Reason Leader and Member for Northern Metropolitan, Fiona Patten MP, who for decades has campaigned for the victims of child sexual abuse perpetrated by church clergy, has today congratulated the Victorian Government on adopting long held Reason Party Policy to amend the Limitation of Actions Act 1958, to allow Victorian courts to set aside past deeds of release or court judgments relating to child abuse.
Ms Patten said the Melbourne Response had been widely recognised as having minimised the Catholic Church’s legal and financial liability. Under the Melbourne Response, compensation payments were unfairly capped with an average payout of $36,000, and victims were forced to sign a deed of settlement waiving their right to further civil action.
It was later revealed that victims were pushed into this substandard scheme without being offered legal advice as to their rights.
Ms Patten said today’s announcement would allow survivors of institutional abuse to apply to the courts to overturn unfair historical compensation payments.
The legislation, while not yet before Parliament, had been a point of discussion between Ms Patten and Attorney-General Jill Hennessy. Ms Patten brought the issue before Victoria’s Upper House in March this year urging the Government to make this exact change.
“For years I have said that the Melbourne Response was a complete sham,“ Ms Patten said.
“Many of the victims were bullied into taking settlements without proper, if any, legal advice.
“It was all about the church shielding its own. A self-protection racket, led by now convicted sex-offender Cardinal George Pell, concerned only with minimising the financial and legal liability of the victims’ of child sex abuse.
“This is another win for Reason.”
Ms Patten acknowledged that financial settlements alone could never heal the true pain that victims of child sexual abuse and their families had endured at the hands of the Catholic Church.
She said she hoped however the ability of victims and families to take further action might just bring some closure and provide some modicum of justice.
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