Summary
That’s where we’ll end our coverage of the royal commission’s final report and the reaction to it.
You can read Melissa Davey’s report on it here.
- The inquiry ran for five years and held 444 days of public hearings
- It delivered its 17-volume final report to the governor general this morning
- It heard evidence related to 3,489 institutions, and heard from almost 8,000 witnesses in private sessions
- Most survivors (63.6%) were male
- 93.8% were abused by a male
- The average age of victims when first abused was 10.4 years
- Of those abused in a religious institution, 61.4% were in a Catholic institution, 14.8% Anglican, 7.2% Salvation Army and the rest in various denominations
The report contained 189 – often multi-part – recommendations, including:
- The federal government should establish a National Office for Child Safety, sitting within the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet
- Its first job should be to develop a national framework to prevent child sexual abuse
- The federal government should create a portfolio overseeing policy towards children
- Parish priests should no longer be the employers of principals and teachers in Catholic schools
- The Australian Catholic Bishops Conference should request the Holy See make substantial changes to canon law, including relaxing celibacy rules
Reaction:
- Melbourne archbishop Denis Hart and Sydney archbishop Anthony Fisher rejected a recommendation that there should be no exemption to mandatory reporting for child sexual abuse disclosed during a religious confession
- Hart said the sacredness of communication with God during confession should be above the law
- Fisher said any change would be a “distraction”
- The federal government has allocated $52.1m fora national redress scheme which will be taking applications by July 2018
- The federal government will use constitutional powers to compel states which do not opt in to the scheme
- Social services minister Christian Porter said the government will not raise the cap on compensation from $150,000 to the recommended $200,000
- Nor will it lift restrictions on convicted criminals who have served five years in jail from accessing the compensation scheme
Updated
The NSW government has established a taskforce to respond to the recommendations.
The taskforce will be made up of “representatives from across the NSW government”, Premier Gladys Berejiklian has said in a statement.
Attorney-general Mark Speakman said: “NSW will continue to engage cooperatively with the commonwealth and other jurisdictions with a view to developing a meaningful and practical national scheme for redress as soon as possible. Our primary objective remains ensuring appropriate recognition of the ongoing hurt experienced by survivors.”
Updated
The royal commission’s report contained deadlines.
All Australian governments should issue a formal response to the commission’s findings within six months from now “indicating whether our recommendations are accepted, accepted in principle, rejected or subject to further consideration”.
Within 12 months all Australian governments should deliver its first of five annual reports on their implementation of the recommendations made in this final report and its earlier working with children checks, redress and civil litigation and criminal justice reports.
Also within the next 12 months, major institutions and peak bodies of institutions that engage in child-related work should deliver the first of five annual reports on their implementation of the recommendations.
Ten years from now the federal government should hold a review into the implementation of today’s recommendations, examining how many have been acted upon, to what extent it has improved the situation, and to advise on next steps.
It’s also given 12-18 months for states to change working with children laws and for state and federal laws and regulations to become more consistent.
Updated
There are 189 recommendations and AAP has gathered a quick list of some of the most significant ones.
National:
- New National Office for Child Safety within the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet
- Office to report to parliament, develop new national framework for child safety, and become a stand-alone body within 18 months
- States and territories to aid development of new national framework for child safety
- Regular, national studies on extent of child abuse in institutions, other settings
- New federal minister responsible for mitigating abuse risks, and keeping kids safe
For victims:
- National helpline and website to support victims
- Legal advice service to help victims launch criminal and civil proceedings against abusers
- More federal and state funds to close gaps in sexual assault services
- A national memorial for victims of institutional abuse
For abusers and informants:
- Better support services for adults who fear they’ll become abusers and seek for help
- Strong legal protections for informants who report alleged abuse in good faith
Legal and religious change:
- Removal of any time limits on damages cases involving child institutional abuse
- New criminal offence, called failure to report, requiring all adults to report known or suspected child abuse in religious and other institutions
- Offence would cover clergy, who would have to disclose any abuse admissions made during religious confession
- Australian Catholic Bishops Conference should push the Vatican to make celibacy voluntary, publish criteria for the selection of bishops, and remove time limits for actions over abuse claims
- Conference should push the Vatican for a broad overhaul of canon law, seeking specific references to sexual crimes against children
- Conference should seek to end use of “pontifical secret” so it can no longer be applied to abuse allegations
Education:
- Mandatory education programs in preschools and schools aimed at preventing abuse
- Expanded education programs for parents about abuse risks
- National curriculum for online safety education in schools
Carers:
- Yearly reviews of out-of-home carers, including private interviews with children placed with them
Schools:
- Coag must consider strengthening teacher registration requirements
- In particular, Coag should review minimum national requirements for assessing suitability of teachers
Youth detention:
- Youth detention centres should consider using technology, such as CCTV and body-worn cameras, to film child/staff interactions
- Children must be kept out of adult prisons
Updated
Sydney bishop: recommendation to change confession rules a 'distraction'
Senior Catholic leaders in Australia aren’t keen on the recommendation they be legally required to report abuse disclosed during a confessional.
