A Christian minister has labelled the national redress scheme for survivors of institutional child sexual abuse as a "get-out-of-jail-free card" for churches.
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Pastor Bob Cotton has called for churches to be stripped of their tax-free status if they are not willing to accommodate their abuse victims.
The senior pastor at Maitland Christian Church in NSW says the redress scheme's compensation cap of $150,000 is far too low and "everything is weighted far too heavily in the favour of the church".
"To me, the redress scheme is almost a 'get-out-of-jail-free card' for the church," Pastor Cotton told a federal parliamentary committee via teleconference on Monday.
He told the hearing that as contributions to participate in the redress scheme are proportionate to the size of the church, his small church pays only $189 per year.
"I'm assured by our (insurance company) that once a claim is paid our denomination is forever protected against further claim. We're off the hook forever," Pastor Cotton said.
If the redress scheme payouts were increased in proportion to the contribution made by churches, he would be happy to pay "four or five times as much to lift the cap to over half a million (dollars)".
"I would ask that the churches' contributions be increased in order that the redress payments to survivors be increased.
"If the church is not willing to accommodate our victims, then we should lose our tax exemptions."
He said there is a "vast difference between the average payout of the redress scheme and the more reasonable figures being paid through civil litigation".
There have been 6425 applications for redress since the $3.8 billion scheme began operating in July 2018.
As of March 19, the scheme has paid 1388 payments totalling $112.4 million to survivors, with the average amount being about $81,000.
A federal parliamentary committee in April 2019 recommended increasing the maximum payment from $150,000 to the royal commission's $200,000 cap, and bringing in a new framework for how applications are assessed.
The only survivors eligible for the maximum $150,000 payment are those whose abuse involved penetration, and even then there had to be additional 'extreme circumstances'.
The Australian Lawyers Alliance says the threshold is pushing survivors into the court system.
"The amount of compensation is so inadequate that it must inevitably drive more people to go to common law for compensation," ALA spokesman Dr Andrew Morrison, SC, told the hearing on Monday.
There is "pretty good evidence" that the reduction from the recommended $200,000 to $150,000 - and a further reduction if the abuse wasn't penetrative - "has meant that a large number of cases are going to law", Dr Morrison told the hearing.
These cases "could have been resolved with a great deal less cost and stress and time if the redress scheme had been more adequate", he said.
A large majority of people coming for advice to Shine Lawyers, which represents numerous survivors, are opting for a civil claim rather than applying through the redress scheme, the committee heard.
The amount clients receive would be well in excess of the average payment given to survivors under the redress scheme, the law firm's national practice leader Lisa Flynn said.
"It would be in the hundreds of thousands rather than the current average of the redress being $80,000," she told the hearing.
Australian Associated Press
