Sharing of Information Among Abuse Inquiries Is Essential

Sydney Morning Herald
May 6, 2013

http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/editorial/sharing-of-information-among-abuse-inquiries-is-essential-20130505-2j14y.html

Detective Chief Inspector Peter Fox will take the stand on Monday in the first public hearings of the NSW Special Commission of Inquiry into whether the Catholic Church hindered his and other investigations into child abuse.

The inquiry is welcome for victims in the Newcastle-Maitland diocese. It comes as non-church research shows most complainants feel they have been re-victimised by the relevant institutions and reports suggest a shortfall in NSW policing has left child abuse suspects uncharged.

But the start of the investigation also raises important issues of overlap with concurrent federal and Victorian inquiries.

In particular, the public needs to be sure key evidence and testimony in Victoria about allegedly suspect clergy can be used readily and legally by the NSW inquiry.

The NSW commission is the only one to specify the Catholic Church. Special commissioner Margaret Cunneen, SC, needs to avoid a witch-hunt by stressing that everyone must be accorded natural justice and that courts are the place for trials.

To its credit the Catholic Church has supported all three inquiries and is co-operating to help rebuild trust. The NSW commission will report by September.

Its terms of reference allow it to refer information to the national inquiry, which also has specific powers to share information with its state counterparts.

But the NSW commission has no official provision for sharing information with the Victorian inquiry. Without that, it could be more difficult, time consuming and legally vexed to examine issues common to each area of focus - knowledge of potential to offend, systemic cover-ups and shifting of clergy interstate.

The onus will be on the NSW commission to seek out information, with the risk that some will be overlooked and that documents given to the Victorian inquiry in confidence cannot be accessed. NSW may have to cede some investigations to the broader federal inquiry.

The Victorian parliamentary committee has been hearing testimony since October on how religious and other non-government organisations in that state respond to the criminal abuse of children. It, too, will report by September.

Already Victoria has heard evidence that may apply to NSW. Last week the national insurer owned by the Catholic Church gave testimony about what amounted to a blacklist of clergy it had refused to indemnify against abuse claims because of prior conduct.

The chief executive of Catholic Church Insurance, Peter Rush, told the inquiry: ''The application of our policy or the operation of our policy will not respond in the event of that prior knowledge of an offender.''

The committee chairman Georgie Crozier asked: ''Could you possibly provide the committee with all the people that the Catholic Church Insurance wouldn't provide cover for and including the dates and when those dates became effective?''

Yes, said Rush. He added that since 1990 the insurer had paid about $30 million to 600 victims but suggested it did not pay when it thought the church knew the offender's record.

The insurer must be given every chance to explain further how knowledge of previous abusive behaviour emerged and what was done about it in Victoria and beyond.

Rush has already made clear that it was general practice until the early 1990s for insurers to tell clients not to admit anything to victims and that minimising payouts was its primary motivation.

But outside Parliament the church has admitted that a director and chairman of the insurance company between 1971 and 1992, Monsignor Penn Jones, was a child abuser. The church said it found out in 2004 - nine years after he died. Rush became general manager in 1999.

The knowledge of the insurer should be front of mind for the NSW commission. To reassure the public that all avenues will be pursued in this inquiry, Premier Barry O'Farrell should write to his Victorian counterpart, Denis Napthine, to shore up support for information sharing.

If legal doubts arise, each state should amend the terms of reference of their inquiries.