Latest / Real Crime with Adam Shand / Taxpayers Pay, Offenders Profit: The Hidden Cost of Child Abuse | Andrew Carpenter

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Taxpayers Pay, Offenders Profit: The Hidden Cost of Child Abuse | Andrew Carpenter · Real Crime with Adam Shand

• 0:05
  Speaker 1: Approche production.
• 0:10
  Speaker 2: This podcast contains discussion of child sexual assault and psychological trauma.
• 0:15
  Speaker 2: It's not recommended for younger listeners and discretion is advised.
• 0:24
  Speaker 2: Welcome to Real Crime with Adam Shand. I'm your host
• 0:26
  Speaker 2: Adam Shand. We talk a lot about victim centric justice
• 0:30
  Speaker 2: in Australia, about prioritizing the needs and experiences of those
• 0:34
  Speaker 2: harmed by crime and facilitating healing, support and empowerment through
• 0:39
  Speaker 2: the justice system.
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: The federal government has been accused of dragging its feet
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: on closing a loophole that allows convicted child abuses to
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: protect their assets and superannuation, leaving survivors without compensation.
• 0:52
  Speaker 2: Unfortunately, the talk does not always match the walk, especially
• 0:56
  Speaker 2: when it comes to the victims of child sexual abuse.
• 1:00
  Speaker 3: South Australian survivor Eden Van Harron was awarded one point
• 1:04
  Speaker 3: four million million dollars in damages, but he hasn't seen
• 1:07
  Speaker 3: a cent.
• 1:09
  Speaker 2: We've definitely gotten better at catching these vile perpetrators, but
• 1:13
  Speaker 2: in my opinion, we let them out too soon. When
• 1:16
  Speaker 2: it comes to properly compensating survivors, there is a very
• 1:20
  Speaker 2: long way to go. I wonder how many of you
• 1:23
  Speaker 2: know that scores of pedophiles have been allowed to hide
• 1:26
  Speaker 2: their assets, especially in superannuation, to defeat efforts by their
• 1:30
  Speaker 2: victims to sue them for compensation. The Treasury has been
• 1:35
  Speaker 2: considering reforms since twenty eighteen, but five years on the
• 1:40
  Speaker 2: loophole remains open. There's apparently bipartisan support for closing this loophole.
• 1:46
  Speaker 2: In twenty eighteen, the federal government identified this issue as
• 1:50
  Speaker 2: a priority, but surprise, surprise, nothing has changed. My guest
• 1:55
  Speaker 2: today has been described as the most hated man by
• 1:58
  Speaker 2: Australian child sex offenders, a worthy title. Indeed, Adelaide lawyer
• 2:04
  Speaker 2: Andrew Carpenter has dedicated himself to pursuing the assets of pedophiles.
• 2:09
  Speaker 2: He's part of the super for Survivor's team that is
• 2:12
  Speaker 2: demanding the Federal government reform the Bankruptcy Act so the
• 2:16
  Speaker 2: child sex offenders superannuation can be used to help victims
• 2:20
  Speaker 2: and survivors rebuild their lives. And Andrew Carpenter joins me out.
• 2:25
  Speaker 3: Welcome Andrew, Hey, Adam, thanks for having on to have
• 2:27
  Speaker 3: this uncomfortable conversation.
• 2:29
  Speaker 2: It's uncomfortable but very very necessary. How did you get
• 2:32
  Speaker 2: involved in this area of the law. You're not a
• 2:34
  Speaker 2: criminal lawyer.
• 2:36
  Speaker 3: No I'm not, and I'm not a survivor of sexual
• 2:38
  Speaker 3: abuse as well. So when I got my first job
• 2:40
  Speaker 3: at a law firm, I just like every other graduate,
• 2:44
  Speaker 3: you sent him to do the jobs and the files
• 2:46
  Speaker 3: and other people don't want to touch. And the first
• 2:48
  Speaker 3: file that I got given was effectively a survival child
• 2:51
  Speaker 3: sexual abuse out to claim. And I saw the hardships
• 2:54
  Speaker 3: and how the legal system wasn't supportive of victim survivors,
• 2:59
  Speaker 3: and back in twenty eleven, I just thought, you know what,
• 3:01
  Speaker 3: I might as well run with these files and try
• 3:04
  Speaker 3: the voice of the voiceless and to try to make
• 3:06
  Speaker 3: change and also to make sure that these people finally
• 3:08
  Speaker 3: got the justice they deserve.
• 3:10
  Speaker 2: How many people are we talking about here that have
• 3:12
  Speaker 2: taken advantage of this loophole to defeat compensation efforts by
• 3:16
  Speaker 2: their victims.
• 3:17
  Speaker 3: Well, anyone that's works since nineteen eighty five will have superannuation.
• 3:21
  Speaker 3: And what we see in the very rare circumstances where
• 3:24
  Speaker 3: people secure a conviction against their offenders, by that time,
• 3:28
  Speaker 3: they've capitulated their assets, they've sold their house, they've spent
• 3:30
  Speaker 3: all their money paying lawyer's fees, and more often than not,
• 3:34
  Speaker 3: these individuals are above the preservation age, so above fifty
• 3:36
  Speaker 3: five years old, so they can use everything, declare bankruptcy
• 3:41
  Speaker 3: and then their supernuation will be able to keep them
• 3:44
  Speaker 3: afloat for the rest of their life or while their
• 3:46
  Speaker 3: s divivors can't touch anything.
• 3:48
  Speaker 2: Meanwhile, the state and the individuals have to shoulder the
• 3:52
  Speaker 2: cost of their rehabilitation, their return to health if you like.
• 3:57
  Speaker 2: After these henous offenses, they're left on their own well's.
• 4:01
  Speaker 3: Effectively, the taxpayer has been indemnifying child sex offenders decades.
• 4:05
  Speaker 3: There was a Brave Heart study back in twenty sixteen
• 4:08
  Speaker 3: that said that the annual cost of the Australian government
• 4:10
  Speaker 3: could be in a vicinity of thirty point one billion
• 4:13
  Speaker 3: dollars per year. Now, if you look at the budget
• 4:15
  Speaker 3: that came down this year was thirty one billion dollars
• 4:18
  Speaker 3: for the cost to run the entire government, and that
• 4:20
  Speaker 3: includes wages, super buildings, security, everything that needs to run
• 4:26
  Speaker 3: the federal government or the government included that thirty one
• 4:29
  Speaker 3: billion dollars and the fact that victim survivors do not
• 4:34
  Speaker 3: get the readers they deserve, and the tax payer continues
• 4:37
  Speaker 3: to meet the costs associated with Centerlink PBS medicare, psychological visits,
• 4:42
  Speaker 3: GP visits, all of that, and the victim survivors often
• 4:46
  Speaker 3: most likely can never recover that.
• 4:48
  Speaker 1: From the offenders.
• 4:49
  Speaker 3: It's just some of the taxpayers had to meet the
• 4:51
  Speaker 3: cost of and it's about time that the taxpayers band
• 4:54
  Speaker 3: together and say, no, we are not going to indemnify
• 4:57
  Speaker 3: pedophiles for their heinous crimes.
• 5:00
  Speaker 2: You've been at this for what fourteen to fifteen years now,
• 5:04
  Speaker 2: nothing's happened.
• 5:05
  Speaker 1: No, why is that?
• 5:06
  Speaker 2: Are there no votes in this It's clearly improper. It's
• 5:10
  Speaker 2: somewhat evil to allow this loophole to exist.
• 5:13
  Speaker 3: It is why I first heard about it in twenty eighteen.
