The Jehovah’s Witnesses are one of two Victorian organisations that failed to sign up to the National Redress Scheme by the 30 June 2020 deadline.

More than 1800 children were abused by 1006 perpetrators in Jehovah’s Witness institutions, the Royal Commission found.

“Jehovah Witnesses reported zero allegations to authorities or police and now refuse to provide redress to victims” said Fiona Patten. “The Jehovah’s Witnesses are an absolute disgrace.”

“The Jehovah’s have charitable status, which is why last week I instructed Parliamentary Counsel to prepare a Bill that will strip charitable institutions of their Victorian tax benefits if they refuse to sign up to the Redress Scheme” said Ms Patten.

The National Redress Scheme was created in response to recommendations by the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse and provides support to people who experienced institutional child sexual abuse. 

The Reason Party Bill will amend the Duties Act 2000 (Vic), Payroll Tax Act 2007 (Vic) and Land Tax Act 2005 (Vic) to removed generous tax exemptions for charities accountable for institutional child sexual abuse, that do not sign up to the redress scheme.

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Mornings with Neil Mitchell: Neil asks Fiona if she wears a face mask and if the State Government is doing a good job on responding to Covid.

Member for Northern Metropolitan and Leader of The Reason Party, Fiona Patten, has instructed parliamentary counsel to draft a Bill that will remove charitable tax exemptions from Victorian institutions who refuse to sign up to the National Redress Scheme for People Who Have Experienced Child Sexual Abuse.

Organisations are due to sign up to the scheme by June 30 of this year, but 42 Victorian organisations – in which abuse occurred – have not.

The National Redress Scheme was created in response to recommendations by the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse and provides support to people who experienced institutional child sexual abuse. The Reason Party Bill will amend the Duties Act 2000 (Vic), Payroll Tax Act 2007 (Vic) and Land Tax Act 2005 (Vic) to removed generous tax exemptions for charities accountable for institutional child sexual abuse, that do not sign up to the redress scheme.

“The Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse listened to thousands of people about the abuse they experienced as children,” said Ms Patten.

“Institutions involved in this vile, abhorrent behaviour need to be held to account. They need to form part of the solution. So far it seems that many have decided they don’t need to participate.”

Ms Patten noted that on April 19 of this year, Victorian Attorney-General Jill Hennessy said: –

“My expectation is that Victorian institutions who have not yet signed up to the scheme do so immediately – refusing to sign up is just not acceptable.”

(Jill Hennessy, 19/4/20)

“At the time the Attorney General made that statement, 49 non-government organisations operating in Victoria were still yet to sign up to the scheme,” said Ms Patten. “After questioning in the last weeks sitting of Parliament, and with under a week to go, we find out that the outstanding number is 42. It’s unacceptable.”

“The abuse happened in churches, orphanages, and other religious institutions,“ said Ms Patten. “It happened in schools and sports clubs and hospitals – many of which are defined as charitable organisations and receive the benefits of being such.”

Ms Patten said the time had come for these organisations to understand what the community expects from them and they need to be put on notice.

“Sign up to the Redress Scheme right now – or risk having the sacks full of tax-free cash you enjoy emptied permanently.”

Ms Patten’s Bill would be introduced into Parliament in September of this year and take effect in October.

“Given that the Victorian Government and I seem to be on the same page on this issue, I would seek their support in passing this legislation – in fact, I invite them to come on board as a co-sponsor!” she said.

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Our voice of Reason, Fiona Patten, called in to discuss a petition she is backing to save Victoria’s live music venues after the hardships and loss of work due to COVID-19.

To show your support for venues, musicians, hospitality and our economy, go to SaveOurScene.com.au.

By Fiona Patten, as published in The Age

For many of us, the announcement of a second safe injecting centre in Melbourne came more as a relief than a surprise. The North Richmond centre has become one of the busiest in the world, providing services for 4350 people who visited the centre 119,000 times.

This makes it twice as busy as the NSW injecting centre in Kings Cross.

The North Richmond centre has been riding a wave of increased heroin use. Overdoses have been increasing in Melbourne, but also around the world. The EMCDDA Drug Market Report 2019 reported that international opium production was at an all-time high.

