AUSTRALIA
9 News
The federal government donated more than $1 million to the Catholic Church towards the canonisation of Mary MacKillop but refused to acknowledge a request to contribute any money to sexual abuse victims, an inquiry has heard.
Abuse survivor Mark Fabbro approached then foreign minister Kevin Rudd at the canonisation celebrations in Rome in 2010 after hearing of the $1.25 million contribution made by the Labor government.
Mr Fabbro told the Victorian parliamentary inquiry into the handling of child abuse by religious and other organisations on Monday that he wrote a letter to Mr Rudd while in Rome, asking him how the government would help financially struggling abuse survivor groups.
“No response was ever received to that request,” he told the inquiry.
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