• 5:15
  Speaker 3: My mother used to work in evanuation and she knew
• 5:18
  Speaker 3: I was dealing in this area. And as soon as
• 5:20
  Speaker 3: I heard that from her, I thought, great, the liberal
• 5:22
  Speaker 3: government will do this. But by the time twenty twenty here,
• 5:26
  Speaker 3: I took my oldest child to child care for the
• 5:28
  Speaker 3: first time and all hit home that I have to
• 5:30
  Speaker 3: try and trust other people with my child. And that's
• 5:33
  Speaker 3: when I thought, you know what, this isn't a problem
• 5:35
  Speaker 3: you can arrest out of the Statistics of conviction are horrible.
• 5:38
  Speaker 3: It's one in three girls and one in five boys
• 5:40
  Speaker 3: or endured child sexual abuse all the age of eighteen.
• 5:43
  Speaker 3: So what can I do to at least deter this
• 5:45
  Speaker 3: in the front tend And I thought, you know, just
• 5:47
  Speaker 3: like everyone that has anyone that has drivers last as,
• 5:49
  Speaker 3: for instance, no one cares about demerit points. You're not
• 5:51
  Speaker 3: using your phone in the car because you don't want
• 5:53
  Speaker 3: to find So I thought, at least deterring this upfront
• 5:56
  Speaker 3: of something that I could do. I've seen that, say
• 5:58
  Speaker 3: the atricalceed they've stopped doing convictions against directors, they're finding them,
• 6:02
  Speaker 3: and insolvent trading and all kinds of white collar crimes
• 6:05
  Speaker 3: like that have gone down. So I started in twenty
• 6:08
  Speaker 3: twenty with the Super Savivors campaign. I started lobbing to
• 6:11
  Speaker 3: the Liberal government then, who advised in twenty twenty one
• 6:15
  Speaker 3: on a current affair that if they're re elected they
• 6:17
  Speaker 3: will try to put this into power. But obviously they
• 6:20
  Speaker 3: weren't re elected. Labor has basically remained silent on this
• 6:23
  Speaker 3: for almost two terms now. But what the Labor governments
• 6:26
  Speaker 3: effectively said is we will never touch superannuation. Yet they
• 6:30
  Speaker 3: have started taxing superannuation. So I spoke about the budget
• 6:34
  Speaker 3: before twenty five billion dollars of revenue in the budget
• 6:37
  Speaker 3: from last year came from the taxation of superannuation. Yet
• 6:41
  Speaker 3: the Labor government do not want to go after the
• 6:43
  Speaker 3: super of child sex offenders, which basically to me shows
• 6:45
  Speaker 3: that they'd much rather tax hard work in Australians than
• 6:48
  Speaker 3: go after the supernuation of pedophiles. So I don't know
• 6:52
  Speaker 3: for the life of me, White hasn't been passed. It's
• 6:54
  Speaker 3: a no brainer and the only people that would be
• 6:56
  Speaker 3: against this law change would be the pedophiles themselves.
• 6:59
  Speaker 2: It's right. And let's look at some of the examples
• 7:01
  Speaker 2: of this. You had your former longer serving registrate in
• 7:05
  Speaker 2: South Australia, Peter Liddy, was sentenced to twenty five years
• 7:09
  Speaker 2: jail with a non parole of eighteen years for sexually
• 7:12
  Speaker 2: abusing children at a surf life saving club in the eighties.
• 7:15
  Speaker 2: He managed to put his super beyond the reach of survivors.
• 7:21
  Speaker 3: Well, yeah, so when he was sentenced, he was a
• 7:23
  Speaker 3: single guy, and he had a mansion in the Wine
• 7:25
  Speaker 3: region here in South Australia, and he collected all kinds
• 7:28
  Speaker 3: of weird historical artifacts like suits of armor and pirate
• 7:32
  Speaker 3: displayed old handguns. And yet when he was caught with this.
• 7:35
  Speaker 3: When he went to prison, all of his assets disappeared.
• 7:39
  Speaker 3: No one knows where they went, no one knows who
• 7:40
  Speaker 3: took them. But despite being worth millions, it was the
• 7:44
  Speaker 3: taxpayer that had to meet the cost. All of his
• 7:46
  Speaker 3: victors survivors got ten thousand dollars each from a taxpayer
• 7:50
  Speaker 3: funded all the bits a prime fund. Yet he was
• 7:53
  Speaker 3: a government worker before nineteen eighty seven, so the old
• 7:56
  Speaker 3: defined benefit scheme, if you went to the government for
• 7:58
  Speaker 3: more than twenty years before nineteen eighty seven, you retired
• 8:01
  Speaker 3: on eighty percent of your income. Effectively sitting in prison
• 8:06
  Speaker 3: since two thousand and one earning eighty percent of the
• 8:08
  Speaker 3: magistrate's wage. And when it gets out, his victim survivors
• 8:11
  Speaker 3: cannot go after him for anything because all of its
• 8:13
  Speaker 3: money is paid into superannuation and he can't be touched.
• 8:17
  Speaker 2: Remember the Gypsy Joker President Steve Williams. I was actually
• 8:20
  Speaker 2: in Adelaide in two thousand and five, just after he disappeared,
• 8:24
  Speaker 2: and one of the things he did was he was
• 8:26
  Speaker 2: in touch with somebody who actually robbed Liddy's house of
• 8:29
  Speaker 2: a number of these artifacts and were trying to sell.
• 8:31
  Speaker 2: Steve was going to sell them on behalf of the victims.
• 8:34
  Speaker 2: That's where it got to because the state wasn't going
• 8:37
  Speaker 2: to do anything about compensating the victims. So I find
• 8:40
  Speaker 2: it kind of heenous that here you are a lawyer
• 8:43
  Speaker 2: advocating on behalf of victims. There are other lawyers who
• 8:46
  Speaker 2: make their daily bread from helping these heenous offenders hide
• 8:50
  Speaker 2: their assets.
• 8:52
  Speaker 3: Well, it's not the lawyers that are hiring the assets,
• 8:54
  Speaker 3: and the fact that when these guys go to prison,
• 8:56
  Speaker 3: they're told by other inmates who do the exact same
• 8:59
  Speaker 3: thing as to what to do, So lawyers aren't actually
• 9:02
  Speaker 3: going out and say you should do this. It's the
• 9:04
  Speaker 3: fact that all of these affens a coupled in the
• 9:06
  Speaker 3: jail together or in protective custody and they're basically trading
• 9:09
  Speaker 3: more stories, telling each other how to hide assets. Or
• 9:12
  Speaker 3: the most grotesque thing is they're telling individuals who are
• 9:15
  Speaker 3: about to get released that there's a woman in this
• 9:18
  Speaker 3: street in South Australia. If you give one hundred dollars,
• 9:20
  Speaker 3: she'll let you with their children's for an hour. It's
• 9:23
  Speaker 3: the fact that if these individuals start putting in general population,
• 9:26
  Speaker 3: you see a lot of more people be too scared
• 9:29
  Speaker 3: to go back into prison because there was a recent
• 9:31
  Speaker 3: study a while ago. It's the reason why child sex
• 9:33
  Speaker 3: offenders are hated in prison. It's not by virtue of
• 9:36
  Speaker 3: their crimes. It's the fact that a large percentage of
• 9:38
  Speaker 3: people in prison were actually victim survivors of childhood sex
• 9:41
  Speaker 3: with the views themselves.
• 9:43
  Speaker 2: I mean, what's the impact on the people that you
• 9:46
  Speaker 2: deal with when they look at the costs of what's
• 9:50
  Speaker 2: been done to them. How do they feel when they
• 9:53
  Speaker 2: can see these individuals defeating there If it's a compensation,
• 9:57
  Speaker 2: how does it feel for them?
