Victorian authorities failed to keep children safe

ABC NEWS (Australia)

The Victorian government has accepted all 9 recommendations made by the board of inquiry into historical child sexual abuse at Beaumaris primary school in Melbourne’s south-east.

Transcript

00:00Today's announcement has been decades in the making, not only for the victim-survivors

00:06of Bow Morris Primary School, but of dozens of other schools across Victoria. Last year

00:11a Board of Inquiry looked into allegations of historical child sex abuse by four teachers

00:17at Bow Morris Primary and 23 other schools across the state. It found the Department

00:22of Education's handling of those allegations was a catastrophic failure, and today Victoria's

00:28Premier Jacinta Allen and the Deputy Premier Ben Carroll agreed that how those allegations

00:33were handled was a catastrophic failure, and they have put $50 million towards implementing

00:39the nine recommendations that that Board of Inquiry made earlier this year. Deputy Premier

00:44Ben Carroll spoke earlier, this is a little of what he had to say.

00:48Our government is also putting some $48.3 million into implementing these nine recommendations,

00:55and I'll just touch on the nine recommendations briefly. We will do a statewide apology in

01:00Parliament in 2026. We will also, working with victim-survivors, consult with them on

01:08a memorial for what happened at Bow Morris. We will also undertake a truth-telling process.

01:16Many of you will be aware, above and beyond Bow Morris and the cluster of schools involved,

01:21this is a statewide, system-wide matter where many victim-survivors have also come forward.

01:27This truth-telling process will be an opportunity for us to acknowledge and put on the public

01:32record what other victim-survivors have been through.

01:36The government will also implement an independent monitor that's going to review how historical

01:41child sex abuse matters were treated and responded to by the government school system as a whole.

01:48They're also going to, as you just heard, set up a memorial for the Bow Morris survivors.

01:53They're going to change the system of how information is provided in the education department

01:59for more transparency of those records, because during that inquiry, a lot of victim-survivors

02:06said that they had been trying to find out what happened to the allegations they made

02:10all those decades ago in the 1960s and 70s that were never followed up on, and they haven't

02:16been able to get that information.

02:19The government is also going to create a new hub with a website and telephone line for

02:22victim-survivors to get support during that truth-telling process.

02:27We heard this morning from three victim-survivors from Bow Morris Primary School.

02:31They were incredibly emotional and said today is not a day to be celebrated, but they are

02:37pleased that the government is going to be implementing all of those recommendations,

02:41especially that truth-telling process.

02:43They told us that last year when that inquiry was going on, they were very shocked by the

02:47sheer number of people that came forward with their own stories of historical child sexual

02:52abuse, and they are pleased that this truth-telling process, which will run for two years beginning

02:59at the end or later this year, they're pleased that that is going to go ahead so that more

03:03people throughout Victoria can come forward and tell their stories and have them heard.

03:09One victim-survivor, Rick Turner, spoke to us a little earlier.

03:13For us, it was very much about giving others the opportunity to have a voice and create

03:24a scenario where the silence is stopped and that everyone now has the opportunity hopefully

03:31in the next 12 months or so, if they choose to come forward or even if they just have

03:35the opportunity to talk to their loved ones about something that might have impacted them

03:41in a government institution, that in itself is a win for us.

03:51So yeah, an important step, but as the Premier said, there's a period of time to go before

03:59we get to the apology.

04:01Other victim-survivors have echoed what you just heard from Rick Turner.

04:04They are happy that that apology is going to come after that truth-telling process has

04:10finished.

04:11They don't want an apology before then because they say it would be redundant if other victim-survivors

04:17haven't come forward to tell their story.

04:19So the next few years are going to be quite traumatic for a lot of those victim-survivors,

04:23but hopefully also years of healing as people who are yet to tell their story come forward

04:28to do so.

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