Abuse commissioner to urge financial redress for victims

By Dan Box
Australian
October 27, 2014

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/in-depth/abuse-commissioner-to-urge-financial-redress-for-victims/story-fngburq5-1227103274330

Child sexual abuse royal commissioner Justice Peter McClellan will deliver a speech in Parliament today.

THE chair of the child abuse royal commission will today say that thousands of people who have been sexually abused as children should receive financial compensation, potentially awarded by an independent national redress scheme funded by governments and other institutions.

In a speech at Parliament House in Canberra today, Peter McClellan will say the commission is due to formally report on the issue next year but “everyone accepts there should be an effective response available to all survivors”.

This response should include an opportunity to “engage with the institution where they were abused”, the provision of counselling or psychiatric care and “a lump-sum payment which marks the abuse.”

“One of the difficulties faced in providing effective redress is that some of the institutions in which children were abused have ceased to exist. Others have no money,” Justice McClellan will say.

“The inevitable consequence is that the community must look both to government and the institutions with the necessary resources to come together to provide a response.”

The Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse will publish a paper on the issue in January, ahead of making a formal recommendation, expected later in 2015.