AUSTRALIA
Eternity News
March 12, 2018
By John Sandeman
Frustration with slow response to national redress scheme builds
The Attorney-General Christian Porter has described the Catholic Church’s response to the news that NSW and Victoria had signed on to a national redress scheme as “pretty underwhelming.” The redress scheme will provide compensation to survivors of child sexual abuse in Australian institutions, including churches. (All the main parties in the South Australian election next week have said they will sign on, but the Queensland and West Australian state governments claim they need more information.)
According to Porter, the Catholic Church’s Archbishop Denis Hart has said the church would like to examine the Victorian Government’s basis for signing up to see if it is a good scheme for survivors.
“When you say that you need a review into how the state Government has signed on – as the Archbishop of Melbourne has said – to a scheme that has been reviewed more often than any scheme in Australia, quite frankly it starts to look like excuse-making,” Porter told the ABC’s Patricia Karvelas.
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