The Andrews Labor Government welcomes the release of the final report on redress and civil litigation by the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses into Child Sexual Abuse.
The recommendations the Royal Commission has made will prove invaluable to the Government as it continues to act on the Victorian Parliamentary Inquiry into the Handling of Child Abuse by Religious and Other Non-Government Organisations’ report, Betrayal of Trust, including its recent release of a discussion paper on a Victorian redress scheme.
The Victorian Government has committed to implementing all of the outstanding recommendations from the Betrayal of Trust report, and this commitment will now be aided by the work of the Royal Commission, which has made many recommendations that overlap with the issues raised in Betrayal of Trust.
The Victorian Government remains prepared to consult and work with other Australian governments to address the harms of institutional child abuse, and pursue these matters with the Commonwealth and other States and Territories.
Quotes attributable to Attorney General Martin Pakula
“We will be seeking an indication from the Commonwealth as to how it intends to respond to the recommendations made by the Royal Commission, in particular whether it intends to establish and participate in a single national redress scheme.”
“The Andrews government has already passed the Limitation of Actions Amendment (Child Abuse) Act 2015 in April of this year, which completely removed the limitation periods that applied to civil actions founded upon child abuse. The Royal Commission acknowledged the Victorian reforms in its report, and adopted the Victorian position as a basis for its recommendations.”
Reviewed 19 August 2020