• 9:59
  Speaker 3: Well, for the victims survivor's standpoint, there's no good behavior bond,
• 10:03
  Speaker 3: there's no early release for good behavior. There's no suspended sentence.
• 10:06
  Speaker 3: Their trauma is a life sentence. Brother b who the
• 10:09
  Speaker 3: part of the mass brothers, it's very brave brothers that
• 10:12
  Speaker 3: confronted their abuser in court.
• 10:13
  Speaker 1: He summed up perfectly.
• 10:14
  Speaker 3: He said years ago that it's like you've dropped a
• 10:18
  Speaker 3: vase on the ground and it's smashed one thousand pieces. Yes,
• 10:21
  Speaker 3: you can go it back together, but the scars remained forever.
• 10:25
  Speaker 3: So many of the people that I deal with, they
• 10:27
  Speaker 3: can't work, can never work. Can't have partners. I've had
• 10:30
  Speaker 3: people that can't even leave the house. I've had some
• 10:33
  Speaker 3: that they give up on their weekly groceries to afford
• 10:36
  Speaker 3: their medication because they can't function without it. All whilst
• 10:39
  Speaker 3: all the offenders have freehold houses in their self managed
• 10:42
  Speaker 3: super fund, and yet it's a burden that goes onto
• 10:45
  Speaker 3: the tax payer. Offen often wondered why the Labor government
• 10:49
  Speaker 3: doesn't want to pass this. I mean, I'm not shedding
• 10:51
  Speaker 3: light on them because liberals had it did nothing as well.
• 10:54
  Speaker 3: But the reason why they're not passing it is what
• 10:56
  Speaker 3: they advised in an interview was that the cost of
• 10:59
  Speaker 3: the public of putting offenders in the old age pension
• 11:02
  Speaker 3: is too much. I've said, but you're literally making the
• 11:06
  Speaker 3: taxpayer meet the cost of someone from eighteen to life
• 11:09
  Speaker 3: instead of from sixty seven to I think the national
• 11:11
  Speaker 3: average age is eighty two eighty three, and so you're
• 11:16
  Speaker 3: capitulating millions of dollars on victors of drivers. Yet there's
• 11:20
  Speaker 3: too worried about someone from God on the age pension.
• 11:24
  Speaker 3: It just doesn't make sense. And if you think if
• 11:26
  Speaker 3: a victim survivor has a lump sum upfront, they could
• 11:29
  Speaker 3: go off and get the specialist psychatch treatment they need
• 11:33
  Speaker 3: to actually assimilate back into society. They could then finish school,
• 11:36
  Speaker 3: they could work, they could get a job, they could
• 11:38
  Speaker 3: start a family. But instead a lot of these people
• 11:42
  Speaker 3: that are living in poverty because of something that happened
• 11:45
  Speaker 3: to them, which is not their fault at all.
• 11:47
  Speaker 2: And mean still, in the case of Lyddy, there were
• 11:49
  Speaker 2: I think there were seven claims for damages launched by
• 11:52
  Speaker 2: his victims. They were all later dropped because there was
• 11:55
  Speaker 2: virtually nothing left of his estate they could get to
• 11:58
  Speaker 2: and they got ten thousand dollars each. That was all.
• 12:02
  Speaker 2: It's just a try. It barely covers the life legal fees.
• 12:06
  Speaker 3: Yeah, it doesn't cover the legal fees at all. There
• 12:08
  Speaker 3: were seven at the start, and I believe in about
• 12:10
  Speaker 3: two thousand and nine there was another trance of survivors
• 12:12
  Speaker 3: that came forward, but Peter led his lawyers successfully argued
• 12:16
  Speaker 3: for a permanent stay of the action because they're said,
• 12:18
  Speaker 3: by virtue of his crimes, everyone knows who is in
• 12:21
  Speaker 3: South Australia and he could get a fair trial because
• 12:24
  Speaker 3: any single person that's on the jury would know what
• 12:27
  Speaker 3: he's like. And you think if he's sitting on four
• 12:29
  Speaker 3: or five million dollars in cerpanuation in prison and it
• 12:33
  Speaker 3: can't be touched.
• 12:34
  Speaker 1: It's insane.
• 12:34
  Speaker 3: There was a I did want to get to another
• 12:36
  Speaker 3: monster here a few years ago, and he had seven
• 12:40
  Speaker 3: hundred and fifty thousand dollars in cerpnuation and he was
• 12:43
  Speaker 3: burning two hundred and fifty dollars a week in prison
• 12:47
  Speaker 3: on chocolate bars, newspapers, soft drinks. So in his sentence
• 12:50
  Speaker 3: he can legally capitulate two hundred and fifty thousand dollars
• 12:54
  Speaker 3: of his money in his sentence just on snacks. Yet
• 12:57
  Speaker 3: his victory survivors can't touch him. And I just don't
• 13:00
  Speaker 3: know why that. The Labor government said a while ago
• 13:02
  Speaker 3: they'll never touch the supernuation laws at all, but I
• 13:06
  Speaker 3: reminded them it was during COVID. It was no less
• 13:08
  Speaker 3: than ten days where the Liberal government at that stage
• 13:12
  Speaker 3: and now it's the people get access a superpnuation to
• 13:15
  Speaker 3: meet the cost of living due to the pandemic. And
• 13:17
  Speaker 3: then the Labor government when they got in, they started
• 13:20
  Speaker 3: taxing people at the start that had more than three
• 13:23
  Speaker 3: million in super and then they now issues new legislation
• 13:26
  Speaker 3: attacks people with money in super So there obviously can
• 13:30
  Speaker 3: touch it. You look at family court for instance, you
• 13:32
  Speaker 3: can divide up superpnuation as part of a family lord dispute.
• 13:36
  Speaker 3: There are ways and avenues to do it. I just
• 13:38
  Speaker 3: don't know, if the life of me, of why these
• 13:40
  Speaker 3: government bodies refuse to touch this when it's not going
• 13:44
  Speaker 3: to cost the tax payer of cents, it's going to
• 13:46
  Speaker 3: deter offending and it's going to compensate bingp to survivors.
• 13:49
  Speaker 1: What happened to them?
• 13:52
  Speaker 2: Is this the only class of crime where this loophole exists.
• 13:57
  Speaker 1: It happens in other areas.
• 13:58
  Speaker 3: But one thing that the government was mindful of is
• 14:01
  Speaker 3: if they opened the Pandora's box and this, they said, well,
• 14:03
  Speaker 3: what other crimes could follow suit? And I said that
• 14:06
  Speaker 3: there's no other crime like child sex abuse. The High
• 14:09
  Speaker 3: Court have always said that this is an outlier kind
• 14:12
  Speaker 3: of offense because there's no legal justification for it. You
• 14:15
  Speaker 3: think of with murder, you can argue mitigating factors for murder,
• 14:19
  Speaker 3: such as self defense, self defense of another, excessive self defense.
• 14:22
  Speaker 3: You can downgate drink driving to say that my mother
• 14:25
  Speaker 3: had a heart and sack I had to rush to
• 14:26
  Speaker 3: the hospital. Assault, for instance, you can say with adult
• 14:31
  Speaker 3: rape you can say that consent with withdrawn halfway through
• 14:33
  Speaker 3: the act. But with child sexual abuse there is no
• 14:36
  Speaker 3: mitigating factor because a child cannot consent to any sex activity.
• 14:41
  Speaker 3: And so this isn't going to be something where it
• 14:44
  Speaker 3: opens up the box of every single action that a
• 14:47
  Speaker 3: VIC survivor can bring against offenders. This is only designed
• 14:51
  Speaker 3: for child sexual abuse because this is all the percentages
• 14:54
  Speaker 3: that are disgusting.
• 14:55
  Speaker 1: You look, for instance, the conviction rate.
