AUSTRALIA
Sydney Morning Herald
[with video]
January 30, 2015
Paul Bibby
It would cost $4.3 billion over 10 years to provide redress to the 65,000 victims of child sex abuse in Australia, the royal commission says, with government footing nearly half the bill.
The explosive figures were contained in the commission’s redress and civil litigation consultation paper released on Friday in Sydney.
The paper considers a range of options for assisting child sex abuse victims to “heal and live a productive and fulfilled life”, including national and state-based redress schemes.
In reaching its headline figures, the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse assumed an average payment of $65,000 for each victim.
The costs would equate to $1.971 billion from government, $582 million of which reflects government’s contribution as “funder of last resort” – its role in backing up institutions where abuse occurred but which now had no money to pay.
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