Wicked riches

What a story! Our media was agog at the recent NSW police announcement that they had exposed a $1.3 billion scheme for making fraudulent child sexual abuse claims. All the major media outlets excitedly reported on this huge "claim farming" scheme which recruited former young offenders, prison inmates and school students to file fake sex abuse compensation claims. At one prison, a third of the inmates had submitted claims.

The investigation revealed 4,000 faked claims, with the many law firms involved paying the claim farmers a benefit of about $2000 for each claim. One group of claims farmers apprehended in the police raid was found to have 100 applications ready to go – so they missed out on $30 million through the police intervention.

Big numbers, shocking scandal. And a mighty blow to the feminist narrative claiming false rape claims hardly ever happen. Here's solid evidence that they are absolutely rampant, particularly when it comes to raking in money from our shockingly slack victims' compensation schemes.

Across the country we have victims' compensation schemes which require absolutely no proof to achieve a payout. All that is needed is a quick trip to a police station to make a statement. As I have reported many times, most police are no longer investigating sexual abuse claims. The complainant's statement is taken as gospel. And then our government bodies pay out.

Even if the matter ends up in a court, the woman is often given the payout years before any decision is made about the validity of the claim. And get this, she has no obligation to return the money if the court decides the evidence supporting it doesn't stack up.

But if the accused man is found guilty, he has to repay the government for the victim's payout.

What about the victims of false claims?

The most extraordinary thing about the whole claim farming scandal is that not one journalist thought to ask questions about the men being falsely accused.

The only mention in the media coverage was a press release from the Independent Education Union (IEU) stating that "claim farming" was a substantial problem in nongovernment schools. In 2017 Australia held a Royal Commission into historical sexual abuse in institutions, where shocking abuse was found to have occurred in some school settings.

It appears this may have inspired the claim farmers to target schoolteachers amongst the other men victimized by the false claims, with the IEU stating that claim farming was leading to "an unprecedented increase in historical sexual abuse claims in recent years."

"A false claim of sexual abuse can have a catastrophic impact on an innocent teacher, their family, their colleagues and the school community. Fake sexual abuse claims devastate innocent teachers," said an IEU spokesperson. "No one should have their lives ruined by criminals seeking to make money with lies."

Following this brave effort to speak up for falsely accused men, the IEU suddenly went skittish, refusing to give any details of how many teachers have been subject to such allegations in recent years, let alone whether any of these accusations led to criminal prosecutions. I hear from teachers facing false allegations, both current and historic, and sadly the historic cases are particularly likely to end up with convictions. It is very hard to defend against a 30-year-old allegation involving children, even when there is very little supportive evidence.