuse and even the murder of children. Reports of child sexual abuse material online have increased 10,000 per cent since 2004—10,000 per cent since 2004! Last year, tech companies reported over 45 million online photos and videos of children being sexually abused—more than double what they found in the previous year. The authorities tell us that offences are increasingly becoming more sophisticated, through the use of networks to distribute material, encryption and online access. The fact that this abuse happens overseas should not protect paedophiles. The fact that you are clever at covering your tracks on computers and with bank transfers shouldn't protect you.

I want to take this opportunity to thank the police and the child protection workers that save children from abuse in Australia and around the world. For too long we turned a blind eye to the abuse that was happening in Australia. Let it not be said that we did the same to child abuse happening overseas perpetrated by Australians and facilitated by Australian businesses. We must do better than we've done in the past to protect children—our most important responsibility.

Luke Gosling (Solomon, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Sydney for her beautiful and important speech. It's been a year since we all joined together to express our most profound sorrow for the suffering and trauma experienced by all victims and survivors of the institutionalised sexual abuse of children. We said sorry for the loss of self-esteem and self-worth. We said sorry to those who were ignored, were disbelieved or were abandoned when they sought help. We said sorry for the pain, sorry for the suffering and sorry for the innocence that was stolen. We said sorry for the loss—a loss that we, not the victims, bear the shame of.

We said sorry to those amongst us who were forcibly removed from country, from their spiritual home, and then subjected to physical and psychological violence. We said sorry for the burden of grief that victims had to carry for so many years. We said sorry to the parents and family members who suffered the distress and trauma of learning that their precious children had been abused by those they trusted to take care of them. We said sorry to those who joined youth groups, the cadet corps and the military apprenticeship schools and then suffered abuse at the hands of those who should have been carers and mentors. We said sorry to those who were fleeing the horrors of postwar Europe and were transported to secular and religious institutions where criminal predators exploited their separation and vulnerability.

We said sorry for the lives irretrievably damaged, sorry for those lives spent in misery or in jail and sorry for the so many lives that have ended in tragedy, often in death by suicide. We said sorry to all those who experienced abuse at the hands of those whose duty it was to care for them, to nurture them and to look after them. And we said sorry that, even though some institutions knew about the crimes committed, some did little or nothing to care for sufferers and that some of those same institutions and their leaders did nothing to bring the perpetrators to justice but instead turned a blind eye or covered up their crimes.

The people I represent in Darwin and Palmerston were not shielded from the atrocities committed. One of the case studies in the commissioners' report was that of the infamous Retta Dixon Home, in Darwin. The Retta Dixon Home was established by the Aborigines Inland Mission, at the Bagot Aboriginal Reserve, in 1946 as a home for 'half-caste children and mothers and a hostel for young half-caste women'. The Aborigines Inland Mission was a non-governmental, interdenominational faith ministry established in 1905. It still operates today, but has changed its name to Australian Indigenous Ministries—or AIM.

Sometime in December 1947, the home was granted a licence by the Australian government to be conducted as an institution for 'the maintenance, custody and care of Aboriginal and half-caste children'. Children stayed at the Retta Dixon Home until they were 18. The home closed in 1980. From 1946 to 1978 various laws permitted the Australian government to take Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children into institutional care. Many of the children who lived at the home now identify themselves as members of the stolen generations. The Australian government was the guardian of many children at the Retta Dixon Home. The Australian government also had a general responsibility to all children in the home, including for their care, welfare, education and advancement, until the time of self-government in 1978. The Australian government was actively involved in activities at the Retta Dixon Home. The home generally housed between 70 and 100 children at any one time. Children were housed in dormitory style accommodation and most children stayed at the home until they were 18 years of age. They attended local schools.

Ten former residents of the Retta Dixon Home gave evidence or provided statements to the royal commission about their experiences of sexual and physical abuse when they were children living at the home. Some of the survivors were there with us last year during the apology. The commission heard of the impacts of the abuse on their lives, including serious effects on their mental health, employment and relationships. They heard of their pain and suffering over a long period and the personal costs associated with dealing with the long-lasting impacts. Most former residents of the home who gave evidence said that they did not report the abuse at the time because they did not understand it to be criminal and later felt too ashamed and frightened to report the abuse. Other witnesses said there was nobody they could report the abuse to.

Children were forcibly taken from their parents and promised a better future, but were instead subjected to repeated abuse over the course of their childhood in what the member for Lingiari has referred to as the cruellest double whammy. They were taken from their actual families and then abused by state-sponsored carers, in some cases. Many of the survivors of child sexual abuse and their families retain deep anger towards those who committed crimes and the institutions that harboured them. They cannot be expected to extend reconciliation and restore trust to those who continue to deny them rights.

We should also acknowledge the work done in the lead-up to the apology. Obviously the apology was a recommendation of the final report of the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse. The final report was a culmination of five painstaking years for the commissioners and support staff. The findings of the report were horrific. We failed those who suffered, and it is the responsibility of all governments and institutions to do everything they can to ensure that institutional child abuse never happens again.

I said this in my speech last year and I'll say it again: we must do all that is possible to ensure that what the victims and survivors of institutional child sexual abuse have suffered never happens again. But, of course, it is happening. Somewhere right now in this country, a child is hurting. If you suspect a child is hurting, please act. If you are a perpetrator, get help now, confess now and apologise now. Do not hurt our young people or anyone. There have been too many young lives irreparably scarred. So no more! We must never see the national apology as a mission accomplished. It was a call to action; it was a call to act. But as the Leader of the Opposition said:

… an apology can bring to an end one era and, with hope, begin a better one.

I acknowledge the initiatives being put forward by the government that are steps along that road. The National Office for Child Safety is working on the implementation of the priorities recommended by the royal commission. Since last year, the National Redress Scheme has begun its work to hold institutions to account and to help survivors but not quickly enough, as we just heard from the member for Sydney. Labor joins with the government in urging anyone who thinks they should be a part of that scheme to get on board today. There is a way to go.

In closing, I just want to say to all those who have suffered: a year has passed, but we will never forget everything you went through. We believe you; we continue to believe you, and what happened to you is a shame that our nation will bear for eternity. We must remain vigilant and we must shine a light where that light is required.

Debate adjourned.

Sitting suspended from 17:11 to 17:12