Tackling justice and compensation for abuse victims must not be delayed

The Sydney Morning Herald
National Times

Editorial 
22-5-2013

BRON

The three concurrent inquiries into institutional child abuse are uncovering terrible suffering and will soon enough prompt calls for fairer measures of compensation. The federal royal commission does not tackle issues of reparations. But admissions by institutions such as the Catholic Church need to be dealt with beyond the inquiries.

Existing laws make it very difficult for victims to use the court system - and it is hardly preferable to have courts jammed with claims that prolong the wait for justice and increase the costs to the community.
This is particularly worrying as legal aid budgets are squeezed, compensation fund payouts limited and the allowable times for making a civil claim shrink.

While many victims will welcome the chance to tell their stories, governments need to co-ordinate a response to compensation. It should not be beyond the wit of governments to serve the needs of victims of crime while protecting the public purse.

Previous legislative attempts relating to the Stolen Generations are instructive.

While the Howard and Rudd governments blocked compensation, the Stolen Generations Compensation Bill of 2008 - and, in particular the associated parliamentary inquiry - covered the options of an ex gratia payment scheme or a no-fault compensation scheme. The schemes would have been managed by a tribunal. In the case of institutional child abuse, the government is not the defendant and as such cases will be even more complex. That means the legal system will carry the burden.

The better option is to design a scheme that can quickly assess child abuse claims and pay reparations capped at a nominal amount. It could likewise take into account payments already made by the institutions and allow for flexibility if court action is pursued.

In Ireland, a compensation scheme was set up by an act of parliament for victims of abuse by the Catholic Church. It was run by the Redress Board and victims could not double dip through it and the courts.

For NSW victims, their avenues of redress are already being curtailed. The government is putting a ceiling on the compensation payable to victims of crime, and a time limit on claims.
The changes will reduce the maximum compensation payouts to victims of crime from $50,000 to $15,000. Under the Victims Rights and Support Bill, an application must be made within 10 years of the act or, if the victim was a child when it occurred, within 10 years after they turn 18.

Attorney-General Greg Smith calls it a simpler scheme that gives victims immediate help with out-of-pocket expenses and access to free counselling. The changes were prompted by a $300 million deficit in the Victims Compensation Fund. But it is also apparent that Smith has subscribed to the view that it takes more than cash to mend wounds. He cites Howard Brown, a member of the NSW Victims Advisory Board which recommended the changes, that victims of sex abuse need counselling, not money. They need both.

As the Public Interest Advocacy Centre put it to the Senate committee in 2008: ''It is critical that a mechanism distinctly shaped by the needs of the Stolen Generations is put in place to service the dual objectives of redressing past harm and creating measures of reparation that offer enduring social, cultural and economic benefits to those affected.''

The advocacy centre proposed a model it claimed would allow for: access by those harmed to an agreed form of compensation; the existence of a scheme for financing a range of reparations measures; the possible containment of litigation, creating finality and certainty for governments and those affected; and an effective mechanism for providing social justice.

The same goals can be applied to any system of compensation for child abuse victims.

The O'Farrell government denies it is anything other than coincidence that its legislation has been brought into Parliament as the federal royal commission hearings into institutional abuse begin. The separate inquiry into child abuse cover-ups in the Hunter Valley and the Victorian parliamentary committee inquiry into that state's abuse are both due to report before the federal commission has its first public hearings.

Federal and state MPs need to work quickly to tackle the long-term issue of justice and compensation for victims.

Catholic clergy the worst abusers, inquiry told

The Age
20 - 10-2012

Catholic clergy commit six times as much abuse as those in the rest of the churches combined, ''and that's a conservative figure'', a child protection expert says.

Patrick Parkinson, a Sydney University law professor, told the state inquiry into how the churches handle sex abuse yesterday that the figures for the Catholic Church were strikingly out of proportion.
He proposed a 12-month amnesty from charges of perverting the course of justice if the church opened all its files on offenders alive and dead, but said those involved in cover-ups would have to resign.

Earlier, Victoria Police Deputy Commissioner Graham Ashton set the inquiry's opening day alight with more broadsides against the Catholic Church's systemic obstruction of police inquiries over five decades.

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He said police had statistics for sexual offences by clergy and church workers since January 1956, uncovering ''shocking'' figures: 2110 offences against 519 victims, overwhelmingly perpetrated by Catholic priests and mostly against boys aged 11 or 12. But in all that time the church had not reported a single crime to police.

