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No sign-up to redress scheme, no charitable status: ALA
If an institution is named as being responsible for abuse and it chooses not to participate in the National Redress Scheme it should lose its charitable status, according to the Australian Lawyers Alliance (ALA).
Tony Zhang
Providing evidence on Thursday to the joint select committee on implementation of the National Redress Scheme, Dr Andrew Morrison RFD SC said that 270 organisations are yet to sign up to the scheme and there needs to be a mechanism in place to persuade them to participate.
The ALA also told the inquiry that the compensation payments available to abuse survivors under the National Redress Scheme are inadequate and as a result, many victims are choosing to pursue common law court claims instead of using the scheme.
The payment amounts within the scheme are not adequate according to Dr Morrison who said that the royal commission recommended that the maximum redress payment available under the scheme should be $200,000 however the maximum payment is $150,000.
“This amount is inadequate, it is arbitrary and does not relate to the degree of harm caused,” Dr Morrison said.
“If the redress scheme provided more adequate compensation many victims could have had their claims resolved via the scheme with a great deal less cost, stress and time.”
Dr Morrison also reiterated the ALA’s ongoing concern that people who were abused as children in immigration detention are not entitled to access the redress scheme.
“We firmly believe that the only eligibility requirement should relate to having suffered abuse in an institution,” said Dr Morrison.
“As with any institutional abuse, it is the power of the institution over the individual that has created the opportunity for abuse of these children.
“It is absolutely unjust to restrict access to the scheme for people abused in immigration detention.”
The federal government's inquiry into the National Redress Schemes has been held over teleconference, in light of the ongoing COVID-19 crisis.
The joint select committee on implementation of the National Redress Scheme started to hear evidence from survivors, witnesses, and others in Ballarat on 20 March, but from Canberra via teleconference.
The National Redress Scheme was developed in response to the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse, providing a way for survivors to receive redress from offending institutions.
As of 6 February, 162 non-government institutions were participating in the scheme – up from 67 last year, in addition to the Commonwealth, state and territory governments, according to the NRS website.
As of 31 January, more than 6,000 applications had been received, and more than 1,300 decisions had been made.
Recently Katrin Stouppos, abuse law expert from Shine lawyers had written that far too many institutions required to join the National Redress Scheme have not yet joined nearly two years after they were required to following the scathing royal commission into childhood sexual abuse.
She said that according to the National Redress Scheme, over 500 survivors of abuse have had their application put on hold because institutions with abuse claims against them have simply not joined.
