The Department of Veterans Affairs isn't acting in accordance with the law by rejecting claims of ex-servicemen who can't get corroborative evidence for sex abuse in ADF schools, the chairman of the child abuse royal commission says.
DVA assistant secretary Neil Bayles said on Friday that based on the evidence before the commission he would ask policy-makers to look at the evidence required to meet the claims of this group of veterans.
Justice Peter McClellan told him: "Whilst you are doing that, you should take back to them that a system which is operating on the balance of probabilities and excludes any possibility of succeeding in a claim unless there is corroborative evidence, is not in accordance with the law."
Over the past week, the commission has been hearing from former sailors and soldiers who suffered horrific sex abuse when they were recruits in the 1960s and 1970s at HMAS Leeuwin in Perth or the Army Apprentice School in Balcombe, Victoria.
The DVA has refused their claims because there were no witnesses to the abuse.
They have also been told they will lose disability pensions and have to pay back money received if they pursue redress.
Adair Donaldson, a solicitor who has acted for child sex abuse victims for years, said the ADF was now handling cases in a resolution process designed not to do more harm to the survivors.
But the DVA, set up to deal with broken minds and bodies resulting from the ADF's core business defending Australia, adopted a very "inquisitorial approach" and had complex procedures and policies not suitable for assessing claims for child sex abuse cases.
Mr Bayles, assistant secretary in charge of the DVA's Military Review Compensation Arrangements, had been called to explain how the complex procedures and polices operated.
