Have Your Say

BILLS – Treasury Laws Amendment (The Survivors Law) Bill 2026

12 May 2026

Mr McCORMACK (Riverina) (16:41): I am speaking on behalf of the shadow assistant treasurer, the member for Page, who is in the federal budget lock-up as I speak. I rise to speak about Treasury Laws Amendment (The Survivors Law) Bill 2026, noting it is an important piece of legislation. The coalition’s position is clear: we support survivors, and we will support this bill. Victims-survivors and their families have waited too long, and I think we all know that. Australia’s superannuation and bankruptcy laws have been weaponised by the worst criminals, and, for far too long, the parliament has failed to act.

Under the current law, perpetrators have been able to hide assets in superannuation and avoid paying court ordered compensation. When I became the member for Riverina back in 2010, my predecessor mentioned that this particular element would take up a lot of my time. Kay Hull was right then, and it hasn’t changed since then. Under the current law, as I say, perpetrators have been able to hide these assets, and we do acknowledge the work of the Assistant Treasurer for his work to get this law before the parliament. Dr Mulino has done a power of work in this regard. We also want to acknowledge the work of the former minister for financial services and former member for Higgins, Kelly O’Dwyer, who began the work on these reforms back in 2018. Most importantly, we thank the survivors. Above all else, we do thank the survivors, we acknowledge them, and we recognise them. We also acknowledge their families and the advocates, many of whom came to parliament in March, showing bravery, showing resilience and certainly demonstrating perseverance and persistence.

This reform is the result of years of advocacy by survivors and their advocates. There is more work that could be done to strengthen these laws even further. Indeed, I will put on the record that the 2018 reforms considered whether all victims of serious violent crimes should be able to access a perpetrator’s superannuation as compensation. But we will not allow the perfect to be the enemy of the good, particularly when it comes to supporting victims of child sexual abuse. This is not about politics. It isn’t, and it should never be. This is not a partisan issue. It should be one that unites the parliament in our shared goal to protect children and to rebuke predators. I think the parliament is seen at its best when it comes together on issues such as this to bring about reform that is good, that is lasting and that is incredibly worthwhile.

Under the current law, we have a situation where paedophiles—the lowest of the low, the worst of the worst—have been able to boast that their victims won’t see a penny of their superannuation. Survivors should not have to fight their abusers once in court and then fight them all over again to get compensation. This must not be so. The current loophole has allowed perpetrators to shield assets in superannuation, declare bankruptcy and leave survivors with absolutely nothing. The Australian parliament is saying, with a unified voice, that enough is enough. It’s time for change. Superannuation is for retirement. It should not be used to deny compensation to survivors of child sexual abuse.

I just want to outline some of what this bill does. It creates a court supervised process for survivors of child sexual abuse to access certain superannuation amounts held by a perpetrator. It applies where there is a court ordered compensation debt. The bill allows survivors of child sexual abuse to seek limited information from the Australian Taxation Office about a perpetrator’s superannuation. It allows a court to make an order to release eligible superannuation amounts. It requires the Commissioner of Taxation to issue release authorities to superannuation funds to facilitate payment, and that’s important. It also ensures compensation debts for child sexual abuse survive bankruptcy. Perpetrators should not be able to abuse a child, lose in court, declare bankruptcy and then preserve their retirement savings whilst their victim receives nothing.

We know that child sexual abuse causes lifelong harm. It does. It truly does. It can affect a person’s health. It can affect a person’s relationships, a person’s education, their employment, their employment prospects and their financial security. For many survivors, the abuse does not end when the offending ends. They carry the trauma, the stigma and the psychological and physical effects for years and years. Many also carry the financial consequences. This must be changed, and this bill goes part of the way—a lot of the way—to addressing that.

Some survivors have gone through court, relived their trauma—and how difficult must that be?—obtained compensation orders and yet still received nothing, and that is wrong. I think we all agree that that is palpably wrong. A conviction should not be the end of the justice process. A compensation order should not be a piece of paper that can be ignored. If a perpetrator has assets in superannuation, they should not be able to hide behind the law while their victim is left with nothing. This bill helps to fix that.

Swift passage of this bill matters. Survivors, as I said earlier, have waited far too long. They’ve waited long enough. Some survivors and advocates have been fighting for this reform for almost a decade, under both the coalition and Labor. That is why we do not support sending it off to another Senate inquiry. It’s all too easy, sometimes, with legislation that might be difficult and might need to have further fine-tuning, to send it off to an upper house inquiry. Not this time—too important. There will be time to review and strengthen the law after it starts operating. It needs to happen, and it needs to happen now. There are survivors who need the benefit of this law right now. Delay would only benefit the lowest of the low, the worst of the worst: the perpetrators.

Survivors and advocates made this happen. We thank them and we acknowledge what they did and what they went through—what they should no longer have to go through or have to endure. These reforms are the result of grassroots advocacy for almost a decade—people power, years of advocacy by survivors, by families, by lawyers and by child protection advocates.

We acknowledge the work of survivors and advocates, including but not limited to Andrew Carpenter, Madeleine West and Eden Van Haren. There are many others—many, many others. We acknowledge organisations including: Super for Survivors, Bravehearts, Fighters Against Child Abuse Australia and the Carly Ryan Foundation—good organisations all. Their advocacy has exposed a serious injustice; a huge gap that we are now, hopefully, bridging. Their persistence has brought this bill before the parliament. Parliament should honour that work by passing this bill and doing it swiftly. This work builds on the work initiated by the former coalition government.

In January 2020, the then assistant treasurer, the honourable Kelly O’Dwyer MP, announced consultation on allowing survivors to access perpetrator superannuation. Work was delayed due to her retirement. More’s the pity. The COVID-19 pandemic didn’t help, nor did reprioritisation of Treasury resources. The coalition’s reforms were put out for consultation to allow broader input, and victims of violent crimes, not just child sex abuse victims, were fed into that process. The coalition is supportive of what Labor is doing. This sees parliament being at its best.

Under the current law, superannuation is generally protected from creditors. It has created a loophole where perpetrators can hold or move assets into superannuation to clear bankruptcy and avoid paying compensation ordered by a court. That is the problem that this bill is endeavouring to fix—and not before time. The government has described the bill as closing a loophole where offenders have shielded assets in superannuation and declared bankruptcy to avoid valid court orders.

The bill allows survivors of child sexual abuse to apply to the ATO for some information. There’s always going to be privacy issues et cetera, but this bill allows the disclosure of limited information about a perpetrator’s super. The survivors of child sexual abuse can then use that information to determine whether or not to seek a court order to apply to a court for a perpetrator contributions release order or to access eligible super amounts to satisfy unpaid compensation orders and/or enforce compensation debts even when the perpetrator has entered bankruptcy. All of these provisions are important. They go a step toward helping the perpetrators have their money taken from them, ultimately assisting the process of doing the right thing by the victims.

The bill also amends the bankruptcy law. The purpose is to stop perpetrators from using bankruptcy to defeat compensation claims. Compensation debts should survive bankruptcy. Finally, the bill is a major step forward. It truly is. It has bipartisan support, but it may not capture every case. There are victims of other serious violent crimes not covered by this bill. Survivors and advocates have called for future work on civil findings. Some advocates have also called for broader retrospective application. The Assistant Treasurer has done a power of good and a power of work in this regard. I thank him again for the diligence he has shown. He has said that future work may consider whether some civil findings can be included, but the government did not want to delay the current bill while those issues were being worked through. We certainly give a commitment—I do, on behalf of the opposition—to work with the minister and any future ministers to make sure that there is support if the bill can be refined in a better way in the future. That said, I commend the bill to the house.

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