• 14:57
  Speaker 3: There's a study from doctor Judy Curtin from a few
• 15:01
  Speaker 3: years ago that's said for every one thousand reports of
• 15:04
  Speaker 3: child sexual abuse, only one hundred investigator by police siegs
• 15:08
  Speaker 3: get convicted and three get overturned on appeal. So that's
• 15:11
  Speaker 3: conviction rate of point zero zero three percent per thousand reports.
• 15:15
  Speaker 3: And to put that in perspective, I did a talk
• 15:17
  Speaker 3: was myself and Grace Tame at the ALA austral Lawyers
• 15:20
  Speaker 3: Alliance a few years ago in Law and Victoria, and
• 15:23
  Speaker 3: I thought the night before how can I put this
• 15:25
  Speaker 3: in real terms? And I said, look, the most trusted
• 15:27
  Speaker 3: news source in Australia, and I'm willing to go to
• 15:30
  Speaker 3: bat on this. The most trusted news source in Australia
• 15:33
  Speaker 3: is Sports Bet. They can pick elections, they can pick
• 15:36
  Speaker 3: sports or sporting events. And I said that week, I
• 15:39
  Speaker 3: think there was two AFL teams and one was paying
• 15:41
  Speaker 3: ten to one odds, And I said, who would put
• 15:43
  Speaker 3: your money on this ten to one odd team?
• 15:45
  Speaker 1: And everyone said absolutely not.
• 15:46
  Speaker 3: The closest statistical equivalent to appoint zero zero three percent
• 15:51
  Speaker 3: success rate at that time was Pauline Hanson and Bob
• 15:56
  Speaker 3: Catter becoming the next Prime.
• 15:57
  Speaker 1: Minister of Australia one hundred and one.
• 16:00
  Speaker 3: Now, if you think how remote and unlikely that is
• 16:02
  Speaker 3: to happen, you then realize how unlikely and remote it
• 16:05
  Speaker 3: is for a victor survived to get conversation. Yet, out
• 16:07
  Speaker 3: of fifteen years of law, I think only probably less
• 16:11
  Speaker 3: than ten of the matters that I've won have resulted
• 16:14
  Speaker 3: in a criminal conviction. Almost every single matter I've ever
• 16:17
  Speaker 3: had has resolved or succeeded when there's not even a
• 16:21
  Speaker 3: criminal charge laid. Because there was a study I think
• 16:25
  Speaker 3: it came out of the Royal Commission. It was the average
• 16:26
  Speaker 3: time frame it takes report is twenty nine point four years.
• 16:30
  Speaker 3: Now if you look, for instance, look at O. J. Simpson,
• 16:33
  Speaker 3: everyone knows he've done it. It's clear as day, but
• 16:35
  Speaker 3: he got off because there was a bungled prosecution the
• 16:38
  Speaker 3: racist police officer. But criminal is beyond reasource doubt. But
• 16:42
  Speaker 3: on the civil side of the bounce of probabilities, you
• 16:44
  Speaker 3: just have to convince the court that something is likely
• 16:46
  Speaker 3: to happen.
• 16:47
  Speaker 1: So when O. J.
• 16:48
  Speaker 3: Simpson got sued for the death of Nicole Simpson and
• 16:51
  Speaker 3: I think it was a waiter at a restaurant called
• 16:53
  Speaker 3: Ron from memory Goldman Ron, he was responsible for their deaths.
• 16:59
  Speaker 3: And so we're saying that this isn't just Willy Nearly
• 17:02
  Speaker 3: you just rock up to an offender and say give
• 17:04
  Speaker 3: me money. I from your super This legislation is aimed
• 17:07
  Speaker 3: to be able to go after a civil judgment or
• 17:09
  Speaker 3: a civil settlement. Victims of vivors should be able to
• 17:11
  Speaker 3: access supanuation of offenders because there is no similar case
• 17:15
  Speaker 3: in this Because again there is no legal justification as
• 17:17
  Speaker 3: sexually assault a child.
• 17:19
  Speaker 2: It certainly has a chilling effect on people who would
• 17:22
  Speaker 2: consider mounting actions. Look at the case of former Bigger
• 17:26
  Speaker 2: Cheese boss Maurice von Ryan, who was convicted of abusing
• 17:31
  Speaker 2: nine boys and girls between eight and fifteen. He got
• 17:34
  Speaker 2: eighteen years or nineteen years in jail and there was
• 17:38
  Speaker 2: a compensation claim against him. He was there was an
• 17:40
  Speaker 2: award a one point four million, but not a cent
• 17:43
  Speaker 2: as him paid out.
• 17:44
  Speaker 3: Why was that, Well, he declared bankruptcy and so he
• 17:48
  Speaker 3: was able to sell his house and his cars to
• 17:51
  Speaker 3: fund his criminal defense and put all his money into superannuation.
• 17:55
  Speaker 3: And you think the director of the biggest cheese company
• 17:58
  Speaker 3: in Australia worth millions and he doesn't have two cents
• 18:02
  Speaker 3: to rub together. It's because he knew about loophole. It's
• 18:06
  Speaker 3: commonly spoke about by offenders in prisons, and he knew
• 18:09
  Speaker 3: exactly what to do, how to do it, and his
• 18:12
  Speaker 3: victor survivors would never see a scent. But if this
• 18:16
  Speaker 3: ail is lifted, victor survivors could then say, right, well,
• 18:19
  Speaker 3: he's got ten million dollars in super we should be
• 18:21
  Speaker 3: able to have a crack at that because when he
• 18:22
  Speaker 3: gets out of prison, all that's going to happen is
• 18:25
  Speaker 3: he could access his superguation.
• 18:27
  Speaker 1: He can live a comfortable life.
• 18:28
  Speaker 3: I believe at one stage there was a mention of
• 18:31
  Speaker 3: him that he owned property in Thailand.
• 18:33
  Speaker 1: But again there's.
• 18:34
  Speaker 3: Going to be no redress paid out, and you think,
• 18:37
  Speaker 3: what does go into prison do for bitten survivors. It
• 18:40
  Speaker 3: doesn't help them put food on the table, It doesn't
• 18:42
  Speaker 3: help them get treatment. They get a poultry. Victors of
• 18:45
  Speaker 3: crime claim that maybe will last them for a year
• 18:48
  Speaker 3: of food, electricity rent, and then what for the rest
• 18:52
  Speaker 3: of their lives until we start setting example of these
• 18:56
  Speaker 3: insidious crimes. Once there's a resulting impact and enough stop
• 19:01
  Speaker 3: so I start doing weekly videos on my Instagram page
• 19:04
  Speaker 3: where I detail the percentages of crimes per week they're
• 19:06
  Speaker 3: in the District Court of South Australia. There was on
• 19:09
  Speaker 3: average about twenty five percent this week. I think Monday
• 19:12
  Speaker 3: was thirty percent, Tuesday was twenty five and today being Friday,
• 19:16
  Speaker 3: fifteen out of sixty matters, so twenty five percent of
• 19:18
  Speaker 3: all mattered the District Court of South Australia late to
• 19:21
  Speaker 3: the sexual abuse of a child. There was a day
• 19:23
  Speaker 3: last November where in one day in South Australia, fifty
• 19:27
  Speaker 3: three percent of all matters in court that day late
• 19:31
  Speaker 3: child sexual abuse. Yet the number one story of the
• 19:33
  Speaker 3: news that night was m Green's politician that said that
• 19:37
  Speaker 3: the government needed to ban fast food change from being
• 19:40
  Speaker 3: built within a kilometer of a school because it posed
• 19:42
  Speaker 3: the danger to children for health reasons. So we've got
• 19:45
  Speaker 3: politicians that don't want to talk about this, even though
• 19:47
  Speaker 3: it's the showing our treatment studies show that one in
• 19:49
  Speaker 3: three girls one in five boys will be sexually abused
• 19:51
  Speaker 3: for eighteenth birthday. Yet this is not it's not a
• 19:54
  Speaker 3: vote getting topic because it's not a topic that's going
• 19:57
  Speaker 3: to divide the country. You think this, If they had
• 19:59
  Speaker 3: a vote on this, I would be shocked if it
• 20:01
  Speaker 3: was more than ninety nine percent of people voted for this.
