AUSTRALIA
Sydney Morning Herald
September 25, 2015
Jane Lee
Legal affairs, industrial relations and science correspondent
The states and territories have challenged Commonwealth Attorney-General George Brandis to say whether the Turnbull government will support a $4.01 billion national redress scheme for survivors of child sexual abuse.
The Royal Commission into Institutional Child Sexual Abuse recommended last week, on the day Mr Turnbull ousted Tony Abbott as prime minister, that the federal government set up a scheme for about 60,000 survivors across Australia.
Attorneys-general of all states and territories except the Northern Territory said in a joint letter to Senator Brandis on Friday that the commission had “identified a clear role” for the federal government in the redress scheme, including giving it a deadline of the end of 2015 to announce whether it would establish a national scheme.
While institutions where historic child abuse occurred should bear most of the redress cost, the commission said in its report that federal, state and territory governments should cover any shortfall as “funders of last resort”. It estimated that this would be about $613 million, or 15 per cent of total redress funding
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