In Victoria, heroin deaths have increased 225 per cent since 2012. Overdose deaths have outnumbered the road toll in Australia for a number of years.

While the centre has been controversial, much of that, it could be argued, has been media driven. The centre has changed lives and it will continue to do so.

The number of people finding a pathway to therapy continues to grow. Conservatively, in the 18 months the centre has been open, 21 lives have been saved. I know many people do not consider these lives all that worthy, but their families still hold out hope that as long as they are alive, they will come off drugs and may come back to them at some stage.

These people form a very particular group within society. Most had overdosed many times before the centre opened; most have been diagnosed with a mental illness; most are experiencing homelessness; and nearly all have experienced childhood trauma and violence. Some 13 per cent are Indigenous.

This is an acute health service for very unwell members of our community – let’s not forget that. A new centre in Melbourne would also treat this group of people – men and women we walk past daily in the CBD.

While I was not surprised that the review recommended a new centre be opened, I was a little surprised that they didn’t recommend more. Twenty years ago, then Labor premier Steve Bracks initiated an expert report that recommended a trial of injecting facilities. The report found the best way to do this was to open five of them, which made a lot of sense. The ambulance statistics bore that out then and they still do now. Sadly, politics has got in the way.

Alas, the Reason Party is not in government and I don’t hold the purse strings. But if it were up to me, I would be looking at conducting a safe injecting trial in such areas as St Kilda, Greater Dandenong, Brimbank and Geelong. If we are relying on statistics and looking at this problem in its entirety, we can’t pretend that it’s just an “inner city thing”. It’s not.

However, I’m not cracking open the champagne for Premier Daniel Andrews and Mental Health Minister Martin Foley. Good on them for doubling down on an issue that has certainly had its fair share of controversy, but I don’t think any of us deserve praise for listening to evidence, consulting experts and acting accordingly. It’s solid public health policy. It’s exactly what politicians should be doing.

I know that an election year is never a good time to discuss controversial issues and, sadly, harm reduction is still considered controversial in Victoria. In cities such as Vancouver, the community deems injecting rooms as crucial to the wellbeing of their city, and to its amenity and reputation as a compassionate and clever city. In fact, Vancouver (a city one-quarter the size of Melbourne) has six official injecting centres.

Melbourne City Council has been a leader in dealing with homelessness and has been impressive in acting so quickly during the COVID-19 crisis to assist our most vulnerable community members. I believe lord mayor Sally Capp understands that there is no one solution to these problems.

Melbourne need not be afraid of the injecting centre, but should see it as an opportunity to help get drug-affected people off the streets and into meaningful and productive lives.

The review of the Richmond facility reported, somewhat cryptically, that a second centre might be run differently. Reading between the lines, I suspect that means a greater focus on amenity and community engagement.

I have a wish list for the new centre based on what we have learnt in North Richmond, but also what we are learning from overseas.

I want to see hydromorphone as another opioid replacement therapy provided to those who are not responsive to other treatments such as methadone. This substance, when administered at a centre, can break the nexus between drug use and crime.

We know that many of the street dealers are chronic users themselves. We know that while people are spending their waking hours meeting the demands of their addiction they can’t deal with their mental health and their homelessness. This becomes a vicious circle. Drugs are used to reduce the pain of ill health and homelessness, but such drug use also exacerbates ill health and homelessness.

I want to see more rehab beds and I want to them attached to the centre, along with a strong outpatient rehab centre with greater connections to homelessness and mental health services.

And recognition that while the clients of the centre are the most acute, there are thousands of Victorians at risk of overdose and we could do more for them.

Fiona Patten is the leader of the Reason Party.

When: Thursday 18 June, 8:15am

Where: Parliament Doors

Who: Fiona Patten MP, Save Our Scene Campaigners & Live Music Venue Owners 

Leader of The Reason Party and Member for Northern Metropolitan, Fiona Patten, will be making an announcement with the Save Our Scene group to call on the Victorian Government to step in and save the live music industry from collapse. 

