THE definition of a contract is that it is an agreement creating obligations enforceable by law. The basic elements of a contract are mutual assent, consideration – generally the payment of money - capacity and legality. The big ticket contract items in people’s lives can include contracts to buy property, cars and businesses. But there are other situations where it’s useful to consider breaches in terms of contracts broken. It’s on this basis that NSW Greens MP David Shoebridge lodged a notice of motion in NSW Parliament on Wednesday that he will attempt to move on Thursday. Mr Shoebridge believes schools should refund fees paid by parents where children were sexually abused, and it helps to think about it as a contract breach. Parents entrusted their children’s lives with schools that, quite often, took hefty fees. There was an agreement between the adult parties – that the level of education would match the size of the money paid. The level of trust placed in the schools was very high, particularly in cases where children were sexually abused while boarders at schools, and the subsequent breaches of trust were extraordinarily high, for both the children and parents. Many thousands of Australian children were sexually assaulted by perpetrators in institutions that, we now know because of the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse, either covered-up that offending or failed to alert authorities like the police. And often the reason was fear of scandal and possible damage to the reputation of the institution. A quick search of a range of fee-charging schools across NSW shows that the level of expectation raised in parents is high. Schools offer “world class” facilities and “state of the art facilities”. The promise is to “enable children to succeed and grow into young people faith, wisdom, integrity and compassion”. Instead many adults have lived lives of quiet desperation as they’ve struggled to deal with the consequences of sexual abuse and the devastating hypocrisy of institutions failing to acknowledge their dark histories. The royal commission’s recommended national redress scheme will, properly, provide a process by which children who were abused can seek some compensation. Mr Shoebridge’s plan responds to the pain of parents whose trust was so appallingly betrayed. Issue: 38,525
THE definition of a contract is that it is an agreement creating obligations enforceable by law.
The basic elements of a contract are mutual assent, consideration – generally the payment of money - capacity and legality. The big ticket contract items in people’s lives can include contracts to buy property, cars and businesses. But there are other situations where it’s useful to consider breaches in terms of contracts broken.
It’s on this basis that NSW Greens MP David Shoebridge lodged a notice of motion in NSW Parliament on Wednesday that he will attempt to move on Thursday.
Mr Shoebridge believes schools should refund fees paid by parents where children were sexually abused, and it helps to think about it as a contract breach.
Parents entrusted their children’s lives with schools that, quite often, took hefty fees. There was an agreement between the adult parties – that the level of education would match the size of the money paid. The level of trust placed in the schools was very high, particularly in cases where children were sexually abused while boarders at schools, and the subsequent breaches of trust were extraordinarily high, for both the children and parents.
Many thousands of Australian children were sexually assaulted by perpetrators in institutions that, we now know because of the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse, either covered-up that offending or failed to alert authorities like the police. And often the reason was fear of scandal and possible damage to the reputation of the institution.
A quick search of a range of fee-charging schools across NSW shows that the level of expectation raised in parents is high. Schools offer “world class” facilities and “state of the art facilities”. The promise is to “enable children to succeed and grow into young people faith, wisdom, integrity and compassion”.
Instead many adults have lived lives of quiet desperation as they’ve struggled to deal with the consequences of sexual abuse and the devastating hypocrisy of institutions failing to acknowledge their dark histories.
The royal commission’s recommended national redress scheme will, properly, provide a process by which children who were abused can seek some compensation.
Mr Shoebridge’s plan responds to the pain of parents whose trust was so appallingly betrayed.
