This is not an anti‑government movement. It is an anti‑harm movement. The issue is not government itself, but the way its institutions have protected themselves at the expense of the people they harmed.

The Queensland Pilot Program is the opening move in a national strategy. What begins here will shape coordinated class actions across every state and territory, ultimately forming the basis for a unified federal action. This is not theory or aspiration; it is the legal path now available because the State refused to act. A National Redress Scheme could have contained the Commonwealth’s liability. It would have been capped, controlled and politically manageable — the practical and economical option, the option that allowed the government to appear responsible while limiting its exposure. That moment has passed. By choosing delay over action, the Commonwealth has steered itself into far rougher waters.

Class actions do not offer the protections a redress scheme would have provided. They are not capped or predictable, and they do not bend to political messaging or departmental stage‑management. Damages for economic loss, psychological injury and aggravated harm arising from post‑2013 conduct will not fit into neat budget lines. They will be assessed in open court, case by case, survivor by survivor. The financial exposure could run into the billions. And unlike a redress scheme, litigation demands disclosure. Archives must be opened. Internal communications must be produced. The quiet machinery of government — the emails, the briefings, the decisions made in rooms without windows — becomes evidence.

The risk is not only financial. It is reputational, and reputations in this country do not recover easily once broken. The Commonwealth’s standing on accountability is already threadbare. Another scandal of institutional harm exposed in open court will not simply bruise that standing; it will complete the damage decades of evasion have already begun. A successful action on Post‑Apology Harm will send a shockwave through every corner of institutional harm in Australia, establishing in law what many already know: that bureaucratic negligence in the present is as actionable — and as corrosive — as cruelty committed in the past.

Survivors understand this landscape better than anyone. After decades of dealing with governments, departments and their lawyers, they know the State’s repertoire: delay, deflect, deny. They are no longer asking for permission, and they are no longer fighting on the State’s terms. The contest now moves to ground the government cannot easily control — the law, the record and the courts. The harm they are challenging is not historic; it is ongoing. The Apology was a promise that has been broken. The original crime has never been addressed in law, and in the decade since the Apology the harm has begun again. It lives in the obstruction, the withheld records, the re‑traumatisation, the legal manoeuvring and the State’s refusal to provide redress or any path to closure. This is Post‑Apology Harm, and it is happening now.

The Queensland test case is designed to bring this conduct into the open. If the government obstructs, that behaviour becomes evidence. If it complies, survivors gain access to the truth. Either way, the record grows and the case strengthens. The State’s response — whatever it is — becomes part of the story. Once the precedent is established in Queensland, the model will be replicated across the country. And if politicians continue to refuse action, the courts will be asked to confront the truth governments have avoided for decades.

The Commonwealth had a choice: act with integrity and contain this administratively, or force survivors into the courts and face the consequences. It chose the latter. The community it hoped would fade has not faded. Yes, survivors are ageing, but age has sharpened their purpose. They hold the documents. They have the whistleblowers. And they have the truth. They are not seeking another explanation, another meeting or another carefully worded assurance. The next stage of this reckoning will be tested in the courts, where evidence — not rhetoric — carries the weight. The concealment ends here. The State will be required to answer for its conduct, and the survivors it harmed will no longer be dismissed, delayed or denied.