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Speaker 1: Right, we finally had the longer waited announcement from the

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Speaker 1: government on how they'll pay compo to victims of state

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Speaker 1: abuse while and care. There will be no new compo scheme. Instead,

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Speaker 1: the government will top up the current system.

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Speaker 2: Now.

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Speaker 1: Erica Stanford is the lead coordination Minister for the government's

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Speaker 1: response to the abuse in state care reporters with US. Now, Hey, Erica, Hi,

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Speaker 1: So what is the maximum that anyone can get under

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Speaker 1: the scheme?

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Speaker 2: Look, there isn't a cap the previous or the scheme

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Speaker 2: that's in place at the moment that the top band

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Speaker 2: is over fifty thousand. Now, of course that will be

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Speaker 2: upped by about fifty percent. That top band will likely

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Speaker 2: be about seventy five thousand plus. However, we don't put

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Speaker 2: a cap in place because we acknowledge that there are

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Speaker 2: always individual, relatively egregious cases of serious abuse and care

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Speaker 2: that we you know, we don't want to put a

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Speaker 2: cap on.

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Speaker 1: Could you foresee somebody potentially getting.

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Speaker 2: Millions A Look, not under this scheme, if we're being honest,

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Speaker 2: Not under this scheme. It is a scheme that acknowledges

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Speaker 2: that people some terrible things happened to people. But we

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Speaker 2: also acknowledge that there is nothing that we can pay

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Speaker 2: that will ever take their pain away from what happened

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Speaker 2: to them. This is an acknowledgment and redress of what

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Speaker 2: happened to them.

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Speaker 1: Several hundred thousands.

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Speaker 2: I'm not going to be the person who says what

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Speaker 2: that number might be because I don't know, you know,

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Speaker 2: who might come into the scheme with a type of

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Speaker 2: case that they might have, and it's really hard to

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Speaker 2: tell how.

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Speaker 1: Much of you actually set aside for it. What's the

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Speaker 1: total package?

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Speaker 2: The total package today announced was seven hundred and seventy

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Speaker 2: four millions, so over three quarters of a billion dollars.

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Speaker 2: But of that around five hundred million is towards the

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Speaker 2: redress scheme, so paying out redress for people who come

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Speaker 2: forward in the future, and also topping up those who

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Speaker 2: have already put their claim in so we'll be upping

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Speaker 2: their payments by half again, but also aligning some of

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Speaker 2: the payments. So in the past, for example, if you've

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Speaker 2: been had your redress through the Ministry of Health, the

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Speaker 2: payments weren't at the same level as any s D

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Speaker 2: for example, So we'll firstly align those there will be

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Speaker 2: a left for some people, and then fifty percent on

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Speaker 2: top of that.

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Speaker 1: Okay, So if you've set around set aside around half

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Speaker 1: a million bucks or sorry five is it? It's five

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Speaker 1: hundred million, isn't it?

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Speaker 2: Yes, half a billion?

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Speaker 1: Ok a half a billion bucks and people are getting

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Speaker 1: thirty thousand on average per person, then it's only going

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Speaker 1: to cover about seventeen thousand people. And we're talking about

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Speaker 1: you know, two hundred thousand people who were potentially abused here,

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Speaker 1: so it's not really going to be enough, is it.

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Speaker 2: Well, firstly, the Royal Commission, I really don't didn't acknowledge

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Speaker 2: they didn't know how many people are going to come forward,

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Speaker 2: because there are estimations were anywhere between thirty thousand and

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Speaker 2: two hundred and fifty thousand, which is an acknowledgement of that.

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Speaker 2: They really don't know. What we've put forward is for

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Speaker 2: the next few years, and we will acknowledge that we

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Speaker 2: will likely have to come you know back in future

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Speaker 2: budgets once we have a better idea of how many

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Speaker 2: people are coming forward, and to have a review in

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Speaker 2: twenty twenty seven.

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Speaker 1: That's right, Yeah, Okay, how's it going on the pay

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Speaker 1: equity thing? It looks like it's bad for the nats.

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Speaker 2: Oh, no, I wouldn't. I wouldn't say that. I mean

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Speaker 2: I stood up in the house when this bill was

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Speaker 2: read and you know, the original bell under Labor and

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Speaker 2: I said that, you know, the future was bright for

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Speaker 2: my children and grandchildren, and it still is. There is

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Speaker 2: still a pay equity scheme. There will still be you know,

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Speaker 2: claims that are bought for that will be successful, which

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Speaker 2: is why we have to give money.

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Speaker 1: I understand, I understand orders, but I'm looking at the

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Speaker 1: Instagram pack posts and stuff like that, and there's a

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Speaker 1: hell of a lot of explaining going on by the

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Speaker 1: National Party which makes me think you guys are getting

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Speaker 1: huge backlash.

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Speaker 2: Look, it was always going to be a difficult topic

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Speaker 2: and it does require us to have really good communications

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Speaker 2: and say, hey, look, all we're doing is going back

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Speaker 2: to the scheme that was put in place under the

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Speaker 2: previous National government that had criteria that was reasonable around

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Speaker 2: making sure that when you were looking at comparators, you

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Speaker 2: were looking within the same industry, you know. And I

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Speaker 2: think that you know, most people could accept that, you know,

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Speaker 2: under the Labor government, with some of the changes they

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Speaker 2: made around you know the fact that we're looking at

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Speaker 2: librarians compared to fisheries offices. It's just there's too much

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Speaker 2: room in that case and for subjective decisions, and I

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Speaker 2: think we just need to bring the scheme back to

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Speaker 2: what it was originally intended to do, which is to

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Speaker 2: make sure that we're addressing sex based discrimination in the workplace.

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Speaker 2: And that is exactly what we're going to be doing,

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Speaker 2: all right.

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Speaker 1: Erica, Thanks very much appreciated, Erica Stanford, League Coordination Minister

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Speaker 1: Government Response to Abuse in State Care. For more from

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Speaker 1: Heather Duplessy Allen Drive, listen live to News talks'd B

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Speaker 1: from four pm weekdays, or follow the podcast on iHeartRadio