National Redress Scheme for Institutional Child Sexual Abuse Act 2018

Only participating jurisdictions are part of the scheme. While the Commonwealth and participating Territories are automatically participating jurisdictions, a State is only a participating jurisdiction (and therefore part of the scheme) if it makes a law that gives certain legislative powers to the Commonwealth Parliament for the purposes of paragraph 51(xxxvii) of the Constitution. This is known as a State reference. Section 144 deals with this.

Broadly, if a State is not a participating State, then abuse of a person that occurred inside that State will not be within the scope of the scheme. This means that the person will not be eligible for redress for that abuse.

The Minister may declare that a participating jurisdiction is a declared provider of counselling and psychological services under the scheme if the jurisdiction requests the Minister to do so. If that happens, then that jurisdiction will provide for the delivery of those services to those who are entitled to redress and live in that jurisdiction.