Gay South Australian MP, David Wilkins, gave a powerful maiden speech to the SA Parliament this week, sharing his experiences growing up in foster care and navigating the justice system as a victim-survivor of child sexual abuse.
David Wilkins MP opened his maiden speech saying “To own my story, a story I share not because it will change the past, but in the hope it will change the future. Because stories shared here shape our future, and today I choose to write a different ending to my own.”
Wilkins and One Nation’s Jason Virgo are both out gay men elected to South Australia’s House of Assembly; both made very different maiden speeches this week.
Virgo, a former marriage equality campaigner and Sex Party candidate, said in his maiden speech that “I do not wave the flag in the air as I walk down the street.”
“I would rather my community hear it from me than from a potential political opponent or whispers, and if someone does seek to weaponise who I am, that says more about them than it does about me.”
He thanked his partner, “the love of my life”, who was “born in Indonesia, a Muslim and is now a proud Australian” and mentioned that his friendship circle was largely made of Chinese immigrants. He said “I love migrants” but that migration levels were too high and “two things can be true at once”.
In his speech, he said he would be the “loudest voice” in the chamber defending regional industries, farmers, fishers and families in the South East.
‘I’ve carried a deep sense of shame for too long’
Wilkins recounted how his father made the difficult decision to put him and his sister into foster care following his parents’ marriage breakdown.
He spoke of growing up as part of a big foster care family and having an “early drive to strive for excellence.”
He grew “under laws debated in this chamber, and to now stand here as a member of parliament entrusted with shaping those laws is profoundly significant to me.”
Wilkins said his experience “taught me another truth about our child protection system, a system which exists to protect children, where a single failure can carry lifelong consequences.”
“For too long. I’ve carried a deep sense of shame for too long. I’ve borne the invisible scars of an experience that has had a profound and lasting impact on who I am and how I move through the world. That ends today.”
MP Wilkins shared publicly that “I am a victim survivor of child sexual abuse, abuse which occurred during my teenage years while in a respite placement at the hands of a carer entrusted with my safety.”
“The abuse was not a single moment. It occurred over time, shaped by grooming that builds trust, creates confusion, and blurs boundaries in ways a young person often struggles to understand.”
‘I am no longer willing to carry this story in silence’
“At the time, I knew something was not right,” Wilkins said, “But like many young people in that position, I did not speak up.
“I did not want to disrupt relationships or cause any trouble, and yet the abuse only came to light as a result of mandatory reporting laws passed by this Parliament.”
Disclosure made by a close friend to a teacher “triggered a chain of events that led to a police investigation and subsequent court proceedings.”
“Had the disclosure not occurred, I suspect that abuse may have continued and may never have been reported,” he added.
“I have reflected deeply on what followed a lengthy legal process, which ultimately did not deliver the outcome that I and others had hoped for.”
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Wilkins said he returned to that experience “more often than I would like to admit” in the years to come.
“Grappling with the concept that a jury determined the evidence of my experience was not sufficient to meet the standard of proof beyond reasonable doubt, sitting in the witness box, replaying my evidence, whether I should have remembered more, explained things differently, been more composed in giving my evidence, carrying the quiet weight of the question, if I had done better, would the outcome have been different?”
‘No child should ever experience a breach of trust by someone placed in a position of care’
Wilkins shared how he was “left feeling that neither my voice nor the impact of my experience was fully heard,”
“The subsequent public commentary only deepened that feeling that experience does not end when court proceedings conclude. It lingers, and it shapes how you see and trust others and yourself.”
“I share this because it matters,” he continued, “Because no child should ever experience a breach of trust by someone placed in a position of care, and when the state assumes responsibility for the protection of a child, that responsibility must extend to every setting, every placement, and every person entrusted with their safety.”
In sharing his experience, Wilkins hopes that in some way he can contribute to improving how victim survivors are supported through court proceedings.
“I hope that someone listening, someone carrying their own experience in silence, might find the strength to speak up and know they deserve to be heard, because silence carries its own cost.”
“And after so many years, I am no longer willing to carry this story in silence. I cannot change what happened, but I can choose what it means.
He said he intends to contribute to better outcomes for young people, “but that responsibility does not sit with me alone, because the consequences of getting it wrong are not abstract; they are lived often for a lifetime.”
“I know that, because I’ve lived it.”
‘I couldn’t see anyone around me who felt like me’
Wilkins shared that he knows “what it is to feel powerless, and to believe parts of yourself must be hidden to be safe or accepted,” and how “adolescence became a period of torment, confusion, and shame,” because he didn’t have a framework to understand his sexuality.
“I couldn’t see anyone around me who felt like me, but I learned very quickly that being different was not a good thing.”
“It was something to be suppressed, not expressed. So I internalised it, I learned to monitor myself constantly, scanning myself through the eyes of others for a long time.”
“I tried desperately to do anything I could to convince others and myself that I wasn’t gay,” he said, “But no matter how hard I tried to control it or suppress it, it never really went away.
“Instead, what should have been a natural process of self-discovery became something far more complicated, far more confusing, and far more damaging.
“At a time when I was already grappling with my sense of identity, belonging, and sexuality, I found myself subjected to sexual abuse. That experience distorted my understanding. It shaped how I associated intimacy, trust, and safety, and it left me carrying more questions than answers.”
In University, he reached a point where” I was simply tired,” he said.
“Tired of pretending, tired of denying something that wasn’t going away, and so slowly I stopped fighting it, not in a single moment of clarity, but in a gradual acceptance that this was part of who I am.”
‘Systems matter, decisions matter’
“To be elected to this place as an openly gay man is significant, not because of who I am, but because of what it says about who we are,” he continued, “But it also reminds us that visibility alone is not enough.
“There are still young people who are sitting where I once sat, trying to make sense of who they are, while quietly carrying fear, shame, or uncertainty, and if there is any responsibility that comes with this moment, it is to make one thing clear to those young people, you are worthy, you are loved, you matter.”
SA Rainbow Advocacy Alliance thanked Wilkins “for your vulnerability, willingness to listen, and readiness to use your lived experience to make South Australia a better place.”
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Wilkins said he wants people to feel that when they come to their local member of parliament, “they are heard, that their experience matters, and that someone is prepared to stand alongside them and create change together.”
“Because if my life has taught me anything, it is this: systems matter, decisions matter, and when people fall through the cracks, the consequences are real.”
He said he would use his “voice for this community, for those who are overlooked, and for those too often not heard.”
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