A law firm working with survivors of abuse in State care is disappointed by the Government’s pre-Budget announcement about redress for survivors, which fails to uphold most of the recommendations made by the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuse in Care (Royal Commission) and the Redress Design Group.

Cooper Legal’s Principal Partner, Sonja Cooper says the Government’s pre-Budget announcement regarding redress is a further kick in the guts for survivors.

“The Royal Commission told us that the current redress system does not work, so has the Ombudsman and the United Nations. Yet here we are, simply pumping more money into a system that we know is completely failing survivors.

“The Royal Commission published its interim redress report in 2021. This outlined a comprehensive, independent redress scheme for survivors. Today the Government told us it does not intend to implement that scheme, or any scheme remotely like it. Which makes one ask, what was the point?

“We have clients who have been waiting for decades to have the State acknowledge what it did to them as children and vulnerable adults, and unfortunately, now we will have to tell them that they probably will never see the effective redress they are entitled to under international and domestic law.

“That is the reality we are facing. As lawyers dealing with survivors on the front line, we see on a daily basis the harm the State has caused them. We consider this announcement is simply causing further harm.

“We know we cannot trust the current State-run redress schemes. Time and time again, we have seen survivors disbelieved, discredited and further traumatised by these schemes. For some reason, this Government considers it is appropriate to continue to treat survivors in this way.

“The Royal Commission was very clear, survivors should not have to go to the agency that abused them, bowl in hand, in order to obtain redress. Survivors need an independent body to completely assess their claims that is free from bias.

“Today, our Government put a big cross through this recommendation and said to survivors that the agency that abused them is the best agency to assess whether their lived experiences actually happened to them.

“We know that Ministries, such at the Ministry of Social Development, undermine survivors and try to avoid liability for what happened to them. Which begs the question, why do we not change something we know is unquestionably broken?

“While we acknowledge the small increase in funding available to survivors, this does not even account for the increase in the cost of living and for inflation.

“If we are serious about redress, we need to provide wrap-around support services and real figures for compensation for those who have been abused by the State. We need to see this as an investment to break the intergenerational cycle of abuse and acknowledge the harm that the State caused.

”We need to see redress not as a cost, but as an investment”, Ms Cooper concluded.

© Scoop Media