Inquiry swamped by abuse horrors

By Dan Box
Australian
June 12, 2014

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/in-depth/inquiry-swamped-by-abuse-horrors/story-fngburq5-1226951189305#

THE child abuse royal commission will ask the federal government to extend its work beyond next year, with the commission’s chairman saying it is currently dealing with allegations relating to more than 1000 institutions across the country.

When the commission was ­announced in November 2012, “no one had any realistic idea of the size of the task and the time that would be necessary to complete it”, judge Peter McClellan will tell an audience at Brisbane’s Griffith University today. The first interim report of the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse, due this month, will make the case for extending the 2015 deadline.

“This was always recognised as unlikely to be achieved,” Justice McClellan will say. “By the end of 2015 we estimate that … we will have been able to conduct only 40 public hearings. From the information we have collected we have concluded that there are at least 30 more institutions which must be examined.”

To date, the commission has held other, private, hearings with more than 1700 people, while a further 1000 people are waiting on such sessions and about 40 new requests are arriving each week, Justice McClellan will say.