• 20:05
  Speaker 2: Agree, I mean, I should correct something. Van Right only
• 20:07
  Speaker 2: actually got fourteen years in the end for his crimes
• 20:10
  Speaker 2: against nine boys and girls. I mean, and when you
• 20:13
  Speaker 2: look at the award that was made to just one
• 20:15
  Speaker 2: of his victims, it looks very reasonable one point four million.
• 20:19
  Speaker 2: And you look at the breakdown of that general damages
• 20:21
  Speaker 2: of half a million dollars, interest on damages twenty six thousand,
• 20:25
  Speaker 2: loss of earningcapacity two and fifty five thousand dollars, interests
• 20:28
  Speaker 2: thirty one thousand, past loss of superannuation twenty eight thousand,
• 20:32
  Speaker 2: and so on and so forth. These all seem like
• 20:34
  Speaker 2: very reasonable payments to someone who's last been utterly destroyed
• 20:38
  Speaker 2: by a monster. Yet this person is able to evade
• 20:42
  Speaker 2: this and with the help. I'll say it again, I'm
• 20:45
  Speaker 2: sorry to speak against your fellows in the legal profession,
• 20:48
  Speaker 2: but they are helping facilitate this as well. You can't
• 20:50
  Speaker 2: tell me that they aren't saying to their clients, listen,
• 20:53
  Speaker 2: let's salvage something from the wreckage here. Because obviously they're families,
• 20:57
  Speaker 2: they're also innocent victims in some of this as well.
• 21:00
  Speaker 2: They may need some money in the future despite your crime.
• 21:04
  Speaker 2: So there is an industry about saving these guys superinnuation.
• 21:09
  Speaker 3: Yeah, and so that might be the case. I don't
• 21:11
  Speaker 3: do criminal also, I don't know what they advise. But
• 21:13
  Speaker 3: the brave individual in the judgment you just referred to,
• 21:16
  Speaker 3: he's actually waved his right to anonymity and he's spoken publicly.
• 21:20
  Speaker 1: His name's Eden.
• 21:21
  Speaker 3: And luckily for van Rinn, he has been able to
• 21:24
  Speaker 3: at least get a job work part time. But there's
• 21:28
  Speaker 3: so many victims of vivors that will never work and
• 21:30
  Speaker 3: say someone, there's judgments for people that in their say
• 21:33
  Speaker 3: sixties or seventies, yet you know they have never worked
• 21:36
  Speaker 3: their entire life. They've been on centiling and if they're
• 21:39
  Speaker 3: commensated for what they could have been earning from ages
• 21:42
  Speaker 3: sixteen to retirement age. We're talking four to five million
• 21:46
  Speaker 3: dollars here. There's claims that have been easy to say.
• 21:48
  Speaker 3: The judgments have been around five or six million dollar mark.
• 21:51
  Speaker 3: And that's for when people are completely they have all
• 21:54
  Speaker 3: their agency removed. They can't work, can't study. And so
• 21:57
  Speaker 3: these cases where people have their lives ruined, why aren't
• 22:02
  Speaker 3: they able to then go after the Affentit It just
• 22:05
  Speaker 3: baffles me as to how this is a conversation that
• 22:08
  Speaker 3: we're still having five and a half years after I
• 22:11
  Speaker 3: started the law.
• 22:12
  Speaker 1: Change it.
• 22:12
  Speaker 3: To me, there's no rhyme or reason why the government
• 22:15
  Speaker 3: hasn't changed this. And I don't know why such a
• 22:19
  Speaker 3: topic like this is not dealtly. You look at I
• 22:21
  Speaker 3: think the voice for instance, the vote it was what
• 22:23
  Speaker 3: seventy thirty elections usually you know fifty one to forty
• 22:27
  Speaker 3: nine percent. They're all topics that are divisive in nature.
• 22:31
  Speaker 3: But this is the one thing that if anyone has children,
• 22:34
  Speaker 3: or grandchildren or nieces and nephews, this is the one
• 22:37
  Speaker 3: thing you band together because people don't want to see
• 22:39
  Speaker 3: children getting harmed and they don't want to see a
• 22:41
  Speaker 3: crime where ninety nine point nine to ninety seven cent
• 22:44
  Speaker 3: of people get away with it. If you think if
• 22:46
  Speaker 3: if one in three girls and one in five boys
• 22:49
  Speaker 3: say was it to meth amphetamine? Or was murdered or
• 22:52
  Speaker 3: killed someone driving whilst texting, you watch how quickly the
• 22:56
  Speaker 3: government would change the laws in relation to those crimes.
• 23:00
  Speaker 3: We'll look at, for instance, last year domestic violence. It's
• 23:02
  Speaker 3: a horrific crime, but you look at the millions of
• 23:04
  Speaker 3: people that march around Australia. Domestic violence happens to one
• 23:08
  Speaker 3: in six women. You're twice as likely as a woman
• 23:10
  Speaker 3: to be sexually abused as a child than you are
• 23:13
  Speaker 3: to be assaulted by a partner. Yet there's radio silence
• 23:16
  Speaker 3: and all ends from the government relation to these crimes.
• 23:18
  Speaker 2: Now in South Australia, we've long heard about the existence
• 23:21
  Speaker 2: of the shadowy family, a group of rich and powerful
• 23:25
  Speaker 2: individuals who protect each other this child sex ring, and
• 23:30
  Speaker 2: you look at child sex offending overall, it is in
• 23:33
  Speaker 2: the higher socioeconomic strata of our society. Do you think
• 23:37
  Speaker 2: there is a conspiracy at some level to protect individuals,
• 23:40
  Speaker 2: particularly in South Australia.
• 23:43
  Speaker 3: I mean it is definitely a crime in the higher
• 23:45
  Speaker 3: restlant because you look at the sex holidays. Is Icico's take,
• 23:48
  Speaker 3: you know, when they're just bearing to Thailand or Southeast
• 23:51
  Speaker 3: Asia three or four times a year to commit these offenses.
• 23:54
  Speaker 3: It's obviously an added cost. But the hard thing with
• 23:56
  Speaker 3: stats is not the strange danger thing that where we
• 23:59
  Speaker 3: should be concerned of. It's eighty percent of child abuses incestral,
• 24:03
  Speaker 3: and ninety two percent is known to the business of
• 24:05
  Speaker 3: whether it's teacher, priest, sports coach, neighbor. I've heard all
• 24:10
  Speaker 3: the stories about the family, and I think they were
• 24:12
  Speaker 3: eighties and nineties they around, so I remember there was
• 24:16
  Speaker 3: a the family murder was Rob Kelvin. It was a
• 24:19
  Speaker 3: newsreader's son and that was Spencer von Eman. So it
• 24:23
  Speaker 3: was a group of men that would target young boys
• 24:26
  Speaker 3: and sexual assault and murder them. I've heard rumblings over
• 24:30
  Speaker 3: the years that it was in old boys' homes where
• 24:33
  Speaker 3: some of these things took place. But the studies and
• 24:35
  Speaker 3: the statistics show that it's mainly father's, stepfather's uncles, great grandfather's, grandfathers,
• 24:41
  Speaker 3: but mainly.
