CW: Retiring Whitlam MP and former Edmund Rice student Stephen Jones revealed he was a "survivor" of child sex abuse in his farewell speech to federal parliament.
Category
🗞
NewsTranscript
00:00I'd like to spend a moment, if I could, just to reflect upon what I think have been great
00:05achievements of all the governments that I've been in this parliament and experienced over
00:13those last 15 years.
00:14I want to start with a reflection on what I thought was a really brilliant contribution
00:21by former Prime Minister Julia Gillard, which I don't think has had enough recognition.
00:29Former Prime Minister Gillard established a royal commission into child sex abuse.
00:36Over four years it heard stories from thousands of Australians of abuse at the hands of churches
00:47and other institutions.
00:48There were over 1,000 individual contributions, 8,000 private sessions, 26,000 letters and
00:56emails leading to over 2,500 referrals to police.
01:04What was so important about this was that for decades the victims had been denied.
01:11Their stories, if ever told, were contested and they were told they were not true.
01:18I can say, because I was a part of some of those early discussions, that establishing
01:22this royal commission wasn't inevitable.
01:25It was contested, including in this chamber.
01:29It wasn't inevitable.
01:30It took courage and I thank the former Prime Minister for it.
01:37When we established that royal commission we sent a message.
01:41The message was that we see you, we hear you and we believe you.
01:46We often speak in this place of strength and weakness and we reduce those concepts
01:55of strength to mean power over others.
02:00I think there's another kind of strength.
02:03It's the strength that comes from the things that you overcome and the strength that knows
02:10it's more important to do things with and for people than to them.
02:17The royal commission was a really painful experience for survivors but a necessary piece
02:24of truth-telling and reconciliation.
02:29Survivors including me appreciate it, a point I've never disclosed because I didn't want
02:35to be defined by it and because I didn't want to detract attention from those who,
02:43unlike me, didn't have a voice, didn't have access to power to tell their story.
02:52There is power in being seen, being heard and being believed.