We’ve already heard from Melbourne archbishop and president of the Catholic Bishops Conference, Denis Hart, maintaining he would never break the confessional seal.
A short time ago Sydney archbishop Anthony Fisher agreed.
Speaking to media in Sydney Fisher said changing mandatory reporting of abuse that comes to light through confession was “a distraction”.
“While we are yet to study what the commission has had to say about that, I think everyone understands that this Catholic and orthodox practice of confession is always confidential,” he said.
“Any proposal to stop the practice of confession in Australia would be a real hurt to all Catholics and Orthodox Christians.”
He said confession rarely unearthed abuse and, on the rare occasion it did, may present an opportunity to move the offender to self-report.
He struck a similar tone around the report’s recommendation that celibacy should be voluntary for clergy.
“We know very well that institutions who have celibate clergy and institutions that don’t have celibate clergy both face these problems,” he said.
“We know very well that this happens in families that are certainly not observing celibacy. It’s an issue for everybody, celibate or not, how we make sure children are treated appropriately and kept safe.”
Updated
Yesterday McClellan presented the National Library of Australia with a book of around 1,000 messages handwritten by survivors of institutional child sexual abuse.
Survivors’ share their experiences and their hopes for creating a safer environment for children in the future. A slideshow containing all the messages in the Message to Australia book can be found here.
I’ll be publishing some of them throughout the live coverage of the report and its findings.
Updated
Here’s what the report had to say about the barriers to reporting:
- 22% of those who disclosed abuse as an adult, and 26% of those who disclosed in childhood said they had thought they would not be believed if they spoke up
- 20% said they had not reported abuse as a child because they feared retribution
- 28% of those who had disclosed as a child said fear of retribution stopped them from disclosing sooner
- 5% who spoke to the commission in a private session said the perpetrator had threatened them or their family
Updated
The Reckoning – part two
The second part of Guardian Australia’s podcast on the royal commission – The Reckoning – has just been released.
Featuring David Marr and Melissa Davey, this episode follows the hearings of the royal commission, from the witness testimony in Ballarat (“a town steeped in this history of abuse”) to the final hearings in Sydney.
Warning: the podcast contains material that is is explicit and upsetting
Hart says the commission is being “seriously regarded” by the Holy See.
“There is a point of contact now within the secretariat of state from which we can feed the information here, the decisions, I’m sure the recommendations of the royal commission, straightaway, so that the Holy See will know what is proposed and will be able to consider it. So I think that represents a great step forward.”
The press conference comes to an end.
Hart finishes by saying: “I hope this is an opportunity for us all to move forward courageously where there are difficulties and try and work together for the welfare of all Australians.”
Updated
The reporters are going quite hard on Hart’s refusal to support breaking the confessional seal to report abusers.
Question: What if you could save some people from abuse by breaking that seal? After all that’s happened and all that has come out in the royal commission?
Hart: “I would feel terribly conflicted, and I would try even harder to get that person outside confessional, but I cannot break the seal. The penalty for any priest breaking the seal is excommunication, being cast out of the church, so it’s a real, serious, spiritual matter, and I want to observe the law of the land, and I want to do everything I can to end this awful scourge, and I’m committed to that.”
Question: You would rather not be excommunicated from the church rather than have one extra child abuser as a result of that decision?
Hart: “I know it’s a terrible proposition. I admit the proposition. I would say to you, though, it’s a very, very long bow that anyone would come to me in confession.”
Archbishop of Melbourne Denis Hart says if he was told about child abuse in confession: "I would feel terribly conflicted. But I cannot break the seal." .... "The penalty for breaking the seal is excommunication." #RoyalCommission @abcmelbourne @abcnews pic.twitter.com/4pFvEIi41w
— James Oaten (@james_oaten) December 15, 2017
Updated
Asked why it took a royal commission to reveal the extent of abuse, Hart says the Catholic church has been “at the forefront of trying to do the right thing”.
“I’ve only been a bishop since 1997, so I really came in at a time when the Melbourne response towards healing existed,and there was an increasing awareness, and the removal of priests from the industry who had offended, so in one sense the work had already commenced.”
Pushed further on why the church hadn’t investigated beyond the criticised Melbourne response, for instance turning it over to authorities
“I think it’s taken time for bishops to realise the seriousness of the matter, and others would say the idea of an organisation investigating itself – I’m not saying that as an excuse,” he says.
“I certainly admit we could and should have done more. I’m grateful to the royal commission because I don’t think we could have done it in the forensic, objective way right across the community that this terrible evil demands.”
Asked for a personal reflection on the way the church has dealt with complainants, Hart says he thinks it’s been “a slow learning curve”.
“My own personal reflection is that we could have done great things more quickly. But moving along, little by little, I think the royal commission has been the stimulus.”
