AUSTRALIA
Australian Broadcasting Corporation
July 10, 2018
By Danny Tran and Richard Willingham
Admissions of child abuse will continue to be protected by the seal of the confessional in the state of Victoria, after the Andrews Government stopped short of adopting one of the key recommendations made by the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse.
The State Government has indicated it needs more time to consider the proposal from the royal commission, which has called for the sanctity of the confessional to be tossed aside and replaced with powerful new mandatory reporting laws.
The laws would force members of the religious clergy to report any suspicions or explicit confessions of child abuse to police, but their implementation has been met with powerful resistance from the Catholic Church.
The Government has previously agreed to work towards a national approach to the confessional.
The Attorney-General, Martin Pakula, said privilege on religious confessions was set out in Victorian law.
Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.