Immigration authorities have argued that allowing temporary visa holders to apply for compensation under the proposed child abuse redress scheme would “significantly” increase the government’s financial exposure.
Federal parliament is considering how it should best implement one of the child sexual abuse royal commission’s key recommendations: a redress scheme to compensate survivors.
But the scheme’s current design has raised concerns that those in Australia on temporary visas or in offshore detention may be excluded from compensation.
A Senate inquiry’s report, released on Wednesday, found most non-citizens were likely to be eligible, but called on the government to give greater clarity on its intentions.
Lawyers condemned the Department of Home Affairs for telling the inquiry that including temporary visa holders in the redress scheme would leave it financially exposed. The department’s submission was highlighted in the inquiry’s report.
“If the rules were to expand the eligibility for redress under the redress scheme beyond Australian citizens and permanent residents to all temporary visa holders or certain temporary visa holders, the department’s financial exposure to liability under the redress scheme is likely to increase significantly,” the department said.
“This is because the institutional settings for which the department is likely to be responsible will generally involve unlawful non-citizens, who may or may not have become permanent residents or Australian citizens by the time they make their applications.”
Australian Lawyers Alliance spokesman Andrew Morrison SC said the comments were an “absolute disgrace”.
“What they’re saying is that for financial reasons they don’t want to compensate those who were abused while in their care and that’s an absolute disgrace,” Morrison said. “Unbelievable and utterly contrary to the recommendations from the royal commission, which did not exclude anyone, and utterly contrary to logic.”
The department, however, rejected that assertion. It said its submission expressed support for the redress scheme and made the simple point that it had not factored temporary visa holders into its initial estimate of financial exposure.
“In its submission the department offered simple clarification that any payments for temporary visa holders had not been factored into its initial estimated financial exposure, and that expanding the eligibility criteria to include this category would likely increase financial exposure,” a spokesperson said.
But the Australian Lawyer Alliance’s policy manager, Anna Talbot, said the submission would not have been tolerated had it come from a church.
“Imagine if one of the churches came out with this line. They would be pilloried,” she said.
The government has previously committed to opening the scheme to non-citizens and non-permanent residents living in Australia, as well as child migrants and former Australian citizens and permanent residents.
The explanatory memorandum for its bill says the rules of the redress scheme will prescribe eligibility for non-citizen survivors. The inquiry said its view was that the scheme’s rules would make most non-citizen survivors eligible.
“Many of the cohorts of non-citizen survivors raised as a concern by submitters would be made eligible by such a rule,” the inquiry’s report said.
The inquiry’s report said the redress scheme’s rules allow it to be flexible in determining eligibility in complex cases, including those of non-citizens.
“The committee recognises that the reality of people’s citizenship and residency circumstances may not always be clearly captured by the rules,” the report said.
“However, the flexibility offered by redress scheme rules means a robust scheme for survivors, with the ability to prescribe eligibility for those whose eligibility is otherwise unclear.”
The inquiry made a series of other recommendations, unrelated to citizenship eligibility, including giving survivors more time to consider an offer of redress.
It also urged the government to think carefully about whether to exclude those convicted for a serious criminal offence from applying for redress.
The exclusion of those with a criminal record has prompted significant backlash from community and survivor groups, who say it creates classes of “deserving” and “undeserving” survivors, and ignores the strong link between abuse and subsequent offending.
The inquiry also recommended reducing the two-year deadline for institutions to opt in to the redress scheme.