• 24:42
  Speaker 1: Stepfather's commit these crimes.
• 24:44
  Speaker 3: I mean, it wouldn't surprise me if there was still
• 24:46
  Speaker 3: the family out there. It was very hard to think
• 24:48
  Speaker 3: that organized syndicates would just completely die off. But my
• 24:52
  Speaker 3: main focus has always been on the main perpetrators, which
• 24:55
  Speaker 3: are people known to children. So I've always tried to
• 24:57
  Speaker 3: highlight the signs and what people should look for with offenders.
• 25:02
  Speaker 1: But this day and age, nothing surprises me.
• 25:06
  Speaker 2: What did an episode recently with a survivor from Queensland
• 25:11
  Speaker 2: who was sexually assaulted by her stepfather for the period
• 25:14
  Speaker 2: of three years. Her mother denied the whole thing was happening,
• 25:18
  Speaker 2: swept in under the carpet. She was actually put in
• 25:21
  Speaker 2: a foster home for a period of time, and for
• 25:24
  Speaker 2: decades she lived with the impacts of all that until
• 25:28
  Speaker 2: she decided to get charges against now a very elderly offender.
• 25:32
  Speaker 2: It's taken the police two or three years to even
• 25:34
  Speaker 2: look at the case. He's in another state. She's tried
• 25:37
  Speaker 2: to go after his assets, she can't find any and
• 25:41
  Speaker 2: the impact on her life is so dire. It's affected
• 25:45
  Speaker 2: every relationship that she's ever had since. It's very sad,
• 25:48
  Speaker 2: and I wonder when people come to you like that,
• 25:52
  Speaker 2: how can you give them any confidence that you can
• 25:54
  Speaker 2: do something positive for them? Do you have to say, listen,
• 25:56
  Speaker 2: there's big hurdles here do you try to dissuade them?
• 25:59
  Speaker 2: What do you do?
• 26:01
  Speaker 3: One of the biggest things that actually happened that was
• 26:02
  Speaker 3: after the Royal Commission is that they totaled states and
• 26:05
  Speaker 3: territories to abolish limitation periods, because, like I said, it
• 26:08
  Speaker 3: was twenty nine point four years before people reported, so
• 26:11
  Speaker 3: that was one of the main barriers that BIGNA survivors
• 26:13
  Speaker 3: hadn't actually seeking a civil redress. But the main thing
• 26:17
  Speaker 3: is if an offender doesn't have any assets, there's nothing
• 26:20
  Speaker 3: you can do, and if they're not convicted of the crime,
• 26:23
  Speaker 3: there's no way you can get vindors of crime. And
• 26:26
  Speaker 3: so if you think we're in South Australia, we've I
• 26:28
  Speaker 3: think we're sitting on almost two or three hundred million
• 26:30
  Speaker 3: dollars of a victors of Crime fund, and you think,
• 26:33
  Speaker 3: why should victims of crime funds be growing? They should
• 26:36
  Speaker 3: be there to commensate victims of crime. I don't know
• 26:39
  Speaker 3: what it would be in the other states as well,
• 26:40
  Speaker 3: but if there's someone that's clearly been abused their whole life,
• 26:44
  Speaker 3: they've been going to the doctor for years and there's
• 26:47
  Speaker 3: been a formal diagnosis that they've suffered PTSD, anxiety, anything
• 26:51
  Speaker 3: from childhood sexual abuse.
• 26:53
  Speaker 1: You wonder why.
• 26:53
  Speaker 3: Governments don't say, right, well, we've got all this excess
• 26:56
  Speaker 3: money in victs of crime funds. You should be able
• 26:58
  Speaker 3: to do that, especially if an independent psychiatrist says that, yes,
• 27:02
  Speaker 3: you have these injuries, because it is very hard to
• 27:04
  Speaker 3: pull the all over the eyes of a lawyer when
• 27:06
  Speaker 3: someone goes in, because I am kind of engaging in
• 27:09
  Speaker 3: a bit of a mini cross examination at times when
• 27:10
  Speaker 3: I first meet someone to see the legitimacy of their crimes.
• 27:14
  Speaker 3: And I've had one in fifteen years that I just said, look,
• 27:18
  Speaker 3: I don't think I can help you because they showed
• 27:21
  Speaker 3: telltale signs of making up things. But if you can
• 27:24
  Speaker 3: convince a lawyer and an independent psychiatrist who is not
• 27:28
  Speaker 3: a treating psychiatrist, you just see once that something happened
• 27:32
  Speaker 3: to you, and then you can go to the government
• 27:33
  Speaker 3: and say, here's my psych report, here's my GP notes,
• 27:36
  Speaker 3: here's all proof that I've been dealing with trauma from
• 27:40
  Speaker 3: childhood sexual abuse my whole life. There's no reason why
• 27:43
  Speaker 3: they shouldn't be able to go after bits of crime
• 27:44
  Speaker 3: fund because again it's growing, and it's the fund is
• 27:48
  Speaker 3: there to commensate victim survivors of all kinds of crimes.
• 27:50
  Speaker 3: Like in South Australia, it's a staging approach. So if
• 27:53
  Speaker 3: you were a victim of crime before nineteen sixty nine,
• 27:55
  Speaker 3: the maximum you can claim it's one thousand dollars. Before
• 27:58
  Speaker 3: nineteen seventy something it's two thousand. I think it went
• 28:00
  Speaker 3: up to twenty thousand in the eighties, fifty thousand in
• 28:05
  Speaker 3: early two thousands, and it's now to one hundred thousand
• 28:08
  Speaker 3: dollars here in South Australia maximum. But again, the fund
• 28:12
  Speaker 3: is there for a reason. It should be used for
• 28:14
  Speaker 3: all the people that fall through the cracks. Look at
• 28:15
  Speaker 3: the Redress Scheme for instance. The Redress Scheme is set
• 28:18
  Speaker 3: up for victims vivors to go after institutions that are
• 28:21
  Speaker 3: no longer in existence and no longer able to be sued.
• 28:24
  Speaker 3: But what a lot of the churches, the schools and
• 28:26
  Speaker 3: the state governments do is they tell people to go
• 28:29
  Speaker 3: straight through the redress scheme and it's capped a one
• 28:31
  Speaker 3: hundred and fifty thousand dollars because they know they'll be
• 28:34
  Speaker 3: paying cents the dollar if people sue the institutions that
• 28:38
  Speaker 3: have insurance and assets their claims are worth millions, so
• 28:42
  Speaker 3: to me, the Redress scheme is the absolute claim of
• 28:44
  Speaker 3: last resort you'd go to. But the government set up
• 28:47
  Speaker 3: the National Redress Scheme for people that have been abused
• 28:51
  Speaker 3: and institutions. Now only four percent of all abuse takes
• 28:54
  Speaker 3: place as an institution. The rest is by a family
• 28:57
  Speaker 3: member and other offenders. So I don't know where the
• 29:02
  Speaker 3: other people are meant to go. If there's billions been
• 29:04
  Speaker 3: spent on institutions which have insurance and funds to satisfy claims.
• 29:10
  Speaker 2: Only four percent come from institutional sex abuse, that's remarkable.
• 29:15
  Speaker 2: So ninety six percent are, as you say, outside that realm,
• 29:19
  Speaker 2: and they have no chance of pursuing the assets of
• 29:22
  Speaker 2: these offenders. You had a bit of success. You've been
• 29:24
  Speaker 2: talking to the Albaneze government for a while and the
• 29:26
  Speaker 2: Minister for Financial Services, Stephen Jones, prior to the last election,
• 29:30
  Speaker 2: did talk about a discussion paper for consultation, but it
• 29:34
  Speaker 2: seemed to be watered down almost from the beginning, where
• 29:36
  Speaker 2: it was only going to be making available additional super contributions.
