Former Australian of the Year Grace Tame is calling on the federal government to close a legal loophole that allows paedophiles to quarantine their superannuation from sexual abuse survivors.

Under the current rules, victims of crime who launch civil action for compensation against their perpetrators cannot access any funds held in the offender's superannuation accounts.

"Paedophiles are able to hide their assets in their super, which should be available to compensate survivors of abuse," she said.

"What this means is that the liability is on the taxpayer to fund the compensation of survivors.

"What needs to change is that paedophiles should be responsible for compensating their victims."

Victims' advocate Howard Brown said the issue came to light in 2017, when the victims of convicted Bega Valley paedophile Maurice Van Ryn discovered they would be unable to access hundreds of thousands of dollars he had in superannuation through a civil compensation claim.

"We found that [Van Ryn] was virtually [penniless] as he had placed all his funds into his superannuation account," Mr Brown said.

"And [Van Ryn] basically said to us: 'Everything I have is in my superannuation account, and you can't touch that.'

"And of course, he was correct – we couldn't."

'It's going to save the taxpayer'

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-06-22/grace-tame-wants-government-to-close-paedophile-super-loophole/101168998