8. Care leavers

Source: Department of Social Services, Supplementary Submission 9.24, response IQ24-000185; Department of Social Services, Supplementary Submission 9.23, response IQ24-000176.

8.1The Care Leavers Australasia Network (CLAN) told us about the experiences of care leavers. Care leavers include people who lived in orphanages, children’s homes, missions and foster care. CLAN said that care leavers are ‘by far’ the largest group of survivors of child sexual abuse in Australia.[1]

8.2Micah Projects, a redress support service based in Queensland, said that given their experiences with care leavers (also called Forgotten Australians), ‘we would have expected a higher number of applications’ for redress from these groups.[2]

8.3The National Redress Scheme (the Scheme) defines care leavers as being applicants who were either a state ward, foster child, child migrant, in relative kinship or in court ordered care.[3]

• An estimated 500 000 children were placed in institutions and care in Australia between 1940 and 1989.[4]
• The Department of Social Services (the Department) estimated that care leavers account for around half of all redress applications received.[5]
• Since the Scheme started in July 2018 to August 2024, around 400 care leavers have been found ineligible for redress.[6]
  4. We heard that the Scheme, or some parts of applying for redress, are ‘bureaucratic’.[7] CLAN told us that many survivors learned not to trust institutions or authority figures when they were children.[8] This can make dealing with the Scheme difficult or re-traumatising.
• CLAN said ‘it only takes one gaffe to conclude that bureaucrats have let them [survivors] down again.’[9]
• The Scheme has been a ‘dismal failure’ that is ‘doing more harm than good’ to vulnerable people.[10] CLAN expressed frustration that their submissions to past reviews and committees had ‘fallen on deaf ears’.[11]
  5. As of August 2024, the average redress payment for care leavers is $94 399.[12]

Experiences in institutions

8.6CLAN told us that the experiences of children living in institutions ‘would never be found in other settings such as churches and schools’ and ‘no other cohort of NRS [Scheme] applicants was so defenceless’.[13] For example:

• Orphanages and children’s homes were closed to the public and isolated from the community. Crimes couldn’t be reported and, if they were, children were not believed and often punished for ‘daring’ behaviour.
• Children were often beaten, imprisoned, deprived of food, forced to work (as well as in some cases being sexually abused).
• Children may have been forced to witness the sexual abuse of other children.
• Children were falsely told that their parents were dead and that they were ‘unwanted and would never be loved’.[14]
  7. As a result, CLAN said many care leavers became isolated, struggled with literacy, suffer from mental and physical health conditions, are prematurely blind, deaf or have debilitating chronic pain. CLAN told us that institutions and governments ensured that, as adults, care leavers ‘would struggle in all aspects of life’ due to their abuse and treatment experienced while in care.[15]
  8. The National Aged and Community Care Roundtable for Forgotten Australians told us that care leavers are ‘ageing and ageing prematurely as a result of the neglect, abuse, and treatment they received as children in institutional or out-of-home care’.[16]
  9. Tuart Place said that post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptoms are ‘amplified among Care Leavers… This group is more likely to have debilitating forms of Complex PTSD and Chronic Trauma Syndrome’.[17]
  10. As discussed in Chapter 5,
• Female children could be subjected to traumatic virginity tests or internal examinations.
• Male children could be told that they need a prostate exam.

Barriers to accessing redress

8.11CLAN told us how this background and context creates barriers for care leavers accessing redress, including:

• Detailing sexual abuse triggers ‘vivid memories’ about childhood and other forms of systemic abuse.
• For some survivors, a redress application means using language that is shameful, unfamiliar or taboo. They find it difficult to use words like ‘vagina’ or ‘penetration’ and these omissions can negatively impact how their redress is assessed.
• Past betrayals mean that things associated with an institution or bureaucracy (such as Centrelink) cannot be trusted. A small mistake can easily undo trust.
• In some cases, knowing that parts of a redress application will be disclosed to the responsible institution is a ‘red flag’ that leads to the application being abandoned.
• Survivors are asked to provide supporting documents in redress applications. If they can be found, documents may contain ‘offensive’ language and ‘useless’ information that cannot confirm what happened. Many children did not know about records kept on them.
• The onus on applicants to find documents is ‘perverse’ because the institution (not the child) was responsible for keeping reliable records.[18]
  12. For survivors more generally, we heard that there are lengthy delays when documents and records are requested.
• Some survivors have ‘submitted their applications long before they receive their records’.
• We were asked: ‘Why weren’t records repositories adequately funded, knowing that they would be called upon for every case submitted?’[19]
  13. We also heard that having records helps avoid re-traumatisation and Independent Decision Makers ‘making comparisons about any discrepancies.[20]

Impacts of redress outcomes on care leavers, including evidence from ‘Lorraine’

8.14We heard about the impacts of applying for redress and being rejected:

• CLAN said that many become more depressed, anxious and suicidal. CLAN said that ‘we feel almost complicit… by giving them this option of redress’.[21]
• CLAN said that if evidence can be found to show that a child was a state ward (rather than a private placement), the Scheme is unwilling to review its decisions.[22]
  15. We heard from an anonymous care leaver who accepted a redress offer:
• The offer felt like ‘just about zero’ and benefits of redress are uncertain.
• Only ‘some things’ can be remembered. Many documents were destroyed in a flood. An attendance roll was found in the state records with names, the home’s name and an address.
• Those responsible ‘got off lightly given so many departments and police had ignored evidence and complaints’.
• Counselling has been offered but it is hard to find a counsellor who is available.[23]

