Victoria failed to keep children safe from a cluster of historical abuse cases at schools, including Beaumaris Primary School, Premier Jacinta Allan has declared.
Allan and Education Minister Ben Carroll, the deputy premier, announced on Wednesday the Victorian government would accept all nine recommendations of a board of inquiry.
Ribbons attached to the fence at Beaumaris Primary School in support of childhood victim survivors of historical sexual abuse.Credit: Penny Stephens
“In doing so, we make a clear and simple acknowledgement: we failed,” Allan said.
“We failed to keep these children safe.
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“We failed to listen when they spoke out.
“We failed to act to ensure that it did not happen again.”
The inquiry findings, handed down earlier this year, found that the cluster of abuse at Beaumaris was particularly insidious but not isolated.
A statewide independent truth-telling process to hear from victim-survivors about historical abuse at government schools before 2000 will be established.
An independent monitor will also oversee a review of the way that abuse allegations were treated and responded to by the Education Department.
Once those processes are complete in 2026, the government will publish the findings and deliver a formal apology in parliament.
Source Agencies
