Ms O’CONNOR (Hobart) – Mr President, I will make a brief contribution as the Greens justice portfolio spokesperson. I want to say how much I appreciated the member for Murchison’s insightful and warm contribution just then.
Obviously, this is necessary legislation which progresses recommendation 16.11 of the commission of inquiry to clarify the operation of special measures for children and affected persons who are witnesses at trials related to child sexual abuse. The bill clarifies that both the child and adult witnesses are entitled to have a support person present in court. It removes the requirement for the accused to consent to the witness giving evidence in a special hearing prior to the trial in the absence of the accused, and it explicitly provides for the use of screens, one‑way glass partitions or other devices to obscure the view of an affected person or a special witness from the defendant at the judge’s or the prosecution’s application.
We regard this bill as an accurate reflection of and response to the commission of inquiry’s recommendation. The minister and advisers will be well aware that the second part of the recommendation goes on to say the government should ensure courts, public defence counsels such as Legal Aid and the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions are appropriately funded to carry out the recommendation.
I am sure all of the Council would like to have a response to that second part of the recommendation, because enacting legislation is important. It is just one aspect of a reform agenda, and that is a fact that the commission of inquiry recognised.
In closing, in response to the member for Murchison’s observation, and it is an accurate observation that we do not know anyone else’s story, I knew my late sister’s story. She was sexually abused as a child, but I did not know that when she was a child, and it goes to exactly what the member for Murchison was saying – the way that trauma affects an abused child impacts on every decision they make about their lives.
It is coupled with a profound self‑loathing and desire to self‑harm and all of this trauma makes it nearly impossible for the victim – my sister did not survive – but for the victim to disclose, to come forward, and I read into the Hansard on the previous debate a letter from a woman whose paedophile teacher abused her in high school some 20‑odd years ago. It was not until my sister, who was abused by a family friend when she was about six or seven years old, was in her early 20s and suffering a psychotic episode, that the truth or a measure of the truth came out. Even then, there are people in my family who did not believe her.
We need to be ever mindful that every person is on their own journey, trajectory, through life. We make of it what we can. Our life can be very hard and it is particularly difficult to navigate through if, as a child, your trust was abused, you were abused, your parents failed you and –
Ms Forrest – The system failed you.
Ms O’CONNOR – The system failed you – well, it was not in an institutional setting, but my sister is dead now. She took her life. It happened in the ’70s, you know, parties, drugs, alcohol, remote parents, children running wild, children unprotected. It was a very different time then. That is not to say, of course, that these things are not happening today; we know they are. We need to make sure, as we are seeking to do here today through this bill, that the justice system acknowledges the truth of trauma and how it affects people’s capacity to voice their trauma and to direct the course of their life.
For some people like my sister, it is impossible. It was impossible for her. Vale Christie. This is good legislation and I am very glad to be supporting it.