On Thursday, Fiona will table the largest e-petition in Victoria’s history, which calls on the government to commit to a Live Music Support Package to save over 700 live music venues in Victoria. Fiona will be joined by the Save Our Scene team: 

Jon Perring – Owner of The Tote and Bar Open

Liam Matthews – Owner of The Old Bar

Ben Thompson – Save Our Scene organiser and booker at 170 Russell

Simone Ubaldi – Save Our Scene organiser and booker at The Croxton

Lucie Ribush – Save Our Scene organiser and operations manager at Revolver Upstairs

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To organise an interview with Fiona Patten, please phone Jorian directly.

Media Contact: Jorian Gardner

Phone: 0466 694 197

Email: jorian.gardner@parliament.vic.gov.au

Media Contact: Patrick Hargreaves

Phone: 0431 763 626

Email: patrick.hargreaves@parliament.vic.gov.au

By Ben Schneiders and Sumeyya Ilanbey, 📷: Scott Mcnaughton

The first laws in Australia to make the deliberate underpayment of wages a crime appear likely to pass Victoria’s upper house as early as this week.

The Andrews government’s Wage Theft Bill includes hefty fines and up to 10 years’ jail for rogue employers, with a team of new inspectors empowered to police the laws…

…

Crossbench state MPs Andy Meddick, Rod Barton, Fiona Patten, Stuart Grimley and Tania Maxwell have told The Age they will support the bill.

“Opponents of this bill keep pointing to the ‘complexity’ of paying staff,” Ms Patten said. “But it’s not like we’re hearing all these cases of employers overpaying people, are we?”

Read full article on the Sydney Morning Herald.

Reason Leader and Member for Northern Metropolitan Region has today launched a new campaign #FightStupid. Because, some things are just plain stupid and need to be called out.

Street posters have gone up around Melbourne emblazoned with examples such as “5G does not cause coronavirus” and “Wash hands – yes, drink bleach – no.”

Signs of the times from r/melbourne

Ms Patten is asking the community for suggestions for what else is stupid and should be added to the list.

Ms Patten has been thrilled with the positive response so far and is pledging to continue “Fighting Stupid” – on the streets, in the media and on the floor of the Parliament.

She says, “Together, with facts, with evidence and with Reason – we can defeat Stupid.”

Leader of The Reason Party and Member for Northern Metropolitan, Fiona Patten, is urging Police Minister Lisa Neville to immediately implement a monitoring system for racial profiling in Victoria – a full three years after Victorian Police committed to do so.  Racial profile monitoring is where police collate demographic data for all stops, searches, move-on orders and stop outcomes including the issuing of fines and use of force and for the information to be shared with an independent oversight body.  The system was the key recommendation from the Flemington-Kensington Community Legal Service report ‘Monitoring Racial Profiling: Introducing a scheme to prevent unlawful stops and searches by Victoria Police’.  “We hear anecdotally about racial profiling in Victoria, but how can we overcome it if police aren’t record keeping?” said Ms Patten.  Alongside community advocacy groups, Ms Patten has asked for a demographic breakdown of Covid-19 fines issued by Victoria Police, but has yet to receive a response.  “In NSW the Covid-19 fines disproportionately affected Aboriginal communities, in Victoria we have no public data on it – this is disastrous for police accountability,” said Ms Patten.  Victoria issued the highest number of fines for breaking coronavirus rules, but the data breakdown on those fines is the most opaque.  Thousands of Victorians marched on Saturday to protest police brutality against people of colour and Aboriginal deaths in custody.  Victorian Police LEAP data from Flemington and North Melbourne (2005-2008) was analysed and found that young African people were 2.5 times more likely to be subject to an arbitrary “stop and search” than their peers.  “Communities are concerned they are unfairly targeted by police, they have a right not to be discriminated against” said Ms Patten.  “If we measure racial bias, we can work to reduce it. This is simply a request to collect data and to share it with an independent body, just like they do with the Crime Statistics Agency.”

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To organise an interview with Fiona Patten or author of the report Tamar Hopkins, please phone Jorian directly.

Media Contact: Jorian Gardner

Phone: 0466 694 197

Email: jorian.gardner@parliament.vic.gov.au