Updated
Contrary to the statements of many Catholic church representatives, Archbishop Hart does not think the commission has damaged the credibility of the church.
I would say that we are diminished because our people are sad at what has happened. Many people are angry at the betrayal of the trust that should have been able to be given to leaders and priests and so on. So I think the situation has changed.
We have a lot of ground to recover, and in recovering that ground we have to show not only in the area of child protection but in other areas that we are walking forward with our society, that we are a humble church, recognising we are a church of sinners, but we are also a church that will walk forwards in the areas that are so important, and the most important is the whole question of eradicating child sexual abuse.”
First up Hart is asked about the recommendation for an end to protection of the confessional.
He’s sticking to his previous statements that he’s committed to the sacredness of the confessional, and doesn’t think canon law will change.
BREAKING: The archbishop of the archdiocese of Melbourne, Denis Hart, has just reiterated his comments from August that "the seal of the confessional" can't be broken, even if someone reports child sexual abuse in confession. Priest will not report to police, says Hart.
— Melissa Davey (@MelissaLDavey) December 15, 2017
The commission recommended it be made a criminal offence not to report a confession of child abuse, even if made under the seal of the confession.
“The seal of the confessional, or the relationship with God that’s carried through the priest and with the person, is inviolable. It can’t be broken. And the cardinal secretary of state mentioned that and notified the bishops even as recently as last month.”
Hart says he wouldn’t give absolution to someone who confessed to child sexual abuse until they took themselves to the authorities. If a child told him they had been abused he would guide them to parents or teachers “to see that that was reported”.
“I couldn’t report the abuse from what I heard in the confessional but I would be trying to do everything I could to get the person outside and say, hey, what you are doing is really serious and criminal, and for the good of society and your own good, we’ve got to go to the authorities, so I would be very strong on that.”
Asked if church law is more important than the law of the land, Hart says he reveres the law of the land and trusts it, “but this is a sacred, spiritual charge before God which I must honour, and I have to try and do what I can do with both”.
Hart however, does anticipate the Catholic bishops conference will take to the Holy See a recommendation that canon law be changed to relax compulsory celibacy for clergy.
Updated
Melbourne Catholic Archbishop Denis Hart is speaking now.
“I reiterate on behalf of the Catholic bishops and religious leaders, our unconditional apology for this suffering and our commitment to ensuring justice for those affected.”
He says the Truth Justice and Healing Council’s assessment of the report should be completed by early 2018.
He says national coverage by a redress scheme will not be possible without the cooperation of all Australian states and territories.
“It is now time for state governments and all of us to act.
“Central to this royal commission is the painful truth that so many children were abused, trust was destroyed and innocence lost. They are sons and daughters, brothers and sisters.”
Updated
The $52.1m redress scheme will be up and operational and taking applications at 1 July next year, Porter pledges.
He says given the amount of consultation involved – describing it as one of the most difficult professional tasks of his life – he couldn’t realistically see it happening any faster.
“I believe over the next several weeks we will see churches and institutions opting in, and that took an enormous amount of consultation with the advisory committee to get very difficult issues like ... restrictions on former offenders being able to apply ... designed in an appropriate way that people can be satisfied with and which engages public confidence and makes it a doable scheme ...
“The worst ... possible thing is the lack of response. They should respond in principle quickly.”
Regarding other Australian jurisdictions, Porter says: “I would expect most state attorney-generals and ministers responsible will be giving you some kind of indication in the next couple of days. That is an answer that only those jurisdictions can provide.”
Updated
Porter: No raise in compensation cap, no access for criminals
Social services minister Christian Porter is addressing media.
Porter has thanked the commissioners and all the survivors and witnesses who told their stories.
“The royal commission is a process of recognition and validation for all the survivors,” he said, and today was a day that was first, foremost and fundamentally about recognising them. However, he did take questions.
Asked about what he would take to COAG, Porter responds:
“When you look across the recommendations it is inevitable that some will be resolved by all state jurisdictions. Many are matters that pertain directly to state and territory laws so COAG will be a necessary measure. But we need to look and ingest the recommendations. We need to look at the best way forward and that all the structures at our disposal.”
On whether there were any problematic recommendations:
“We ... will consider the recommendations but it would be less than honest if we pretended that there is simplicity in the way which responses will occur.”
Porter says the government has a track record of responding quickly to recommendations and the interim report.
“We have not done anything other than respond swiftly with every mechanism in our disposal to make sure we can put in place the proper reform settings to ensure these horrific events do not systemically occur into the future.”
How long will people have to wait to see change?
Porter again notes the complexity of what’s needed.
“Where we have been directly responsible and able to show leadership, we have done it. Our track record is one of responding quickly and forcibly with every resource at our disposal and we will keep doing that.”
Would he consider raising the compensation cap from $150,000 to $200,000?
In a word, no.
Porter says the government has “fully or substantially” adopted 63 of the 74 redress recommendations. Seven were partially adopted, including that recommendation.
