ABUSE Redress Urgent: Care Leavers

9 News
July 1, 2014

http://news.ninemsn.com.au/national/2014/07/01/17/24/abuse-redress-urgent-care-leavers

Hundreds of care leavers are calling on Prime Minister Tony Abbott to put in place a temporary compensation package for elderly abuse survivors.

Disappointed the child sex abuse royal commission did not make firm recommendations in its interim report about a redress scheme, Care Leavers Australia Network (CLAN) has launched its own campaign.

CLAN co-founder Leonie Sheedy said that while the commission's promise to make recommendations on redress a priority was pleasing, it would be too late for many.

The organisation was hoping for the commission to make its recommendation sooner rather than later, she said.

The commission on Monday said redress schemes and civil litigation were being considered as a matter of priority and would be the subject of a separate report in mid-2015.

It said there were many complex issues around the working and administration of a national scheme.

CLAN's 1000 members are people who spent their childhoods in homes run by the Salvation Army and the Catholic and Anglican churches, which have now been revealed as places of brutality and sexual abuse.

Ms Sheedy says many members are elderly, and waiting possibly years for compensation could prove too late.

"Our people started off their adult life with nothing and are behind their peers in Australian society," she said, stressing that many need redress now.

"The fact that they don't have money to cover their cremations and funerals is highly stressful for them."

Ms Sheedy said there was no need to wait for the royal commission as "it takes just one organisation to go to the federal government with a sizeable contribution in a cheque.

"What are they waiting for? For us care leavers to die?"

Ms Sheedy said a temporary scheme for elderly people need not conflict with what the commission might propose but could be rolled into it.

She said CLAN would like the federal government to show leadership.

Members and supporters were being asked to ring the prime minister's office and call for action.

"Keep Rattling the Chains till we get a National Independent Redress Scheme (NIRS)" is the slogan.

On Saturday the network will mark its 14th anniversary with a function in Sydney at which Justice Peter McClellan, the chair of the royal commission will deliver the keynote address.

The function will also celebrate the birthday of CLAN's oldest member Les who will be 98.

Les was at St Joseph's Cowper Home Grafton NSW as a child.

The Sisters of Mercy opened it in 1913, and took in children who were orphaned in the war and whose families could not cope because of the depression. It has not been subject to a commission public hearing to date.