Abuse Victim Urges Nsw Government to Hurry up and Sign up to National Redress Scheme
By Elloise Farrow-Smith
When Robbie Gambley was a boy, he dreamed of cars. Driving them, fixing them, owning them. His abuser used that passion, turning a boy's dream into a predator's advantage, and life into a nightmare for Mr Gambley. After he was abused by his school teacher, Mr Gambley lost his way to drugs and alcohol and the dream of being a mechanic disappeared in a haze of guilt and shame. For 25 years, Mr Gambley hid the truth of what his male school science teacher did to him. His young life became ruled by excessive expressions of masculinity, in a bid to erase the memory of his abuser. Throughout the late 1970s and early 80s, Mr Gambley drank heavily, used drugs, and rode motorbikes with reckless abandon. He reflects upon this as his death wish, a way to end the pain. "I lived with this by myself and it had a massive effect," he said. "I never married, I haven't got children, that's a great sadness to me now." Speaking out Long before a Royal Commission was announced, Mr Gambley decided he had had enough. After revealing his torment to a social worker, Mr Gambley said it was like he had "pulled the pin on a hand grenade". In 2007 Mr Gambley took his abuser, by then a school principal, to court. He said the news of the teacher's rise within the NSW Department of Education horrified him and he felt compelled to act, to protect other children. However, Mr Gambley still had trouble grasping how this could have happened to him in what should have been a safe place, a public school, overseen by a state government. He said it was the lack of a duty of care that sent him seeking answers through the royal commission. Mr Gambley is one of 7,000 people who have so far given testimony in private sessions to the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse. The commission has recommended a National Redress Scheme to help survivors like Mr Gambley, and institutions and governments around Australia have been told to expect 60,000 survivors could be eligible to make a claim under the scheme.
More than compensation Cathy Kezelman AM heads up the BlueKnot Foundation assisting adult survivors of childhood trauma. She also sits on the advisory council for the National Redress Scheme and said Australians should see the effort as more than a compensation scheme. "There is really a very, very large number of Australians whose childhoods were stolen from them," Dr Kezelman said. A stolen childhood can mean lifelong trauma and Dr Kezelman said the burden on survivors of what was done to them was enormous. The National Redress Scheme aims to provide counselling and psychological care, monetary compensation, and the opportunity for an apology from the institution through which the abuse occurred. Dr Kezelman believed when considering whether to contribute to the National Redress Scheme, governments needed to consider the true cost of surviving child abuse. "The economic cost to them [the survivor] and to government as well for their needs, their hospitalisation, their admissions to drug and alcohol clinics, homelessness, not holding down a job, it has an enormous economic burden," Dr Kezelman said. The BlueKnot Foundation together with Pegasus Economics looked at that cost. An economic report in 2015 considered the cost of not providing the right support and care to adult survivors over a 12-month period. It was estimated at $9.1 billion dollars, each year. But Dr Kezelman said there had been a reluctance to sign up to the National Redress Scheme. "So far everyone is sitting on their hands and waiting, but the time to act is very, very soon because survivors have been waiting for way too long," Dr Kezelman said. Response too slow For people like Mr Gambley, the slow response of governments and institutions is heartbreaking. "In my case it was a school teacher [who was the abuser] so it's the NSW Department of Education and I am extremely disappointed that the NSW Premier hasn't announced that they will opt into the scheme," he said. "It's upsetting for me, some of the abuse took place on the school grounds, it was a total lack of duty of care by the Department of Education and morally surely they want to address the issue and compensate for what people have suffered." Mr Gambley has written twice to NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian, imploring her government to add its name to the National Redress Scheme. In one letter Mr Gambley attached a photo of himself as a boy with his beloved horse to remind the Premier of what it personally cost him. "When I look at the photo I see this innocent, charming little boy, his innocence was stolen," Mr Gambley said. "The royal commission into institutional abuse … this is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. "With measures put in place, children should never face abuse in institutions on the massive scale that has happened." He feels strongly that the National Redress Scheme will help him and others by providing the support that he missed out on during his 25 years of suffering. Mr Gambley is still waiting for an apology from the NSW Department of Education, despite his former teacher pleading guilty to the abuse.
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