By Eleanor Gordon-Smith, 5/6/2015
Way back in 2012 — a safer time, when Skywhale was just a multi-boobed glimmer in Patricia Piccinini’s eye — the Gillard government announced The Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse.
You might have seen it in the news this week, because on Monday Cardinal George Pell was called back from the Vatican to front the Commission’s second hearing in Ballarat later this year.
Is Child Abuse In This Country Really So Bad?
Well, that’s one of the things we wanted to find out. It all started with Detective Chief Inspector Peter Fox, who contra to popular belief is not the villain in a Roald Dahl short story, but a brave and experienced police officer. Fox told a November 2012 episode of Lateline that the scale of sexual abuse allegations he had seen was “astonishing” and said “the [Catholic] Church hinders police investigations”, as he called for a royal commission.
About a week after that interview, Prime Minister Gillard announced the creation of the royal commission, saying there were “too many revelations of adults who have averted their eyes from this evil”. The commission proceeded with bipartisan support, in part because it did not set out to investigate just the Catholic Church. It would be about “institutions”, including schools, youth groups, exercise clubs and the Church.
The commissioners come from a diverse range of backgrounds, and assembled for this task like the bespectacled white-haired Avengers: there’s an ex-cop (Bob Atkinson) a child psychiatrist (Helen Milroy), a judge (Jennifer Coate), a senator (Andrew Murray), and Thor.
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