"Arbitrary and Brutal" Nsw Compensation Changes Spark Un Complaint

By Anna Patty and Harriet Alexander
Sydney Morning Herald
May 21, 2013

http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/arbitrary-and-brutal-nsw-compensation-changes-spark-un-complaint-20130521-2jxsb.html

A coalition of 30 legal, community, health and women's organisations have complained to the United Nations about planned changes to the NSW victims' compensation scheme on the grounds they will particularly discriminate against women.

The groups which include Community Legal Centres NSW and Women's Legal Services have written to the UN special rapporteur on violence against women.

The time limit is arbitrary and brutal and inconsistent.

The Community Legal Centres NSW chairperson Anna Cody said the law will not only disadvantage thousands of victims already in the claims system, it will make it even harder for female victims of crime to claim in the future.

The complaint says the government bill runs counter to the UN's recommendations on reparation for women who have been subjected to violence.

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The changes will reduce the maximum compensation payouts to victims of crime from $50,000 to $15,000.

Under the Victims Rights and Support Bill,an application must be made within 10 years of the act or, if the victim was a child when it occurred, within 10 years after they turn 18.

Rachael Martin, convenor of the Community Legal Centres victims compensation committee said the proposed new law fails to recognise the profound psychological harm experienced by victims of domestic violence.

She said it also fails to recognise the harm done to victims of sexual assault and child abuse.

"For those victims caught by the new time limits, it sends the message that their traumatic experiences aren't worth compensating," she said.

Survivors of child sex abuse have been blindsided by the changes to the victims' compensation fund, which they say effectively abolishes the scheme for them.

The changes will apply retrospectively to claims that have already been lodged.

Child sex victims are lobbying the NSW Government to drop the new statute of limitations and the laws' retrospectivity before the bill is passed this week.

A Queensland University of Technology study earlier this month found that only 35 per cent of victims of sexual abuse in the Christian institutions disclosed their experience within 10 years of it occurring. The Anglican Survey of Child Sexual Abuse by Clergy in Brisbane found the average delay between first abuse and complaint of 19.5 years.

The Australian Lawyers Alliance said the 10-year limit would rule out the “vast majority” of victims from gaining compensation.

The alliance's spokesman, Andrew Morrison, SC, said none of the 40 to 50 victims whose cases he had handled would be eligible.

“The time limit is arbitrary and brutal and inconsistent with what we know about the vast majority of child sexual assault victims,” Mr Morrison said.

John Ellis, who famously forced Archbishop George Pell to apologise for the church's failure to investigate his allegation of childhood sexual abuse, said it was impossible to impose time limits on victims, who would only disclose at their own pace.

“I was appalled that the government didn't come out and say, 'We're abolishing the victims compensation scheme for victims of child abuse – we'll leave that to the Royal Commission',” Mr Ellis said. “Because that's what they've done.”

Greens MP David Shoebridge said "many victims thought that with the federal royal commission starting that governments were finally beginning to value and respect them."

The NSW Government denies it is anything other than coincidence that its legislation has been brought into parliament as royal commission hearings began. The changes were prompted by a PricewaterhouseCoopers report that it commissioned before the Federal Government announced its inquiry.

“Every scheme across the nation has a cut-off point,” a spokeswoman for the Attorney-General Greg Smith said. “Most are about two to three years. At 10 years, the time limitation in NSW is the longest in the nation.”

The annual budget of $72 million would remain the same under the new laws, she said.

Howard Brown, a member of the NSW Victims Advisory Board which recommended the changes, said the victims compensation scheme was $300 million in debt.

He said victims of sex abuse needed counselling, not money.

A survivor of child sexual abuse, Jewel Jones, who has publicly revealed she was raped by her father and others from the age of two, said “it's not about the money, it's about what the money represents”.