Redress WA, State of Western Australia

The Redress WA scheme was established by the Government of Western Australia to acknowledge and apologise to adults who, as children, were abused and/or neglected while they were in the care of the state. It ran from 2008 to 31 December 2011.

The Redress WA scheme ran from 2008 to 31 December 2011. When Redress WA commenced it was announced that the payments would go up to $80,000, however they were reduced in 2009 to $45,000.

Following the close of the scheme, early evaluation of the applications shows a large number of the claims are severe. Because of this and the large number of claims Redress WA has received, the State Government has made the difficult decision to adjust ex-gratia payments of up to $80,000 to a maximum payment of $45,000. The decision to adjust the maximum payment recognises the fact that most people will be entitled to a greater share of payment than was originally anticipated.

Many people and advocacy groups protested the reduction, but the scheme went ahead with the reduced upper payment.

In its 2010-11 Annual Report, the Department for Communities described the scheme:

Redress WA was established in 2008 as a finite scheme to acknowledge and apologise to adults who, as children, were abused and/or neglected while they were in the care of the state. Redress WA was based on four pillars of support: an opportunity to make a police referral; a personal apology from the Premier and Minister for Community Services; provision of support and counselling services; and ex gratia payments. Four broad levels of ex gratia payments were offered, ranging from a minimum of $5000 to a maximum of $45000.

The four levels of payment were published in the Redress WA Guidelines on 18 May 2011:

• Level 1: moderate abuse or neglect
• Level 2: serious abuse or neglect with some ongoing symptoms and disabilities
• Level 3: severe abuse or neglect with ongoing symptoms and disabilities
• Level 4: very severe abuse or neglect with ongoing symptoms and disabilities

On 14 August 2012, in answer to questions put to her in the Legislative Council, the Minister for Community Services provided the following overview of the Redress WA Scheme:

• 5,212 payments totaling $117,740,167 were made from 5,225 offers
• 20 Redress WA claims were not finalised because: 9 applicants could not be contacted, 7 cases were due to the need to locate beneficiaries of deceased applicants, and 4 offers were rejected ($146,797 has gone to unclaimed monies)
• 859 Level 1 payments were made, from 866 offers
• 1,813 Level 2 payments were made, from 1,818 offers
• 1,477 Level 3 payments were made, from 1,478 offers
• 1,063 Level 4 payments were made, from 1,063 offers
• 120 applicants died before receiving final payments and 82 payments were made to deceased estates
• 40 applicants registered interest but did not make an application and 13 others withdrew their applications before they were finalised
• 519 applicants were determined to be ineligible for payment under the Redress WA Scheme
• 89 applicants appealed their first offer and 19 of those were successful on appeal
• 168 written requests for ‘late applications’ were received by the Department for Communities after the Redress WA Scheme closed
• 2,231 cases have been referred to police. 14 allegations of abuse were directed at households with people who were caring for children in 2012 and 29 alleged perpetrators in total had Working With Children Cards. These people were referred to the Department for Child Protection and Family Support for immediate assessment and 3 children were removed from these placements ‘due to age and standard of care issues’
• The number of applicants who had unclaimed wages arising from work they did while a Ward of the State was not collected
• Information about the institutions where children who were State Wards suffered abuse was not collected in a database.

The Attorney General, on behalf of the Minister for Police on 14 August 2012, also tabled answers put to him in the Legislative Council about actions taken by the WA Police (up to 6 July 2012) on matters arising from the Redress WA Scheme. The Attorney General reported that 204 Redress WA cases were being investigated and 2 individuals had been charged.