“We chose that $150,000 figure understanding that no amount of money can place people in a position they were in before those dreadful events happened. We wanted a low legal hurdle system and one that makes the most opt in from churches and other institutions and jurisdictions. It was determined on because that payment would allow maximum opt in.”
What of jurisdictions that have indicated they won’t opt in to the national redress scheme?
Porter says several jurisdictions have indicated they’re likely to join.
“South Australia has indicated they are not inclined to join the national scheme. The remaining jurisdictions, Northern Territory and the ACT are likely to join. And we will use our constitutional powers to compel them to join if it comes to that but that is unlikely.”
Will the government reconsider the ban on convicted criminals accessing compensation? [Turnbull made comments this morning suggesting it might].
“It is a final position. This is the issue with respect to the fact that we have drawn a line around taking applications from people who have committed a serious criminal offence and have spent five years or more in prison and the determination based on 12 months of consultation with many institutions and advisory committees, it is absolutely necessary around a full national opt in redress scheme is public confidence.”
Updated
Federal government funds $52.1m redress scheme
Malcolm Turnbull has announced the government will provide $52.1m “to ensure there is support and assistance for victims throughout the process of accessing redress”.
It will also establish a taskforce to coordinate action on the report’s recommendations and track the progress of all Australian governments. It will start in January and run for 18 months.
“The joint select committee on the royal commission into institutional responses to child sexual abuse – oversight of redress related recommendations, will be chaired by Senator Derryn Hinch,” said Turnbull.
The federal government won’t respond to the report in full until the new year.
Updated
The Truth Justice and Healing Council says many of the recommendations relating to the Catholic Church “seem to be very sensible and practical”.
Francis Sullivan, chief executive of the council which coordinates the Catholic Church’s response to the commission, said the commission identified “a range of factors” that might have contributed to abuse in Catholic institutions.
What now needs to be made clear by the Church leadership is that they take these recommendations and findings seriously and that they are willing to act swiftly in implementing the findings.
This process will start with the TJHC doing a comprehensive analysis of the report and in particular the recommendations that relate either generally or specifically to the Catholic church. We expect to have this report finalised and provided to the church leadership early in 2018.
While there have been many changes over the past 20 years to the way in which the Catholic church responds to the survivors of child sexual abuse, there is still much to be done.
The work of rebuilding trust and confidence in the Catholic church will be hard and will take many years. This report and its findings provide, at the very least, a way in which this can be achieved. It is essential that every element of the Catholic church in Australia commits to the serious business ahead.
Many of the recommendations are consistent with recommendations made by the TJHC throughout the commission’s issues papers process.”
Updated
Recommendations: Ask the pope to change canon law
The Australian Catholic Bishops Conference should request the Holy See to amend aspects of canon law – including that which dictates celibacy – the royal commission has recommended.
Among the recommendations are several calling for the conference to ask the pope to amend or create new laws that:
- Consider establishing an Australian tribunal for trying canonical disciplinary cases against clergy
- ensure Vatican Congregations and canonical appeal courts always publish [in a timely manner] decisions in disciplinary matters relating to child sexual abuse, and provide written reasons for their decisions [unless suppression is required to protect a victim]
- Remove the requirement to destroy documents relating to canonical criminal cases in matters of morals, where the accused cleric has died or ten years have elapsed from the condemnatory sentence
- Amend the ‘imputability’ test in canon law so that a diagnosis of paedophilia is not relevant to the prosecution of or penalty for a canonical offence relating to child sexual abuse
- Consider introducing voluntary celibacy for diocesan clergy
In September a report, which looked at findings from commissions and inquiries across the globe, found Catholic sexual abuse was partly caused by secrecy and mandatory celibacy.
BREAKING: THIS IS BIG - Royal Commission recommends Holy See consider introducing voluntary celibacy for diocesan clergy pic.twitter.com/HE13tQkI7e
— Emma Alberici (@albericie) December 15, 2017
Updated
Recommendation: Abuse disclosed in religious confession must be reported
There has been a bit of attention on one particular recommendation - that religious confessions no longer be protected and that failing to report child sexual abuse should be a criminal offence - but this is one that had actually come out already earlier this year.
At the time, the president of the Australian Catholic Bishops Conference, Archbishop Denis Hart, upset many abuse survivors and advocates when he said he would risk going to jail rather than report allegations of child sexual abuse raised during confession.
He said the sacredness of communication with God during confession should be above the law.
In a statement issued on Friday Hart said abuse within Catholic institutions was “a shameful past, in which a prevailing culture of secrecy and self-protection led to unnecessary suffering for many victims and their families”.
“Once again I reiterate my unconditional apology for this suffering and a commitment to ensuring justice for those affected,” he said.
Hart did not address the topic of confession in today’s statement, but the archbishop of Sydney, Anthony Fisher, is expected to hold a press conference any minute now.
