Albanese, Anthony, MP

Mr ALBANESE (Grayndler—Leader of the Opposition) (09:45): I begin by acknowledging that we meet on the land of the Ngunawal and Ngambri people. I want to acknowledge the survivors, those who have told their stories, those who haven't, those who never could. I want to acknowledge their families and loved ones, and I want to acknowledge the advocacy groups who have been on their side. I thank the Prime Minister for his words and the commitments that were made, which enjoy bipartisan support in this parliament. Each year we gather together in this place to reflect on the apology that was delivered here in 2018 and, crucially, why it was delivered. As we do, it is easy to fall into familiar metaphors of darkness and shadow, but that would be a mistake because many of these violations were not hidden from view. As the royal commission so unflinchingly told us, so many childhoods were violated brazenly in the full light of knowledge and awareness, and the violators were often individuals and institutions that felt secure behind the shield of trust, confident that, in the court of credibility, they once again had the upper hand over those that they preyed upon. They acted with impunity. Betrayal was metered out in darkness and in light. Trust was destroyed in darkness and in light. Those children who should have known nothing but love and safety were left unbelieved and unheard in darkness and in light. All around us were voices that were ignored, voices that we didn't believe and, in the end, voices that were never raised because there didn't seem to be any point. There is no greater silence than when we refuse to hear. I am reminded of the words of the extraordinary Australian of the Year, Grace Tame. Kept silent for so long, she stood before the nation when she received that great honour and she said, 'Well, hear me now.' Powerful words. One of the most powerful sentences spoken in our nation this year. I say to Ms Tame: we hear you and we thank you for your advocacy and courage. Just as we hear her, we hear so many Australians who came forward—and what a chorus it was. The royal commission was an overdue opening of our eyes and of our hearts and, so importantly, of our ears. I will be forever proud that I was a member of the cabinet that made that decision of a royal commission. Julia Gillard has so much to be proud of from her time as Prime Minister, but setting in train this royal commission showed moral strength in the face of considerable opposition. She held her nerve and she did it. It's a reminder of what true leadership can achieve. It's also a reminder of the power of advocacy and persistence. And I thank every individual Australian and every group who pushed for it. It was the beginning of the end for the heavy, suffocating silence. Into its place, thousands of voices began to pour, and what had been a bleak void filled with a great dam burst of truth that we could no longer turn away from. Seventeen thousand survivors came forward to shatter that silence and to blunt its shards. Eight thousand shared their stories, many for the first time. More than 1,000 gave written accounts. I often think of my friend, who travelled to Canberra to have dinner with me one night, when he told me what had happened to him as a child in the boy scouts. What will always stick with me is how he wept as he described how the opportunity to give evidence had made a difference to his life. Think about that for a moment: a life changed by being able to tell the truth; knowing that truth had at last been heard and believed. He told his family at the time and they did not believe him. A system that had failed him so miserably allowed him at last to achieve at least some justice for a childhood that had been taken from him. The courage of survivors has not lost any of its powers to humble us. At the culmination of that royal commission we listened here to the Prime Minister and to my predecessor, the member for Maribyrnong. They said the words that demanded to be said, that so desperately needed to be heard: an apology can never undo the lifelong suffering that grows out of a childhood damaged by violence and fear; an apology can never bring back to the world those worn down by the weight of a truth borne alone, who did not live to hear the words 'We believe you.' Yet we know what a profound difference an apology can make, what a weight can be lifted by the acknowledgement of difficult truths. The fact that survivors accepted a hand so belatedly extended will stand forever as an act of grace and deep inner strength, but that cannot be the end of it. To treat the apology as an end in itself would be a full stop at the end of a prologue, the rest of the book left unwritten. To the survivors and to the loved ones of the victims, I say: 'Yes, you had to hear the words "We hear you." Yes, you had to hear the words "We believe you." But now you have to see the actions that grow from those words. You have carried such a burden; you must not now shoulder the weight of just an empty gesture.' What worries us is the signs that the act of apology has taken the urgency out of what must follow. Today's announcement of the National Centre for the Prevention of Child Sexual Abuse is very much welcome, but, of course, that fulfils a promise that was made three years ago. So we support this, but we must act with urgency; likewise with the flawed implementation of the National Redress Scheme, so complicated and slow there is an ongoing danger of survivors dying before they see a single cent, and those able to endure the process do so at the risk of being retraumatised. Labor supported the Kruk review into the scheme and we welcomed the improvements that have been made so far. We acknowledge the adoption of the early payment scheme that Labor and survivors had called for, but the clock is ticking relentlessly. Reforms need to be made with a sense of urgency, and the maximum payment for survivors should be lifted from $150,000 to $200,000. That some organisations have resisted entering the Redress Scheme is every bit as baffling as the opposition to the royal commission was. Labor supports the government in its actions against them. We can do better by listening to survivors. Survivors are willing to share what is some of the most hard-won wisdom of all. To ignore them is unconscionable. We need to make sure we get this right. When the Australian Child Maltreatment Study is completed, in 2023, it is likely that the level of childhood trauma across the nation will be revealed to be even greater than previously captured. We must face up to the child sexual abuse that is happening now. That continues despite the steps that have already been taken to face up to past wrongs, and abusers, of course, adapt to new situations. As the eSafety Commissioner has found, children's online safety has worsened during this time of pandemic lockdowns—a shocking finding. Increases have been reported in child sexual abuse material, online grooming, activity in online abuse communities, and live streaming of abuse material. To properly protect children, we need to protect them in institutional and non-institutional settings; online as well as in the real world. We cannot lapse into apathy. That would lay the foundation stone of a future apology, albeit one that would be rightly seen as little more than a contemptible echo. Let us get this right here, now. Many Australians continue to live with the effects of trauma—Australians who have fought to move past the confusion and shame which they should never have had to feel, who have fought to be seen and heard after being silenced in myriad ways, and who paid the price of communities and governments failing in their duty to protect our most vulnerable. Some survivors have had the courage to share their raw truth; others still feel too vulnerable and too exposed to take that step. We have made progress, but there's more work to do. Labor is fully committed to working with survivors. Each year we return to the apology to remind ourselves of the importance of the journey that we are on. It is more a beginning than an end. We cannot stand still when the earth is shifting beneath our feet. Momentum is building, a movement so powerful it does have the feel of a seismic shift. Let there be no more phantoms and no more mirages. Let's get this right for the sake of survivors and their loved ones, for the future of all of us, as a society and a nation, and for the memories of those who never got to hear the words 'We believe you.' We owe them that much and so much more. Debate adjourned.