Tasmanian Anglican churches could be sold to fund abuse survivors redress

By Emily Street
ABC News
April 22, 2018

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-04-22/tasmanian-anglican-church-to-sell-off-assets-to-pay-$8m-liabilty/9685222

Bishop Richard Condie said "decisive action and significant sacrifice" was required.

Tasmania's Anglican Diocese is proposing to sell more than 120 properties, including churches, halls, houses and vacant land, to fund redress for survivors of child sexual abuse.

The church said it would need to sell just under half of its Tasmanian properties to cover an estimated $8 million of liability in additional payments to survivors.

It has been lobbying for the State Government to sign up to the National Redress Scheme for survivors, due to start on July 1 as a result of the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse.

The Tasmanian Diocese also agreed to increase the payment cap for its own Pastoral Support and Assistance Scheme from $75,000 to $150,000 per claim.

Previous claimants will be entitled to have their claims reassessed, which may result in extra payments.

The figure of $8 million is based on advice that 150 survivors may be eligible to receive the average payment of $78,000 under the national scheme, or a similar figure from the church's own scheme. 

Some of that $8 million will be raised through direct parish contributions, including a proportion of parish funds and several diocesan trusts that fund ministry.

Survivors will not be able to claim from both schemes but, unlike the national scheme, the Tasmanian Anglican scheme is open to non-Australian citizens, those with a criminal conviction or people who were abused as adults.

The Anglican Bishop of Tasmania, the Right Reverend Richard Condie, said "decisive action and significant sacrifice" was required for the diocese to meet its obligations to survivors.

"We intend to raise these funds from a proportion of parish and diocesan investments, through selling parish properties, and by direct parish contributions," he said.

"Every parish in the diocese will be affected."

Dr Condie said the list of properties to be sold would not be finalised for several weeks, but the church would welcome expressions of interest from community groups, councils and individuals who were keen to keep church buildings in community hands.

"I understand that the sale of churches causes pain and sadness for church members as well as the wider local community. They have been an important part of our Tasmanian heritage," he said.

"However, our commitment to justice, recognition and support of survivors through providing redress underlies the need for this sacrifice."

Dr Condie confirmed that the properties for sale would include churches that are still in use, and that regional communities would be most affected.

"Certainly the churches in regional areas of Tasmania are the ones that have been struggling particularly and their viability is under threat and so they're the places we'll obviously look," he said.

"We don't yet know what the outcome of that's going to be, we're looking at different models for how we might run ministry in some of our country parishes."

Steve Fisher from the survivors group Beyond Abuse said he was "blown away" by the church's commitment.

"This is probably the hugest sacrifice I've seen in the world that a church has made," he said.

"While this is going to be hard for a lot of people, members of the Anglican Church, Bishop Condie has put the survivors first and that is an incredible thing to do."

Only New South Wales, Victoria and the ACT have so far agreed to participate in the National Redress Scheme.

No institution in Tasmania can join until the State Government agrees to sign up.

Deputy Premier Jeremy Rockliff said the Government was "actively considering" the scheme.

"There are many issues, legal issues as you'd appreciate, to work through but I can assure you that our Attorney General is working through all the detail."

The proposals will be put to the Anglican Synod in June.