Calls for a new, survivor-driven redress system have been unanswered by Government, which chose instead to invest more in the existing state-led operation.
Seven hundred and seventy-four million dollars will be put towards redress for abuse in state care, but the redress system that survivors called for won’t materialise.
Friday’s announcement by the Government’s lead co-ordinator Erica Stanford saw increased payments for survivors, a more streamlined approach for lodging a claim and a commitment to equal compensation regardless of where the abuse occurred.
But it omitted all abuses in faith-based institutions and preserved a top-down, government-driven process. Multiple recommendations from the interim and final Royal Commission reports, as well as requests made by survivors of the abuse, had called for a survivor-led redress system: a path Stanford opted against in the name of certainty and timeliness.
Throughout the process of acknowledging, documenting and – most recently – apologising for abuse in state- and faith-based care, survivors have doubted the sincerity of the Government’s promises.
Initially, the abuse they suffered was said not to have happened. Once it was proven, it was deemed not torture. Once it was admitted to be torture, and extensive documentation produced, the investigation of said torture was overseen by people involved in its obfuscation.
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