Evidence from Lorraine

8.16Lorraine (a pseudonym) told us her story about a penetrative sexual assault she experienced at the Bidura home in Sydney, New South Wales. Lorraine said:

• The Scheme found her ineligible on the grounds that a virginity test performed on her was a ‘medical procedure’ rather than sexual abuse.
• The assault on Lorraine is discussed in Chapter 5. She described the Scheme as ‘unconscionable’ for condoning penetrative sexual abuse on a 13 year old girl.[24]
• She added that ‘everyone at Bidura went through that process’.[25]
  17. Lorraine applied for redress in 2022. When applying for redress, she said ‘you have to go through all the little details and relive the experience’. She said that Scheme staff should have better training and have awareness that virginity testing is a crime.[26]
  18. She told us about how her redress outcome was communicated:
• Scheme staff phoned to tell her the decision. ‘I was simply told… that it’s considered a medical procedure’, she said. Lorraine ‘broke down in tears’ and her husband ended the call.
• We asked if Lorraine received anything in writing. ‘No’, she said.
• We asked if the Scheme offered her counselling: ‘No’.
• We asked what other support she had received from the Scheme: ‘None at all’.
• After the phone call, Lorraine said she ‘went very quiet for a couple of months… I didn’t contact anybody. I just turned inwards’.[27]
  19. Lorraine told us:
• She would ‘never in a million years’ apply for redress again.
• She described the process as being ‘suffering constantly from the beginning to the end’, which ‘affects your entire life, your children, your family and the people around you’.
• ‘You need support to get through everyday things that other people take for granted’, she said.[28]
  20. Lorraine said that she wants ‘somebody to be accountable for what happened to me… to admit that what happened to me was wrong’.[29]

Evidence from an anonymous care leaver

8.21We heard from an anonymous survivor about their experience seeking redress. The survivor resided at St Joseph’s Boys Home in Ballarat in Victoria.

• Detailing the sexual abuse was a ‘disgusting thing’ to ask about and ‘something I spent years trying not to remember’.
• For example, in spending two years preparing their redress application, the survivor did not want to name the priest ‘as I never wanted to remember him’. On legal advice, the priest was named.
• The Scheme ‘basically… did not believe us’ and wanted ‘highly distressed individuals’ to gather ‘a very difficult schedule of info that had to be provided’.
• Redress schemes tend to be capped at $150 000, which is a ‘peculiar’ approach and is a tactic like ‘change the name orphanage to children’s home and keep up the same abuses’.
• ‘What price do you put on my dignity?’ the survivor asked. ‘My dignity which was taken from me at age 5 is valued much higher than $150 000’.[30]
  22. The survivor received compensation. However:
• ‘I was no legal expert’ and the law firm took $15 000 in fees, which the survivor thought the Scheme would cover.
• After fees, the amount received was $85 000.[31]
  23. We are aware that some lawyers––but not all lawyers––are unethical or exploitative. Unethical behaviour by lawyers is discussed in more detail in Chapter 10.

Footnotes

[1]Frank Golding, Care Leavers Australasia Network (CLAN), Committee Hansard, 7 July 2023, p. 16.

[2]Micah Projects, Submission 4, p. 4.

[3]Department of Social Services, Supplementary Submission 9.8, response IQ23-000142.

[4]National Aged and Community Care Roundtable for Forgotten Australians, Submission 19, p. 1.

[5]Department of Social Services, right of reply to Supplementary Submission 22.1, p. 1.

[6]Department of Social Services, Supplementary Submission 9.24, response IQ24-000185.

[7]See, for example: The Women’s Cottage, Submission 12, p. 2; Darcy Orr, Micah Projects, Committee Hansard, 7 July 2023, p. 5.

[8]CLAN, Supplementary Submission 22.1, p. 3.

[9]CLAN, Supplementary Submission 22.1, p. 3.

[10]CLAN, Submission 22, p. 2.

[11]Dr Frank Golding, CLAN, Committee Hansard, 7 July 2023, p. 16.

[12]Department of Social Services, Supplementary Submission 9.23, response IQ24-000178.

[13]CLAN, Supplementary Submission 22.1, p. 3.

[14]CLAN, Supplementary Submission 22.1, pp. 2–3.

[15]CLAN, Submission 22, p.3; Care Leavers Australasia Network, Supplementary Submission 22.1, p. 4.

[16]National Aged and Community Care Roundtable for Forgotten Australians, Submission 19, p. 1.

[17]Tuart Place, Submission 17, p. 6.

[18]CLAN, Supplementary Submission 22.1, pp. 2–4; Frank Golding, CLAN, Committee Hansard, 7 July 2023, pp. 16–17.

[19]Name withheld, Submission 45, p. 2.

[20]Name withheld, Submission 45, p. 2.

[21]Frank Golding, CLAN, Committee Hansard, 7 July 2023, p. 17.

[22]CLAN, Supplementary Submission 22.1, p. 8.

[23]Name withheld, Submission 27, pp. 1–2.

[24]Lorraine, Committee Hansard, 2 August 2024, p. 8.

[25]Lorraine, Committee Hansard, 2 August 2024, p. 12.

[26]Lorraine, Committee Hansard, 2 August 2024, p. 12.

[27]Lorraine, Committee Hansard, 2 August 2024, p. 11.

[28]Lorraine, Committee Hansard, 2 August 2024, p. 11.

[29]Lorraine, Committee Hansard, 2 August 2024, p. 10.

[30]Name withheld, Submission 57, p.1.

[31]Name withheld, Submission 57, p.1.