BALI bombing survivors Paul Anicich and Tony Purkiss are flying to Canberra today to hear Tony Abbott’s bill to help the victims of international terrorism debated in Federal Parliament.
But their trip is unlikely to bear fruit after Newcastle MP Sharon Grierson confirmed she would speak against the bill for the Government, which would vote against it.
Mr Anicich said that after speaking to Ms Grierson he was disappointed at Labor’s attitude but believed that the publicity created by the situation would do some good.
“They say they’re working on a national compensation scheme but I heard Gough Whitlam talking about that in 1972, 37 years ago,” Mr Anicich said.
“Money doesn’t restore someone’s life back to what it was before something like this happens but it is a means of helping people to support themselves, to get back to where you have to get.”
Mr Abbott told The Herald yesterday about 300 Australians had been killed or injured in overseas acts of terrorism since September 11, 2001.
He said he had tried unsuccessfully to persuade former prime minister John Howard to back the scheme in 2007.
Based on state victim-of-crime laws Mr Abbott said the proposed maximum $75,000 payout was “significant but not extravagant”.
Mr Abbott made the first reading of his Assisting the Victims of International Terrorism Bill 2009 in Parliament last Monday and said 20 minutes had been allocated for debate tonight from 7.40pm.
Mr Abbott had been in Bali when the second bombings took place in 2005 and Mr Anicich praised him yesterday for his efforts at the time.
Mr Anicich said the compensation scheme had emerged from talks with Mr Abbott about the need for “a victim’s gold card” that would help with medical costs. Electronic medical records would save a person having to repeat their traumas to every doctor, which was “very hard psychologically”.
Ms Grierson said she felt for the Newcastle families traumatised by the 2005 bombings and said she had talked to the Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd, about the issue.
She questioned Mr Abbott’s use of a private member’s bill, saying it would have been better to talk to Labor about the issue rather than proceed with a process that was “virtually guaranteed to fail”.
She said the Federal Government very rarely gave mass compensation, and sometimes people had to accept that the national safety net was the appropriate mechanism. BY IAN KIRKWOOD
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