Updated
Blue Knot Foundation president Dr Cathy Kezelman says the report has identified “fundamental flaws in existing regulatory and compliance mechanisms and notable blocks to justice in our wider legal and justice system”.
Blue Knot is a national organisation supporting adult survivors of childhood trauma.
“At the very least we need consistency across our criminal and civil litigation jurisdictions so that perpetrators and institutions are brought to account and victims have access to a non-re-traumatising civil process,” Kezelman says, calling for trauma-informed training for police, lawyers and justice personnel.
“If the findings tell us nothing else, it’s that we urgently need all parties to take moral accountability and use the power, once wielded to protect perpetrators and institutions, to work together without delay in protecting the human rights and dignity of our children and citizens.
“The Commission has been ground-breaking. It’s critical that we don’t now close the book on its work and the thousands who believed in its processes.”
Updated
The archbishop of Sydney, Anthony Fisher, has promised the report “will not sit on any shelf”.
I will study the findings and recommendations carefully, and then provide a detailed response as we discern, with the rest of the community, the best way forward.
Many of the findings and recommendations will come as no surprise, as they have been touched upon during the life of the Royal Commission; others will require further examination.
But what I can say is that I’m appalled by the sinful and criminal activity of some clergy, religious and lay church-workers, that I’m ashamed of the failure to respond by some church leaders, and that I stand ready to address any systemic issues behind this.”
Fisher said the Catholic church in Australia had been trying to respond to the concerns for the past two decades, and had “come a long way from where we were when most of these terrible crimes occurred in the 1960s, 70s and 80s”, but there was always more the be done.
- This post was amended to correctly identify the Catholic archbishop, Anthony Fisher.
Updated
“The churches and charities no longer wield the power over the poor and the voiceless,” says Leonie Sheedy, head of the Care Leavers Network.
“You know, governments have to take these recommendations seriously and not give sway to those powerful churches – they were powerful in the past. They’re no longer powerful. You know, the little people have risen up, we’ve found our voices and we’re never ever going to be quiet.”
Sheedy said she and others would continue to advocate for redress and change in every Australian jurisdiction, with participation from every state, territory and institution. She accused South Australia of “dragging the chain” on national redress.
“We demand the prime minister and Bill Shorten and Richard Di Natale – this needs to be bipartisan and you need to care about all Australian children and all of us who are elderly care leavers and probably end up in a nursing home and that’s probably our greatest fear – that we’ll be re-interfered with by aged care facilities, they even name some of those nursing homes the same names as our orphanages we grew up in. How traumatic will that be for people like us?”
Sheedy appeared on ABC holding a sign which read “thank you Julia Gillard”.
“It took the first female prime minister and it took an atheist. We would never have gotten this royal commission, we would ever have got the light shone on our horrific histories if it hadn’t been for Julia. A huge, sincere thanks, Julia Gillard, from all care leavers of Australia.”
Updated
Yesterday McClellan presented the National Library of Australia with a book of around 1,000 messages handwritten by survivors of institutional child sexual abuse.
Survivors’ share their experiences and their hopes for creating a safer environment for children in the future. A slideshow containing all the messages in the ‘Message to Australia’ book can be found here.
I’ll be publishing some of them throughout the live coverage of the report and its findings
Recommendation: National framework for child safety
A key recommendation in the report calls for the federal government to establish a National Office for Child Safety, sitting within the department of prime minister and cabinet, with its first job to develop a national framework to prevent child sexual abuse.
Within 18 months the office should become a statutory body.
The federal government should also create a federal ministerial portfolio overseeing children’s policy issues including the to-be-developed national framework.
The framework should:
- Commit governments to improving the safety of all children by implementing longterm child safety initiatives, with appropriate resources, and holding them to account
- Be endorsed by the Council of Australian Governments and overseen by a joint ministerial body
- Commence after the expiration of the current National Framework for Protecting Australia’s Children, no later than 2020
- Cover broader child safety issues, as well as specific initiatives to better prevent and respond to institutional child sexual abuse including initiatives recommended by the Royal Commission
- Include links to other related policy frameworks
Updated
Current prime minister, Malcolm Turnbull, has also responded to the report’s release. Speaking in Sydney, he encouraged everyone to read it.
“I want to thank the Royal Commissioners for their work. It’s been very tough, often harrowing work, but above all, I want to thank and honour the courage of the survivors and their families who’ve told, often for the first time, the dreadful stories of abuse that they received from people who actually owed them love and protection.
“What that commission has done has exposed a national tragedy.”
Updated
Then prime minister, Julia Gillard, announced the royal commission in 2012, saying there had been “a systemic failure to respond to [child sexual abuse]”.
“These are insidious, evil acts to which no child should be subject. There have been too many revelations of adults who have averted their eyes from this evil.”
A short time ago Gillard gave her thanks to the inquiry at the end of their five years of work.