• 29:41
  Speaker 2: In other words, after someone was convicted, who would then
• 29:43
  Speaker 2: make additional contributions to defeat their possible claims. That seems
• 29:48
  Speaker 2: to be too little, too late.
• 29:50
  Speaker 3: Well, it was myself, Madeline West, fighters against TILDEBEUS Australia
• 29:53
  Speaker 3: and the Great Team Foundation and discussions with Stephen Jones,
• 29:57
  Speaker 3: and we said that it has to be for all
• 30:01
  Speaker 3: inters of abuse, not just guilty findings, because though a
• 30:05
  Speaker 3: point zero zero three percent of overall abuses, and we
• 30:09
  Speaker 3: said it had to be out of all contributions and
• 30:12
  Speaker 3: all matters. What Labor has said is, well, we do
• 30:16
  Speaker 3: it for only findings of guilt and out of a
• 30:18
  Speaker 3: character contribution. So if your employe is putting in one
• 30:21
  Speaker 3: thousand dollars a week into Super and you pay fifty
• 30:24
  Speaker 3: dollars a week on top of that, the Labor government
• 30:26
  Speaker 3: says you're only entired to go after that fifty dollars
• 30:28
  Speaker 3: a week, and so you could be sitting on millions
• 30:31
  Speaker 3: of Super and they still won't budge. And the main
• 30:33
  Speaker 3: thing that the Labor government has said is they don't
• 30:35
  Speaker 3: want to touch Super. But they show again and again
• 30:38
  Speaker 3: that they are continuing to tax all Australians superannuation and
• 30:41
  Speaker 3: yet they're saying you can't touch child sex offenders. It
• 30:44
  Speaker 3: makes no sense whatsoever for a government that's been to
• 30:47
  Speaker 3: be representing the best interest of all Australians. They're not
• 30:50
  Speaker 3: representing the interests of Australians if they're making tax payers
• 30:54
  Speaker 3: foot the bill for crimes or what offenders cause. In
• 30:58
  Speaker 3: circumstances where offenders have assets available for distribution, A.
• 31:02
  Speaker 2: What advice would you give to victim? Survivors are facing
• 31:06
  Speaker 2: this whole question, then maybe they've waited for a long time.
• 31:09
  Speaker 2: It's difficult enough to come forward. They have demonstrable losses
• 31:13
  Speaker 2: and effects in their life from the abuse they've suffered.
• 31:16
  Speaker 2: What advice do you give them?
• 31:19
  Speaker 3: Still speak to a lawyer, because the first point of
• 31:22
  Speaker 3: call it's to see if these offenders have assets. Now,
• 31:25
  Speaker 3: most people, if the abuse happened in the sixty seventies, eighties, nineties,
• 31:29
  Speaker 3: the cost of living was actually manageable.
• 31:31
  Speaker 1: So often offenders have houses.
• 31:34
  Speaker 3: But again, if they're married, you can only go after
• 31:36
  Speaker 3: fifty per center of the equity in their property. And
• 31:38
  Speaker 3: so I've seen some of the bigger law firms around
• 31:41
  Speaker 3: Australia they're suing offenders for five million dollars they've only
• 31:44
  Speaker 3: got five hundred thousand dollars equity in the property. It
• 31:47
  Speaker 3: just doesn't make sense, and that's the reason why all
• 31:49
  Speaker 3: of the claims don't exist. When you're suing the offender,
• 31:52
  Speaker 3: your claim against them is basically worth what their assets are.
• 31:55
  Speaker 3: I will always say, firstly, it's not your fault. Speech
• 31:58
  Speaker 3: to a lawyer right away and do title search to
• 32:01
  Speaker 3: see if he is offenders own assets. And the one
• 32:04
  Speaker 3: thing I've noticed more than anything is, yes, the timeframe
• 32:07
  Speaker 3: is large, but most of the time when people report
• 32:10
  Speaker 3: is when they have children of their own, and that's
• 32:12
  Speaker 3: when it hits home that, oh, this is something that
• 32:15
  Speaker 3: I happen to me as a child. I don't ever
• 32:18
  Speaker 3: want my kid to go through this, and so that's
• 32:20
  Speaker 3: when they report to the police. But again, people are
• 32:23
  Speaker 3: scared to apport to the police because when they're a
• 32:25
  Speaker 3: young child and they're being sexually abused in a room,
• 32:29
  Speaker 3: they don't want to then go sit in front of
• 32:30
  Speaker 3: a big, scary police officer who's probably the same age
• 32:33
  Speaker 3: as their offender was in a room by themselves. It's
• 32:36
  Speaker 3: just triggering to them. So we've even said in the
• 32:39
  Speaker 3: past there should be things like having a specialized unit
• 32:42
  Speaker 3: for this where child psychologists or at least qualified psychologists
• 32:45
  Speaker 3: or social workers are with a police officer to actually
• 32:48
  Speaker 3: soften the approach of taking a statement, because more people
• 32:51
  Speaker 3: would be more than willing to come forward if they're
• 32:53
  Speaker 3: not going to be triggered by virtue of recounting the
• 32:55
  Speaker 3: offense against them. But then they see things like so
• 32:58
  Speaker 3: the Britney Higgins trial, they see that it's the trial
• 33:02
  Speaker 3: is basically attacking the victim. The offender will sit there
• 33:05
  Speaker 3: in silence, they'll get to cross examine the victim survivor,
• 33:09
  Speaker 3: and more often than not that the actual criminal trial,
• 33:12
  Speaker 3: if it gets that far, is more triggering the abuse itself.
• 33:15
  Speaker 3: So many victims survivors simply too scared to go to
• 33:19
  Speaker 3: the police or the one thing they believe that no
• 33:21
  Speaker 3: one's going to believe them. I mean, the easiest way
• 33:24
  Speaker 3: to deal with it is if you've got a kid
• 33:25
  Speaker 3: that's in year nine and the abuse happens in year nine.
• 33:29
  Speaker 3: They've been top of the class their whole life, their abuse,
• 33:33
  Speaker 3: and turn one and year nine, and all of a
• 33:34
  Speaker 3: sudden they start failing every subject. Years after the fact,
• 33:37
  Speaker 3: you can pinpoint that this abuse happened in or about
• 33:41
  Speaker 3: year nine, and when you were turn one, you're in
• 33:44
  Speaker 3: year nine, and that your grades went down. You can
• 33:46
  Speaker 3: pinpoint that you don't need to be exact with the dates.
• 33:49
  Speaker 3: In civil matters, you just have to give a time frame.
• 33:51
  Speaker 3: And anecdotal evidence would be that if your parents come
• 33:54
  Speaker 3: forward and say, oh, you definitely change in year nine
• 33:56
  Speaker 3: and your GP note show that you started seeing a
• 33:59
  Speaker 3: psychologist you had low mood, there's ways to actually trace
• 34:02
  Speaker 3: it back. So people get scared because of remember the
• 34:05
  Speaker 3: exact dates and times that happened. But everyone goes to
• 34:08
  Speaker 3: the doctor. Everyone can have reports that are kept for
• 34:11
  Speaker 3: years for schools. That is a clear indication of the
• 34:14
  Speaker 3: impact after the abuse.
• 34:17
  Speaker 2: You've really put your heart in solider this. You could
• 34:19
  Speaker 2: be doing cushy corporate law jobs and so forth, but
• 34:22
  Speaker 2: you've decided to do this. And I have to say,
• 34:26
  Speaker 2: the tide is not turning in your favorite this stage.
• 34:29
  Speaker 2: Politics are standing in your way of the just outcome.