Savaging the church's Melbourne Response protocol for dealing with complaints, Mr Ashton said: ''If a stranger were to enter a church and rape a child it would be immediately reported to police. But if the stranger were a member of the clergy, their special process would be wrapped around him. What is different about the clergy? It is the reputation of the church that creates the difference.''

He said the Melbourne Response was ''based on a flawed notion of independence'', with independent commissioner Peter O'Callaghan, QC, appointed and paid for by the church.

Mr O'Callaghan replied: ''Much of Mr Ashton's evidence and the police submission, both made under the cover of parliamentary privilege, are grossly misconceived, damaging and plainly wrong.'' He said he would ''correct and refute'' police evidence if he was called before the committee.

Melbourne Catholic Archbishop Denis Hart also came to Mr O'Callaghan's defence, with a public statement saying for the past 16 years the church had been ''honest and open'' in co-operating with police.

'Any suggestion of a lack of independence of the independent commissioners is a very serious attack on the professional integrity and competence of senior members of the Victorian bar,'' he said. ''I reject any such suggestion.''

 Professor Parkinson, who chaired a review of child protection laws in New South Wales and twice reviewed the church's national Towards Healing abuse protocol, said he broke with the Catholic Church over its cover-up of his independent report on the Salesians of Don Bosco.

Speaking under parliamentary privilege, he said the order sent three priests overseas to avoid police questioning, then suppressed his report on their actions.

He told the committee an American child safety expert had called the order ''the most defiant and unrepentant group'' in the church.

Professor Parkinson said: ''The lies were breathtaking, and [former Australian head] Father [Frank] Moloney was absolutely at the centre of all the untruths.''

Monash University child protection expert Chris Goddard lashed the ''partial and tokenistic'' mandatory reporting laws in Australia that carried no meaningful consequences for those who ignored them.

Professor Goddard, director of Child Abuse Prevention Research Australia, said only two people had been prosecuted since the law was introduced in 1993 for failing to report suspected abuse, and ''many times loss of life has followed'' that failure.

He also criticised training for child protection workers, saying that ''if we had the same disorganised approach for drink-driving there would be a public outcry. There should be independent visits to church homes, independent assessments of organisations, and compulsory training.''

Dr Daryl Higgins, deputy director of research at the Australian Institute of Family Studies, said victims were often not believed until they had reported the abuse five times.

Police scathing of Church's handling of abuse

 KLIK

October 19, 2012
The Age
 Jane Lee 

Victoria Police  (PDF) 
says  the Catholic Church has exacerbated the scourge of sexual abuse in the community by protecting clergy accused of abuse and not referring victims' reports to police.

Deputy Police commissioner Graham Ashton was one of the first people to give testimony at the first hearing of the state inquiry into the handling of sexual abuse by religious and other organisations today.

 "Sexual offending in our community is increasing ... in any large cross-section of any community you will get sexual offending," he said.

"Victoria Police has concerns that existing protocols within religious organisations may be more focused on internal church issues such as legal liability and public relations rather than long-term interest of victims."
He was sceptical of the Church's submission to the inquiry, which stated it had reversed its long-held position against mandatory reporting of abuse, except in circumstances where it needed to uphold the sanctity of the confessional.

"The Catholic Church have said that their protocols have changed ... if they're serious then they should be reporting rather than waiting for victims to come forward."

Mr Ashton said the Church's current protocol for handling child sexual allegations - its internal complaints systems Towards Healing and the Melbourne Archdiocese's Melbourne Response - lacked transparency and drove under-reporting of sexual abuse, as well as heightening adult impacts of abuse.

He questioned the need for either internal process to exist, saying the Church's protocols are "based on a flawed notion of independence" with Melbourne Response's independent commissioner Peter O'Callaghan, QC, appointed and paid for by the church.

"If a stranger were to enter the grounds of a church and rape the child then that rape would be reported to police and action expected," Mr Ashton said.

"But if that stranger happens to be a member of the clergy, such as a priest, the matter would not be ... a special process is wrapped around him which discourages a victim to complain to police, seeks to ensure the offending clergy member is not only not prosecuted and jailed, but never entered on the sex offenders register."

He told the committee that Victoria Police had conducted its largest analysis of child sexual abuse in religious organisations, taking in cases reported to it since 1956, but had not had a single referral from the Church in that time.

Mr Ashton's testimony ended with a small round of applause from some in the audience of about 50 people, which included victims, victims' advocates and journalists.