AUSTRALIA
Sydney Morning Herald
Editorial
Australians have been disgusted – and many have felt guilt-ridden – that a public figure as trusted and seemingly innocuous as Rolf Harris was allowed to get away with sexual abuse of vulnerable children over decades.
Harris is not the first and certainly not the last high-profile Australian to hide his crimes behind the veil of celebrity. Nor is Harris alone in exploiting institutional and public blindness to behaviour that ruins lives. For every Harris, thousands of people linked to trusted institutions get away with similar crimes.
The Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Abuse has heard shocking details of more than 3300 such cases in its first year. Brave victims have come forward in person and in writing, knowing it will cause them great anguish, but proceeding nonetheless in the hope fellow Australians will recognise that future generations must not be forced to endure similar pain.
“We do not yet know how prevalent abuse has been or continues to be within institutions,” the royal commission says in its interim report out this week.
That statement alone should be enough for the Abbott government and taxpayers to agree immediately to the commission’s request for a two-year extension to December 2017 and a further $104 million on top of the $281 million for 2012-13 to 2015-16.
Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/comment/smh-editorial/abbott-must-fund-longer-child-abuse-royal-commission-20140704-zsvk9.html#ixzz36X2wgx6K
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