Illawarra Legal Centre contributes to submissions against
changes to Victims’ Compensation Scheme
Illawarra Legal Centre sent important submissions and case
studies to members of the New South Wales parliament regarding
changes proposed to the Victims’ Compensation Scheme.
The Victims’ Rights and Support Bill 2013 proposing to drastically
reduce compensation payments made to victims of crime,
domestic violence, child abuse and sexual assault was introduced
into parliament on Tuesday 7 May 2013. It was passed on 30 May
2013.
This bill proposed to decrease the maximum compensation cap
from $50,000 to $15,000, apply retrospectively to victims with
existing claims and apply a 10-year time limit to all claims including
victims of childhood sexual abuse.
Thanks to the lobbying of community legal centres such as ours,
an amendment was made to allow victims of childhood sexual
abuse to make claims outside the 10 year time limit.
Illawarra Legal Centre ensured that the network of community
legal centres collected and presented statistics about the number
of claims being run by all NSW community legal centres. Our
centre also ensured that the network could communicate more
effectively electronically.
We received detailed responses to our submissions from the
Greens and a general response from one of the government
Ministers. An article about our campaign was reported on the front
page of the Illawarra Mercury.
To find out more about recent changes to the Victims’
Compensation Scheme you can call the government’s Victims’
Access Line on 1800 633 063 or visit:
http://www.lawlink.nsw.gov.au/vs.