Abolish restrictions on sexual abuse civil actions, Liberal MP Graham Jacobs says

By Jacob Kagi
ABC News
November 11, 2015

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-11-12/scrap-time-limits-on-sexual-abuse-civil-actions-jacobs-says/6933318

Graham Jacobs says victims should be able to take civil action regardless of when they were abused.

Statutory time limits preventing victims of sexual abuse from taking civil action many years later could be scrapped, if WA's Parliament passes legislation to be introduced by a backbench Liberal MP.

Eyre MP Graham Jacobs will this morning introduce a bill seeking to remove the six-year statute of limitations for sexual abuse cases in WA.

If the legislation passes, it will allow people who suffered physical or mental injuries as a result of abuse to take civil action seeking compensation, regardless of how long ago it occurred.

Dr Jacobs said Victoria had already moved to implement similar laws and it was only a matter of time before other states followed suit, saying WA should make sure it was not last in line.

"The average latency period from the time of tort, as the lawyers would say, and the victim declaring that it had occurred is 24 years. So well outside the six years," he said.

"This is not a right for girls and boys who were abused to bring a successful action, it is just a right to bring an action.

"The court will still decide if there is sufficient evidence and if the case stacks up."

The proposed legislation will not be debated until the start of the next parliamentary sitting year, in February at the earliest, and Dr Jacobs said he was yet to get firm support from the State Government.

"There is some support for it in the party and some mood for it, hence they have given me Government time as a private member to introduce the bill," he said.

Dr Jacobs admitted some members of the Cabinet had raised concerns that the proposed laws would create a flood of compensation applications, and potentially be a significant cost to the state.

"There has been some concerns about that through some members and ministers of Government," he said.

"This is not about opening the floodgates to multi-million-dollar claims."

Dr Jacobs said he was moved to introduce the legislation after families of constituents, who he first saw as a local doctor three decades ago, shared their story of abuse with him.

Several of them were abused as young children while students at a school in his electorate.

"[30 years ago] I was faced with girls who had various problems including school avoidance, bed-wetting, depression, anxiety and declining grades at school," he said.

"On reflection that was probably the consequences of what they were going through, which I did not know about [at the time].

"30 years later they came to me and their families came to me, telling of their frustration with the law that prevented them taking civil action against the Education Department."