• 34:32
  Speaker 2: Do you think anything will change? And how long can
• 34:35
  Speaker 2: you continue to advocate on behalf of victim survivors if
• 34:38
  Speaker 2: the law doesn't change all My.
• 34:40
  Speaker 1: Wife will so quite stubborn. So I'm not going to
• 34:42
  Speaker 1: back down from this.
• 34:43
  Speaker 3: And I've had people over the years say, oh, you know,
• 34:45
  Speaker 3: you should run for office, and I say no, Like
• 34:48
  Speaker 3: I can do a lot more damage being outside the
• 34:50
  Speaker 3: castle pissing in than inside the castle pissing out. And
• 34:53
  Speaker 3: the fact that it's taken five and a half years
• 34:55
  Speaker 3: to get to this point and I'm not seeing any
• 34:58
  Speaker 3: government body willing to put their hand up and actually say, hey,
• 35:01
  Speaker 3: we're going to pass this. It's not disheartening. It just
• 35:03
  Speaker 3: makes me want to grind down and fight for it,
• 35:06
  Speaker 3: because again, I've.
• 35:08
  Speaker 1: Got children my own.
• 35:09
  Speaker 3: I want to make sure when they're older that my
• 35:11
  Speaker 3: grandkids and great grandkids in a world where there's going
• 35:14
  Speaker 3: to be greater deterrence and committing these crimes. Like if
• 35:17
  Speaker 3: you went to casino and the game was if you
• 35:19
  Speaker 3: put one hundred dollars down, you're ninety nine point nine
• 35:21
  Speaker 3: nine to seven percent likely to win, you'd be doing
• 35:23
  Speaker 3: it every day of the week because the chances of
• 35:26
  Speaker 3: losing are so remote and obscure. And even if I
• 35:30
  Speaker 3: can't improve the conviction rate, at least this cause will
• 35:35
  Speaker 3: hopefully deter people from offending because they're going to think, oh,
• 35:38
  Speaker 3: hang on, I know a guy that lost his entire
• 35:41
  Speaker 3: million dollars superannuation he's been working for for forty years
• 35:44
  Speaker 3: because he offended it as a child. Maybe I shouldn't
• 35:46
  Speaker 3: do that. You know, I'm not doing one hundred and
• 35:48
  Speaker 3: fifty k's on the road on the way to work
• 35:50
  Speaker 3: every morning because I don't want to pay a massive
• 35:52
  Speaker 3: fine and get my car crushed. Most people are sensible
• 35:56
  Speaker 3: when it comes to the financial cost, because I get
• 35:59
  Speaker 3: why criminal lawyers say that suspended sentences at home to
• 36:02
  Speaker 3: tendents are a real thing. But God, during COVID everyone
• 36:05
  Speaker 3: did home detention. Home detention is you can't leave the
• 36:07
  Speaker 3: house unless it's the growthro is or a medical appointment.
• 36:10
  Speaker 3: And you know it sucked, but it wasn't prison.
• 36:13
  Speaker 2: Good point, Andrew Carpenter. It's been a pleasure to talk
• 36:16
  Speaker 2: to you. I wish you all the very best. It's
• 36:18
  Speaker 2: a tough ask. I wonder whether you have to get
• 36:21
  Speaker 2: to the High Court, you have to get to some
• 36:23
  Speaker 2: forum where you can change the law. This can be
• 36:27
  Speaker 2: challenged on a very fundamental level. Do you think it's
• 36:29
  Speaker 2: possible or is it simply we're waiting for politicians to
• 36:33
  Speaker 2: do what we're paying them for, or.
• 36:35
  Speaker 3: It's waiting for politicians and this could be something is
• 36:38
  Speaker 3: simple as adding six words to the Bankruptcy Act except
• 36:41
  Speaker 3: for child sex abuse matters. That's one section. We could
• 36:45
  Speaker 3: put that in about super being a protected asset because
• 36:47
  Speaker 3: if you're a fraudster, for instance, you can declare bankruptcy
• 36:50
  Speaker 3: as a fraudster, but ten years later, if you've got
• 36:53
  Speaker 3: money that's popped up, you can be bankrupted again.
• 36:56
  Speaker 1: But any other crime it's not.
• 36:58
  Speaker 3: So fraudsters under the Bankruptcy Act are deemed more dangerous
• 37:02
  Speaker 3: than child sex offenders. So I just hope there's more
• 37:06
  Speaker 3: federal ministers that are going to put their hand up
• 37:09
  Speaker 3: and go after this cause because until that we're not
• 37:12
  Speaker 3: going to see the numbers drop.
• 37:13
  Speaker 1: We're going to see it become worse.
• 37:15
  Speaker 3: And look at technology, like the law hasn't brought up
• 37:17
  Speaker 3: with technology yet. We've got all these AI apps that
• 37:20
  Speaker 3: are producing child abuse images and that hasn't been shut
• 37:24
  Speaker 3: down yet. So until we start addressing all crimes later children,
• 37:27
  Speaker 3: you think the youth crime would go down if children
• 37:30
  Speaker 3: aren't abused and ut turning drugs. Prisoners will go down
• 37:33
  Speaker 3: if people aren't committing crimes to turn drugs. This is
• 37:35
  Speaker 3: a fundamental, basic level change which is going to do
• 37:41
  Speaker 3: a lot of good, prevent a lot of harm, and
• 37:43
  Speaker 3: finally get bitness survivors getting the recourse they deserve.
• 37:46
  Speaker 2: Do you thank you so much for your time today.
• 37:48
  Speaker 2: I really appreciate it.
• 37:49
  Speaker 1: Thank you.
• 37:52
  Speaker 2: That's Andrew Carpenter from the Super for Survivors team that's
• 37:56
  Speaker 2: demanding the federal government reform the Bankruptcy Act. This is
• 38:00
  Speaker 2: just not fair. The victims of sexual abuse in our
• 38:04
  Speaker 2: society have suffered in silence for far too long. Most
• 38:07
  Speaker 2: of them have been reluctant to come forward. They're coming
• 38:09
  Speaker 2: forward now in great numbers. We know this is an
• 38:12
  Speaker 2: incredibly pervasive offense in our society and it's time we
• 38:17
  Speaker 2: hit these monsters where they lived, in their homes, their superinnuation.
• 38:21
  Speaker 2: This loophole needs to be closed sooner rather than later.
• 38:26
  Speaker 2: Politics often fails victims. There is another case of it.
• 38:30
  Speaker 2: If you've been a victim of child sexual abuse, I
• 38:33
  Speaker 2: urge you to come forward, come to the police, call
• 38:36
  Speaker 2: Crime Stoppers one out out of triple three, triple zero.
• 38:39
  Speaker 2: You can also contact Andrew Carpenter at Webster's Lawyers and Adelaide.
• 38:43
  Speaker 2: He will certainly take your case. We'd also like tea
• 38:46
  Speaker 2: from you as well. You can give you an email
• 38:47
  Speaker 2: Adam Shander writer at gmail dot com, but also write
• 38:51
  Speaker 2: to your local member of parliament. Make sure they know
• 38:54
  Speaker 2: that the silent majority will not cop this anymore. These
• 38:57
  Speaker 2: monsters need to be brought to account, not just in
• 39:00
  Speaker 2: the courts because the sentences are just not enough. Get
• 39:03
  Speaker 2: their money from them. That's what all really hurt them,
• 39:05
  Speaker 2: so they can't come out to a cushy lifestyle having
• 39:08
  Speaker 2: left their victims in squalor and suffering for the rest
• 39:12
  Speaker 2: of their lives. Thanks for listening to this has been
• 39:14
  Speaker 2: Adam shand for real Crime. Thanks for listening to this
• 39:29
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• 39:31
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