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National Redress Scheme a cruel failure for abuse survivors

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The National Redress Scheme was designed to provide compensation for sexual abuse survivors (Screenshot via YouTube)

The National Redress Scheme has been chronically underfunded/understaffed, making it a cruel and protracted process for survivors of abuse, writes Damen Keevers.

THE ROYAL COMMISSION into Institutional Response to Child Sexual Abuse (“Royal Commission”) was a long overdue but much-appreciated Inquiry for survivors of institutional child sexual abuse. At last, survivors of abuse, a class of extremely vulnerable people, were heard and their accounts of suffering recognised and validated.

The implementation of the recommendations of the Royal Commission fell to the Turnbull/Morrison Governments. The central task was the design and establishment of a redress scheme that would be survivor-centred and trauma-informed in the way it would operate.

The resulting National Redress Scheme (NRS) has now been in operation for six years and has less than three years before it stops accepting applications. By any assessment, its performance is one of consistently failing survivors of abuse.

From the outset, key aspects of the design of the NRS were hobbled. The Government departed from key aspects of the Royal Commission’s findings such as capping the maximum redress amount for the most severe cases of abuse at $150,000 instead of the recommended $200,000. Successive governments have refused, despite parliamentary committee recommendations and countless submissions, any change to the maximum redress payment as well as refusing recommendations that the amount be indexed.

Further, the gravity of the subject matter dealt with by the NRS would, to the mind of a reasonable person, mean the Scheme should be timely in processing applications, transparent in nature and above all, avoid inflicting further trauma on survivors. Yet the NRS has failed throughout its life against each of these criteria.

The three-step procedure followed by the NRS in assessing an application is simple enough in theory.

First, upon receipt of an application, it is checked for the purposes of completeness — a straightforward clerical task. The next stage is “information gathering”, which involves a standard form being sent to the institution(s) named in the application requiring a check of records they held relating to the survivor and named perpetrator(s). Once again, this is an uncomplicated administrative process.

The final stage is determining the redress to be offered to an applicant based on the information gathered in steps one and two. The process for a decision maker in determining the amount of a redress payment is calculated with regard to an assessment framework and the secret Assessment Framework Policy Guidelines (“the Guidelines”) issued by the minister. An offer is then made to the applicant.

The NRS has a fact sheet informing applicants for redress to expect a timeframe of 3-12 months for concluding their applications. In reality, this stated timeframe has never been met by the Scheme. The latest data available shows the average wait for an outcome (at December 2023) was 12.2 months. Evidently, just as many applications take over 12.2 months as those that take less. No median data is published.

Further, the Scheme (at 5 July 2024), had a backlog of 15,069 applications — at no stage in the history of the Scheme has there not been a large backlog. Whilst ministers have at various stages sought to justify the backlog as a result of “unexpected demand”, this is undermined by the Royal Commission actuarial forecasting before the Scheme was established, that there would be approximately 60,000 applications.

Once again, as at 5 July 2024, the Scheme had received 44,342 applications since commencing in 2018 — entirely in line with the forecast of the Royal Commission.

Given these facts, why have survivors been and continue to be re-traumatised by a Scheme that is intolerably slow to process applications and opaque to survivors as to the status of their applications? Any inquiry by an applicant regarding progress is met with “it is progressing” and staff will not divulge any detail whatsoever, despite there being no basis in statute or regulation for the extraordinary level of secrecy surrounding the administrative processing of applications.

This is the least “trauma-informed” approach to assisting survivors yet it is the policy of choice of the NRS.  

Unsurprisingly, the manifest deficiencies of the NRS have been caused by chronic underfunding/understaffing for the life of the Scheme by governments on both sides. After all, survivors have no political power to exert upon government. For the most part, they wish to preserve their anonymity. They are not a group with the resources to mount a campaign in the media or bring pressure to bear upon the higher levels of government.

With less than three years left of the Scheme accepting applications for redress, there is no realistic hope for root and branch reform of the NRS.

Survivors are left in the hopeless position of choosing between three options: enduring the intrusive and costly path of civil litigation (which involves many years of lawyers picking over survivors misery); putting up with the dysfunctional NRS for well over a year for a far lower, almost token, monetary outcome; or to conclude that both courses are too painful, inflict far too much suffering over long periods and turn their backs on both.

Damen Keevers is a former political adviser, speechwriter, lecturer and legal official within government. He holds a BA(Hons) in Economics and an LLB(Hons).

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