On this historic day, my personal thanks go to the Royal Commissioners and all who supported their work. Our nation is indebted to you and to the survivors who fought so hard for justice and a safer future for our children. JG
— Julia Gillard (@JuliaGillard) December 15, 2017
Recommendation: Priests shouldn't be in charge of employing teachers
The commission has made comprehensive recommendations about reform needed in Catholic institutions.
Earlier we posted a finding that almost 63% of survivors who reported abuse in a religious institution named that institution as managed by the Catholic church.
A key finding was that Catholic schools in the Archdiocese of Melbourne have a “dysfunctional” employment structure, where the parish priest is the employer of the school principal and school staff for parish schools.
“There is a risk that having the priest as employer could act as a barrier to people reporting concerns about child sexual abuse,” the report found.
“We recommend that parish priests should not be the employers of principals and teachers in Catholic schools.”
The commissioners found numerous cases where alleged perpetrators were priests associated with Catholic schools, and concluded the relevant bishop or archbishop knew of the allegations but failed to take action or protect children.
“Their inaction left these priests in positions where they had ongoing access to children in Catholic schools. It was left to principals and teachers to attempt to manage the risk these individuals posed to children.”
The report also found “child sexual abuse by Catholic clergy and religious may be explained by a combination of psychosexual and other related factors on the part of the individual perpetrator, and a range of institutional factors, including theology, governance and culture.
“The same theological, governance and cultural factors that contributed to the occurrence of the abuse also contributed to inadequate responses of Catholic institutions to that abuse.”
Updated
- The majority of survivors (64.3%) were male
- More than half of survivors told us that they were aged between 10 and 14 years when they were first sexually abused
-
Female survivors generally reported being younger when they were first sexually abused than male survivors reported
- 14.3% of survivors were Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people
- 4.3% of survivors told us they had disability at the time of the abuse
- 3.1% of survivors were from culturally or linguistically diverse backgrounds
- 93.8% of survivors told us they were abused by a male
- 83.8% of survivors said they were abused by an adult
- 10.4% of survivors were in prison at the time of their private session
- The average duration of child sexual abuse experienced in institutions was 2.2 years
- 36.3% of survivors said they were abused by multiple perpetrators.
Leonie Sheedy and other members the Care Leavers Australasia Network (Clan) waited outside Government House in Canberra to greet commissioner Justice Peter McClellan of the royal commission into child sexual abuse as he arrived to hand over the final report to the Australian governor general Sir Peter Cosgrove.
Updated
From the report:
More than one in three survivors (36%) said they were sexually abused in pre-1990 out-of-home care – primarily in residential institutions, such as children’s homes, missions or reformatories.
Just under one-third (31.8%) said they were abused in a school, and 14.5% said they were abused while involved in religious activities, such as attending a church or seminary.
More than one in five survivors (21%) said they were sexually abused in more than one institution.
Of those survivors who told us about the types of institution where they were abused, 58.6% said they were sexually abused in an institution managed by a religious organisation.
Almost 2,500 survivors told us about sexual abuse in an institution managed by the Catholic church. This was 61.8% of all survivors who reported sexual abuse in a religious institution. It was 36.2% of all survivors who came to a private session.
Updated
From the report:
2,203 survivors (or 32%) in private sessions told us they were abused in an institution under government management, most commonly schools, out-of-home care, youth detention and healthcare facilities.
More than 10% of survivors (714) told us that they were sexually abused in institutions that were not under government or religious management.
Of these survivors, almost two-thirds (63.3%) said the abuse occurred in a private organisation, such as a childcare centre, a medical practice or clinic, a music or dance school, an independent school, a yoga ashram or a sports club.
More than one-third (36.1%) told us they were sexually abused in a non-government or not-for-profit organisation.”
From the report’s preface:
It is now apparent that across many decades, many of society’s institutions failed our children. Our child protection and criminal and civil justice systems let them down.
Although the primary responsibility for the sexual abuse of a child lies with the abuser and the institution of which they were part, we cannot avoid the conclusion that the problems faced by many people who have been abused are the responsibility of our entire society.
Society’s values and mechanisms which were available to regulate and control aberrant behaviour failed.
...
Although, inevitably, the Royal Commission has looked at past events, it is important that the momentum for change initiated by the Royal Commission’s work is not lost and that lasting changes to protect children are implemented.
The Royal Commission has been concerned with the sexual abuse of children within institutions. However, notwithstanding the problems we have identified in institutions, the number of children who are sexually abused in familial or other circumstances far exceeds those who are abused in an institution.
The sexual abuse of a child is intolerable in a civilised society. It is the responsibility of our entire community to acknowledge that children are vulnerable to abuse. We must each resolve that we will do what we can to protect them. The tragic impact of abuse for individuals and through them our entire society demands nothing less.
Final report published online
It contains 17 volumes – some of which themselves contain multiple volumes. The first alone is more than 330 pages. We’ll bring you key findings as we go through it.
The executive summary is here (pdf).
