Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse Must Be Given Time to Fulfil Task

Sydney Morning Herald
January 19, 2014

http://www.smh.com.au/comment/smh-editorial/inquiry-into-child-sexual-abuse-must-be-given-time-to-fulfil-task-20140119-312ov.html

Ensuring the abuse of children "never happens again": Justice Peter McClellan.

At this time of year we proudly, rightly, celebrate Australia and its achievements. But we acknowledge that success has not come without cost, and that we are not always - and in many aspects - as we would wish to be.

The Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sex Abuse is laying bare a side of society that many would prefer not to know about. In some of the institutions entrusted to protect them, our children have suffered prolonged sexual abuse. A hideous secret has been covered up.

The commission has marked its first birthday with what is becoming a characteristic blizzard of numbers. Thousands of phone calls and letters from victims, hundreds of meetings held around the country, hundreds of submissions received, hundreds of notices served on institutions to produce documents.

Its schedule of activity for this year is no less exhausting. This week it concludes hearings into the Catholic Church's Towards Healing protocol for handling sex abuse complaints. Next week it starts hearings to investigate how the Salvation Army responded to abuse claims in four of its homes: Bexley and Goulburn in NSW and Indooroopilly and Riverview in Queensland.

Between now and the end of June there will be 14 more public hearings into more institutions as well as round table discussions. Private schools, religious organisations, charities, foster care, hospitals, the courts - all are in its sights. A substantial research program continues.

The issue of a national compensation scheme looms large: the Catholic and Anglican churches have already proposed a scheme which would in effect relieve them of the burden of putting a price on suffering for which they are responsible. The inadequacies of the legal system in dealing with these matters will also be explored.

If the blizzard of statistics is eye glazing, it is worth recalling that each one points to precious human lives ruined, blighted or cruelly constrained by the treacherous actions (or inaction) of adults, often in collusion. Collectively, the numbers point to the enormity of the crimes the commission is charged with stamping out. Like any line in the budget, it survives only as long as the federal government is prepared to pay for it. In accounting meticulously for the commission's activities, chairman Justice Peter McClellan seems keenly aware of this.

It is not only heart breaking for the victims but a danger for the commission that people want to turn away from the awful truth now as they have in the past. The Herald understands that some readers will pass over the stories because they are too painful to think about. But we accept, as the commissioners accept, the obligation to bear witness on behalf of the nation. The commissioners' behind-the-scenes work in private hearings, listening to victims' first-hand accounts, one after the other, day after day, must be extraordinarily difficult. We salute them. Yet how much tougher is it for those who have lived those experiences daily, often not disclosing them until decades later or, as the evidence has shown, being disbelieved, punished or ostracised for trying to disclose them at the time?

There has been evidence of betrayal, cover-ups, incompetence, incomprehension, inaction and appalling indifference and insensitivity to victims and their families. Consider some of the headlines: ''Vatican told priest to offer a Mass every Friday for his victims'' (no other punishment was prescribed), ''Marist Brothers allowed (known) child molester to teach at Joeys'', ''No justice in Towards Healing response'', and ''Archbishop admits spectacular bungling of child abuse case.''

The commission has been invited to conclude that one of the nation's largest childcare providers, YMCA NSW, is not fit to care for children.

The commission is required to make findings and recommendations that lead to changes in laws, policies, practices and systems. Justice McClellan will soon start delivering findings on the four case studies to date. He is to hand down an interim report in June and the commission is meant to conclude its work by the end of next year. He has already indicated this will not be enough time.

Later this year he will probably lay out a timetable within which the commission reasonably expects to be able to complete its tasks.

It should not be allowed to go on indefinitely. But it should be given time to fulfil its obligation, as described by Justice McClellan, ''to ensure as far as possible the abuse of children never happens again''.