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	Primate Attacked on Abuse Deal By Kevin Meade The Australian [Australia] April 16, 2007 http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,20867,21562996-2702,00.html The leader of the Anglican Church in Australia has been accused of "doing a Pontius Pilate" and ignoring the needs of 41 people who say they were abused as children in a northern NSW orphanage. Lawyers for former residents of the home, who claim they were sexually and physically abused by clergy and staff at the North Coast Children's Home in Lismore from the 1940s to the 1970s, have accused Archbishop Phillip Aspinall of failing to help them secure a fair compensation deal. "He's doing a Pontius Pilate," one former resident, Richard Campion, 59, said yesterday. "He's washed his hands of us." The church's Grafton diocese has offered $825,000 in compensation to the 41 former residents. Child protection advocates have condemned the offer - under which individuals would receive amounts ranging from $16,000 to $26,000 - as woefully inadequate. The amounts offered are minimal compared to the $830,000 granted by a jury in 2001 to a former student at a Toowoomba school in a sexual abuse case which led to the resignation as governor-general of former Anglican Archbishop of Brisbane Peter Hollingworth. Archbishop Aspinall, who succeeded Dr Hollingworth as Archbishop of Brisbane and was appointed Primate in 2005, was hailed as a champion of the rights of people abused in Anglican institutions in a letter from the church to the former residents' lawyers last month. But lawyer Simon Harrison, of Nicol Robinson Halletts, said the Primate had "put forward every possible legal argument" as to why he could not help the former residents, including a claim that such compensation payments were the responsibility of individual dioceses and he could not intervene. "Our clients ask what therefore is the role of the head of the church," Mr Harrison said. "Our clients have taken the view that nothing has really changed except that the church has put itself back 40 years and, in their view, is its own worst enemy." According to correspondence seen by The Australian, the church informed Mr Harrison that Archbishop Aspinall had spoken on the compensation issue with Bishop Keith Slater, of Grafton diocese. "The Archbishop's position in the diocese is autonomous and therefore he has no sway with the diocese," Mr Harrison said in a letter to all 41 clients. "The Archbishop has also refused to contribute to any settlement." The Primate asked the church's director of professional standards, Rod McLary, to provide the clients with a "plain language" explanation of the church's structure. Mr McLary sent the lawyers the following explanation: "Each Anglican diocese is separate and autonomous, in the way the Queensland Government is separate from the NSW Government, for example, or the Brisbane City Council is separate from the Gold Coast City Council. Archbishop Aspinall could not be contacted for comment.
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