Updated
The Anglican church has released a statement this morning ahead of the release of the final report, which will then be tabled to parliament out of session and made public, we’ve been told, before noon.
The commission has been releasing a series of incremental reports about abuse in various institutions in the lead-up to their final report being delivered to the governor general today, and last week released damning findings about the Anglican diocese of Newcastle.
The commission found paedophiles were allowed to harm children for at least 30 years within the diocese because of a series of failures by leaders, who had a “do nothing” approach to reports of abuse.
In a statement, the head of the Anglican church of Australia, Melbourne Archbishop Dr Philip Freier, said the Anglican church of Australia has “deeply appreciated” the work of the royal commission.
“The commissioners and their staff have been diligent for five years, delving into matters thatmust have been distressing for commissioners and staff as well as survivors,” Freier said.
“Case studies involving branches of the Anglican church have been shocking and distressing forAnglicans, and have confronted us with our failings ... we admit that sometimes we have been slow to grasp the extent or severity of abuse.
“There has been a change in the wider culture of the Anglican church about child abuse as allelements of the church have had to face our failures – a change that, again, was largely due to the royal commission and the church’s response.
“Once again, I apologise on behalf of the church to survivors, their families, and others harmed by our failures and by the shameful way we sometimes actively worked against and discouraged those who came to us and reported abuse. The work of making the church a safe place is never finished and cannot be taken for granted. We will engage with the final report released today to improve our systems, protocols and procedures.”
Updated
Yesterday McClellan presented the National Library of Australia with a book of around 1,000 messages handwritten by survivors of institutional child sexual abuse.
The book, titled ‘Message to Australia’ is a collation of personal messages written by those who shared their story to the royal commission in a private session addressed to the Australian community.
Survivors’ share their experiences and their hopes for creating a safer environment for children in the future. A slideshow containing all the messages in the ‘Message to Australia’ book can be found here.
I’ll be publishing some of them throughout the live coverage of the report and its findings.
Prof Leah Bromfield, the co-director of the Australian Centre for Child Protection at the University of South Australia, for a time served as professorial fellow to the commission, helping to determine its research priorities.
With this royal commission there’s been a real focus on the horrific harm that occurred in orphanages, in children’s homes and institutions of the past. But some of the work of the research agenda really showed that for a particular high-risk group of children, this is not a story of the past.
These institutions continue the exploitation of our most vulnerable children and they continue to feel unsafe. So this royal commission has shined a light on this problem. It has exposed a national shame in terms of the way our children were treated in the past. But it’s not over. We can never rest on our laurels. We have to continue to improve the lives of children. Personally, I’ve never lost my ability to be astounded at the way that some adults can treat children.
We’ve had five years where we’ve been trying to say [to survivors] ‘You matter. This matters. Your story matters’.
And if we drop it like a hot potato, I can’t imagine how devastating the impact of that would be.”
Prof Daryl Higgins, the director of the Institute of Child Protection Studies within the Australian Catholic University.
I will be quietly rejoicing wherever I am [when the royal commission tables its report] because I think it’s been an incredible journey. I have the utmost respect for the commissioners themselves and for all of the research and policy staff involved in the investigations and the preparation of the report.
But it’s the first real chapter if you like in what I think is going to be an ongoing piece of work and I’ll be putting my efforts into the next stage of the work and one of those is looking at how we can increase accessibility for organisations to some of the key messages that have already been coming out through research that royal commission has commissioned and has published already. And more importantly than that trying to help translate that into key messages that are implementable on the ground.
Justice Peter McClellan has delivered the final report of the royal commission to the governor general. pic.twitter.com/nGLKHwjCrj
— Helen Davidson (@heldavidson) December 15, 2017
Now that is one BIG report #auspol #RoyalCommission Coming to a website near you pic.twitter.com/EZZw0P2MFW
— Paul Osborne AAP (@osbornep) December 14, 2017
I spoke with several experts, advocates and survivors in the lead-up to the final report being tabled. Here are what some of them had to say about the royal commission’s work, the abuse it uncovered, and what they want to happen next.
Former detective chief inspector Peter Fox, who in 2012 had a letter published in the Newcastle Herald that said child sexual abuse was being covered up by police and religious institutions.
It was all about protecting their name, protecting the reputation of the organisation or the institution. And as a result of protected individuals – and I’ve made the comment in the past and I don’t shy away from it still today – it was simply organised crime, and in many cases it was organised crime on an international scale. Because the very same systems, the very same methods of covering up and moving clergy from one parish to another, of placing them on sick leave or similar things when the abuse was uncovered, wasn’t just happening here in Australia.
It was exposed ... in Boston. It was the same that was happening in Britain, it was the same that was happening across Europe. So certainly there seemed to be some degree of coordination and you can make those comparisons as to how the cover up was being managed and it was almost identical in locations right across the world.
