AUSTRALIA
Royal Commission into Institutional Response to Child Sexual Abuse
Justice Peter McClellan AM
Chair
Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse
Thank you.
I am pleased to be here with you today to help bring public attention to White Balloon Day and mark its significance in National Child Protection Week. Bravehearts and the many other organisations concerned with the welfare of children have played a significant role in raising public awareness of the prevalence and consequences of both the sexual and physical abuse of children in the community. Along with others their efforts resulted in the Australian Government, supported by the Opposition and the governments of each of the States coming together to set up a national Royal Commission to look at the response of institutions to the sexual abuse of children in an institutional context, with the purpose of exposing what has happened in the past and bringing forward recommendations directed to ensuring it does not happen in the future.
It is now well known that the sexual abuse of children has been widespread in the Australian community. However, the full range of institutions in which it has occurred is not generally understood. Furthermore the character and effectiveness of the response to allegations of abuse by institutions in which it has occurred has not generally been exposed. The prosecution of a perpetrator who has abused a child within an institution brings the existence of the abuse to public knowledge but does not, in most cases, tell the community anything about the response of the institution in which the abuse occurred. Furthermore, although many recommendations have been made as to how institutions should be managed to minimise the sexual abuse of children and effectively respond to it when it has occurred, it is readily apparent that many of those issues require a coordinated national response.
I have previously talked about the size of the task facing the Royal Commission. In order to assist its work the Australian Parliament amended the Royal Commissions Act to allow the Commission to hear from victims in private sessions. This followed a similar provision to facilitate the gathering of information in private as part of the Ryan Commission into similar problems in Ireland. It means that the Commission can receive the personal stories of people in private and in circumstances where they feel secure and not threatened by having to confront their alleged abuser. Although the Act provides that information obtained by the Royal Commission in private sessions is not evidence, it may be included in a report if it is “de-identified”, that is, the anonymity of the person is preserved.
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