NEWCASTLE (AUSTRALIA)
The Newcastle Herald
December 12, 2017
By Joanne McCarthy
REMOVING tax concessions to push “recalcitrant” churches to act on child sexual abuse reforms would have community support because “the public won’t tolerate” inaction after the five-year child abuse royal commission, said Julia Gillard on the eve of the commission’s final report.
Australians would be “waiting and watching” for any sense of church or political delay after a final Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse sitting on Thursday and the handing of the final report and recommendations to Governor General Sir Peter Cosgrove on Friday, Ms Gillard said this week after establishing the commission in 2012.
“Any sense that this is going to go on the back shelf and gather some dust, the community won’t tolerate it, the public won’t tolerate it,” she said.
She declined to predict if the royal commission would recommend linking tax concessions to reforms, after a public hearing in March where the Anglican church was warned to “get its house in order” or “the state could intervene by changing the money regime in relation to the church”.
The warning came after senior Anglicans told the commission the church had been unable to agree on uniform child protection regimes across the country.
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