Should Sex Offenders Keep Their Super? Re-Issue

March 25, 2026·46 min·4 clips

An offender told his victim he'd rather pay a barrister $20,000 a day than give her a cent, until reminded of his million-dollar house.

1. Australian True Crime re-issues a 2022 episode as the Albanese government introduces the Survivors' Law targeting superannuation assets of convicted child sex abusers. 2. Guests are lawyer Andrew Carpenter, a victim-survivor advocate of 10 years, and Adam Washbourne, founder and president of Fighters Against Child Abuse Australia, a 12-year-old volunteer organisation. 3. The episode's core thesis is that convicted child sex abusers are shielding assets — particularly superannuation — from victim-survivors who deserve financial compensation and can rarely achieve it through criminal courts alone. 4. Carpenter explains that taxpayers currently fund almost all costs of survivors' lives through Centrelink, Medicare, and housing, because many survivors cannot work from age 18 until death due to PTSD and related trauma. 5. The national redress scheme, established following the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse, has received $12.5 billion in taxpayer funding, while offenders personally contribute nothing. 6. Carpenter describes how offenders routinely mortgage their homes and liquidate visible assets into legal fees upon arrest, then tell survivors 'bring it on, you can't touch me.' 7. He cites Maurice Van Ryn, former CEO of Vega Cheese, who deposited $9 million into superannuation before imprisonment and told survivors the token amount he offered was the best they would get, or he would declare bankruptcy. 8. The criminal conviction rate for child sex matters in Adelaide was reported as less than 2 percent, partly because survivors from decades past cannot provide the exact dates required by the criminal 'beyond reasonable doubt' standard. 9. The average time for a survivor to come forward is 33 years, with one documented case of a 97-year-old woman disclosing abuse that occurred at age seven; the redress scheme is set to run for only 10 years. 10. Carpenter argues that the civil courts' 'balance of probability' standard is a more achievable path for survivors, and linking it to superannuation access would give victims a financially meaningful remedy even without a criminal conviction. 11. A petition supporting the super reform has gathered 42,000 signatures, up from 20,000 when the previous Liberal government first considered the change, and Grace Tame has recently joined the campaign alongside the Carly Ryan Foundation. 12. Washbourne, also a lifelong martial arts coach, describes how Fighters Against Child Abuse Australia connects survivor youth with volunteer instructors in martial arts, gymnastics, dance, music therapy, and pro wrestling as alternatives to traditional counselling. 13. He recounts flying to Brisbane to support a survivor at court, where his team had to physically stand between the survivor and her abuser in the queue because no separation protocol existed. 14. Washbourne explains that the organisation campaigns for language reform — successfully lobbying most Australian states to replace the term 'child porn' with 'child abuse material' or 'child exploitation material' in legislation, on the grounds that viewing the material is an ongoing exploitation of the child depicted. 15. He notes that maximum sentences for possession of child abuse material remain around 10 years in many jurisdictions, with convictions for thousands of files sometimes resulting in only 18 months served. 16. Carpenter observes that narcissism is a consistent trait across every offender he has encountered: even after multiple upheld guilty verdicts, one offender told him the victim 'is ruining my life' and preferred paying a barrister $20,000 a day to trial rather than forgiving the survivor a cent — until Carpenter reminded him his million-dollar freehold house was within reach. 17. The episode is a dual-guest interview alternating between Carpenter's high-energy, combative legal framing and Washbourne's calmer, martial-arts-grounded perspective. 18. Host Michelle Laurie draws out concrete case examples and system failures rather than seeking emotional commentary, keeping the tone analytical despite the severity of the subject matter. 19. Listeners interested in Australian legal reform, child protection advocacy, and survivor support organisations will find direct, specific information. 20. Those seeking general true-crime storytelling with narrative tension will likely find this episode too policy-focused and interview-structured.

As heard by us

A sharp, survivor-focused look at the push to stop child sex abusers using superannuation to avoid compensation debts.

Australian True Crime reissues a pointed, policy-heavy conversation about whether child sex abuse survivors should be able to reach parts of an offender's superannuation when court-ordered compensation goes unpaid.

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