When he was 18 years old, Manny Waks turned his back on life within the Orthodox sect of Judaism known as Chabad after suffering years of sexual abuse. He was the whistleblower who exposed abuse within Yeshivah.
I think there is no way of guaranteeing a 100% safe, child-safe institution, because pedophiles exist. Child abusers exist. There are those who will always be willing to put their needs, their desires, ahead of anything else, for whatever reason. Sometimes it could be related to mental illness. Some of it could be related to the fact that they are just evil people. But we can put in mechanisms that ensure many vulnerabilities are mitigated.
If we have an organisation that has robust policies and procedures in place, that’s one great tick of approval. But what about the culture? How is the leadership? How do they address this issue? We must remember this is a royal commission into institutional responses to child sexual abuse, where the reality is the vast majority of abuse of sexual abuse happens within the family home environment. Babysitters, tutors, parents grandparents, their parents and the like. Older siblings. Cousins.
So I think we need to utilise this opportunity the royal commission has given us to broaden our awareness and our education around this issue because I think to me education and awareness are the most critical in combating this issue. It really it’s everyone’s responsibility. I don’t know of a particular initiative, a government initiative, a project that has had such an impact on society as the royal commission. It’s been historic. I think what we can do is utilise it and the information and the learnings that have come out of it.
Updated
McClellan has formally delivered the report to the governor general, Sir Peter Cosgrove.
Two versions of the report have been delivered - one of which has been redacted for publication now, and an unredacted version McClellan recommends be published once all criminal proceedings have been completed.
The governor general accepts the report:
I accept the report on the letters patents. I have this letter which I now sign. With this letter I have dispatched the report to the Australian government.
I thank you, commissioners and all Royal Commission staff for their work.
Thank you.
The commission has already delivered reports on:
- Working with children checks report in August 2015
- Redress in civil litigation in September 2015
- Criminal justice in August 2017.
More than 8,000 witnesses told the commission their stories in private sessions.
These audio clips from survivors giving evidence to the commission barely scratch the surface of the physical and emotional distress caused by adults in positions of authority, but they indicate some of the central themes.
You can explore this story further in a Guardian Australia podcast, The Reckoning.
Warning: the material in these audio clips is explicit and upsetting. For a list of support services please visit the royal commission website here.
-
This post was edited to correct that it was more than 8,000 individuals who spoke to the commission in private hearings.
Updated
The royal commission has already made some recommendations and some have already been acted upon, including toughening background checks and establishing a redress scheme.
The redress scheme is still in progress and one element has caused controversy - the refusal of compensation to survivors of child abuse who have gone on to commit serious crimes is of serious concern to advocates.
But this morning Malcolm Turnbull has indicated his government may be willing to soften its stance on convicted criminals being banned from accessing compensation.
AAP reports Turnbull said blocking access to convicted criminals is government policy, but he understands the argument many had landed in jail because of the abuse they had suffered.
“But equally, you can understand how many people would be uncomfortable with and opposed to people who have committed serious offences then being provided compensation by government,” he told 3AW radio.
The prime minister left the door open to revisiting the prohibition as the Commonwealth tries to finalise the redress scheme.
Updated
A royal commission is seen as a kind of last resort inquiry, when the scale and complexity of an issue needs comprehensive resourcing and investigation.
So what led to this one? Melissa Davey has explained the history and set up of the inquiry here:
Here are a few statistics to give you an idea of the scope of the commission’s work:
The six commissioners led a staff of more than 680 people.
The royal commission heard evidence on more than 4,000 institutions that were the scenes of child sexual abuse, over decades.
It conducted 57 case studies, and 444 days of public hearings. The case studies resulted in 44 reports.
More than 1.2m documents have been analysed, and more than 50 pieces of original research published.
The inquiry handed 41,770 calls, received 25,774 letters & emails, held 8,013 private sessions, and made 2,559 referrals to authorities (including police).
We have just seen McClellan arrive at the residence of the Governor General Yarralumla to deliver the 21-volume report. Once Sir Peter Cosgrove has tabled it to parliament, it will be made publicly available.
Updated
Good morning, and welcome to our live coverage of the findings of the royal commission into institutional responses to child sexual abuse.
Five years after it was announced by the then prime minister, Julia Gillard, the inquiry will today release its final report on the sexual abuse of children that occurred in more than 4,000 institutions and the failure of those institutions to respond appropriately.
The chair of the commission, Justice Peter McClellan addressed hundreds of abuse survivors and advocates at the final sitting yesterday. “The sexual abuse of children is not just a problem of the past,” he said.
“The failure to protect children has not been limited to institutions providing services to children.”.
“Some of our most important state instrumentalities have failed. Police often refused to believe children. They refused to investigate their complaints of abuse. Many children who had attempted to escape abuse were returned to unsafe institutions by police.”
I’ll be bringing you updates and background throughout the day while my colleague Melissa Davey, who has reported extensively on the commission, goes through the report.
For support, visit: https://www.childabuseroyalcommission.gov.au/contact
