Erica Stanford: Abuse in care lead coordination minister on the Government's compo announcement for victims

The Government has announced how they will pay compo to victims of abuse while in state care.

There will be no new compo scheme, instead the Government will top up the current system.

Lead coordination minister Erica Stanford talks to Heather du Plessis-Allan about the payment cap, how much is set aside financially, the pay equity bill and more.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Right, we finally had the longer waited announcement from the
government on how they'll pay compo to victims of state
abuse while and care. There will be no new compo scheme. Instead,
the government will top up the current system.

Speaker 2 (00:09):
Now.

Speaker 1 (00:10):
Erica Stanford is the lead coordination Minister for the government's
response to the abuse in state care reporters with US. Now, Hey, Erica, Hi,
So what is the maximum that anyone can get under
the scheme?

Speaker 2 (00:20):
Look, there isn't a cap the previous or the scheme
that's in place at the moment that the top band
is over fifty thousand. Now, of course that will be
upped by about fifty percent. That top band will likely
be about seventy five thousand plus. However, we don't put
a cap in place because we acknowledge that there are
always individual, relatively egregious cases of serious abuse and care

(00:45):
that we you know, we don't want to put a
cap on.

Speaker 1 (00:47):
Could you foresee somebody potentially getting.

Speaker 2 (00:49):
Millions A Look, not under this scheme, if we're being honest,
Not under this scheme. It is a scheme that acknowledges
that people some terrible things happened to people. But we
also acknowledge that there is nothing that we can pay
that will ever take their pain away from what happened
to them. This is an acknowledgment and redress of what

(01:10):
happened to them.

Speaker 1 (01:11):
Several hundred thousands.

Speaker 2 (01:15):
I'm not going to be the person who says what
that number might be because I don't know, you know,
who might come into the scheme with a type of
case that they might have, and it's really hard to
tell how.

Speaker 1 (01:25):
Much of you actually set aside for it. What's the
total package?

Speaker 2 (01:30):
The total package today announced was seven hundred and seventy
four millions, so over three quarters of a billion dollars.
But of that around five hundred million is towards the
redress scheme, so paying out redress for people who come
forward in the future, and also topping up those who
have already put their claim in so we'll be upping
their payments by half again, but also aligning some of

(01:52):
the payments. So in the past, for example, if you've
been had your redress through the Ministry of Health, the
payments weren't at the same level as any s D
for example, So we'll firstly align those there will be
a left for some people, and then fifty percent on
top of that.

Speaker 1 (02:06):
Okay, So if you've set around set aside around half
a million bucks or sorry five is it? It's five
hundred million, isn't it?

Speaker 2 (02:14):
Yes, half a billion?

Speaker 1 (02:15):
Ok a half a billion bucks and people are getting
thirty thousand on average per person, then it's only going
to cover about seventeen thousand people. And we're talking about
you know, two hundred thousand people who were potentially abused here,
so it's not really going to be enough, is it.

Speaker 2 (02:28):
Well, firstly, the Royal Commission, I really don't didn't acknowledge
they didn't know how many people are going to come forward,
because there are estimations were anywhere between thirty thousand and
two hundred and fifty thousand, which is an acknowledgement of that.
They really don't know. What we've put forward is for
the next few years, and we will acknowledge that we
will likely have to come you know back in future
budgets once we have a better idea of how many
people are coming forward, and to have a review in

(02:50):
twenty twenty seven.

Speaker 1 (02:51):
That's right, Yeah, Okay, how's it going on the pay
equity thing? It looks like it's bad for the nats.

Speaker 2 (02:58):
Oh, no, I wouldn't. I wouldn't say that. I mean
I stood up in the house when this bill was
read and you know, the original bell under Labor and
I said that, you know, the future was bright for
my children and grandchildren, and it still is. There is
still a pay equity scheme. There will still be you know,
claims that are bought for that will be successful, which

(03:19):
is why we have to give money.

Speaker 1 (03:20):
I understand, I understand orders, but I'm looking at the
Instagram pack posts and stuff like that, and there's a
hell of a lot of explaining going on by the
National Party which makes me think you guys are getting
huge backlash.

Speaker 2 (03:31):
Look, it was always going to be a difficult topic
and it does require us to have really good communications
and say, hey, look, all we're doing is going back
to the scheme that was put in place under the
previous National government that had criteria that was reasonable around
making sure that when you were looking at comparators, you
were looking within the same industry, you know. And I
think that you know, most people could accept that, you know,

(03:54):
under the Labor government, with some of the changes they
made around you know the fact that we're looking at
librarians compared to fisheries offices. It's just there's too much
room in that case and for subjective decisions, and I
think we just need to bring the scheme back to
what it was originally intended to do, which is to
make sure that we're addressing sex based discrimination in the workplace.

(04:15):
And that is exactly what we're going to be doing,
all right.

Speaker 1 (04:17):
Erica, Thanks very much appreciated, Erica Stanford, League Coordination Minister
Government Response to Abuse in State Care. For more from
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