THE Standing Committee of the Australian General Synod has given its support to the proposed national redress scheme for survivors of child sexual abuse.

At its meeting last weekend, the committee said that, while the detail of the Federal Government’s proposal was yet to be released, it supported the scheme strongly in principle. The Australian Primate, Dr Philip Freier, the Archbishop of Melbourne, has also urged state governments to make a commitment to the scheme.

The scheme, to commence in 2018 and run initially for ten years, would provide survivors with com­pensation of up to $150,000 each.
A national redress scheme is a recom­mendation of the ongoing Royal Commission into Institu­tional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse.

Dr Freier has called on the Federal Government not to keep deferring a proposed referendum to recognise Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people in the Aus­­­tralian Constitution. The referen­dum, due to be held in May next year, has now been postponed until 2018 at the earliest.