Category Archives: Royal commission into institutional responses to child sexual abuse

Australia’s child abuse redress scheme case backlog almost doubles in 10 months

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Influx comes after online application process simplified – but it is sparking calls for more funding to cut survivors’ wait times

The backlog of active cases before the child abuse redress scheme has almost doubled in less than 10 months, increasing delays in processing survivors’ claims and prompting renewed calls for greater resourcing.

Data released by the scheme this week shows it is processing 7,823 claims from survivors, a sharp increase on the 4,196 as of 27 January.

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Catholic church uses death of paedophile priest in bid to stop survivor suing NSW diocese, court hears

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Church claims it cannot get fair trial over alleged abuse by the notorious David Joseph Perrett in legal tactic that has drawn widespread criticism

The Catholic church is seeking to use using the death of a “prolific paedophile” priest to permanently prevent a dying Indigenous man from seeking justice for alleged abuse suffered on camping trips in rural New South Wales.

Two survivors are suing the church’s Armidale diocese for the alleged abuse by notorious priest David Joseph Perrett during camping trips from an Aboriginal mission in the mid-1970s.

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NSW taxpayers to fund indemnity for 47 organisations against child abuse claims

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Exclusive: State government steps in as private insurers refuse to provide coverage to organisations working with vulnerable children

The New South Wales government has been forced to provide taxpayer-funded indemnity to 47 non-government organisations, including church bodies, to cover child abuse claims, as states and territories scramble to respond to the widespread withdrawal of cover by the private insurance market.

Private insurers are now widely refusing to provide coverage for physical and sexual abuse to organisations working with vulnerable children in out-of-home care and youth homelessness services.

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Opposition will ‘use every tactic’ to block bill – as it happened

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This blog is now closed.

Treasurer pushes ‘middle Australia’ benefits in budget

Jim Chalmers says the big program changes – cheaper medicines, tripling the Medicare bulk billing incentive and childcare subsidy changes (which come in July after forming part of the last budget) will help middle Australia.

And kids under 16 … there are kids right throughout middle Australia and they will benefit substantially, but also we’re making medicines cheaper.

Also … we’ve put these caps on gas and coal and that’s the big reason for the moderation in the … electricity price increases, the household energy upgrades funds, the home guarantee scheme, the Tafe and training places, the fact that we’ve got wages moving after a decade of deliberate wage suppression and stagnation.

I think the divisive commentary is coming from the opposition. I mean … Peter Dutton is a divisive figure, but he’s not a credible figure.

He takes his cues from Tony Abbott and Scott Morrison. The rest of Australia has moved on from Abbott and Morrison but he hasn’t. And we’ll see that tonight in his budget reply. He is trying to divide people against each other in this budget.

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Anglican complaints body declines to defrock Peter Hollingworth despite finding he ‘committed misconduct’

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The former governor general and former Anglican archbishop of Brisbane was the subject of complaints about his handling of child abuse complaints in the 1990s

The Anglican church’s complaints body has ruled former governor general Peter Hollingworth should not be defrocked despite upholding multiple allegations of misconduct over his handling of child abuse complaints while in a senior leadership role.

Hollingworth has been the subject of complaints over his handling of abuse cases in the Anglican church while archbishop of Brisbane in the 1990s, a role he held for 11 years before becoming Australia’s 23rd governor general.

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Catholic church uses paedophile priest’s death to try to block NSW survivor’s lawsuit

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Case is latest in series where church seeks to capitalise on landmark ruling that a priest’s death meant church could not receive a fair trial

The Catholic church is attempting to use the death of a paedophile, who had been jailed for the abuse of 17 children, to shield itself from further civil claims from his survivors.

In recent months, the church has adopted an increasingly aggressive approach to survivors in cases where paedophile clergy have died. It has sought to capitalise on a recent decision in New South Wales’s highest court that ruled a priest’s death meant the church could not receive a fair trial in a claim brought by a woman known as GLJ.

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Child abuse survivors condemn delay in case that could defrock Peter Hollingworth

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Former governor general and archbishop of Brisbane expected to have fate in Anglican church decided in hearing due to begin on Monday

Survivors and advocates have condemned the “cruel” and “dysfunctional” delays in a case to potentially defrock Peter Hollingworth, the former Australian governor general and former archbishop of Brisbane, for failures to act on child abuse allegations in the Anglican church.

A secretive hearing is due to begin on Monday to decide Hollingworth’s fate in the church, more than five years after complaints were first made through the Melbourne diocese’s complaints system, Kooyoora.

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George Pell funeral: Tony Abbott praises cardinal as a ‘saint for our times’ and rails against child abuse charges

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Former PM says the cardinal was ‘the greatest man I’ve ever known’, likening his treatment to a ‘modern-day crucifixion’

Former prime minister Tony Abbott has described George Pell, a man found to have failed to act on knowledge of child abuse, as “the greatest man I’ve ever known”, likening him to a saint and comparing his treatment to “modern-day crucifixion”.

Abbott spoke at Pell’s funeral on Thursday and variously described him as “one of our country’s greatest sons”, a “great hero” and a “saint for our times”.

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George Pell funeral: removing abuse victims’ ribbons is wrong, former church official says

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Advocates furious the church keeps removing ribbons intended to give voice to survivors of clergy abuse

Francis Sullivan, the former head of the Catholic church’s Truth Justice and Healing Council, says the removal of ribbons commemorating abuse survivors from St Mary’s Cathedral appears designed to prevent the scandal from being “associated with Cardinal [George] Pell” in the days leading up to his funeral.

Survivors and their supporters are furious that the church is continually removing ribbons they have tied to the fence surrounding Sydney’s St Mary’s Cathedral before the requiem mass planned for Pell on Thursday.

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Pleas for urgent reset of Australia’s child abuse redress scheme unanswered 18 months after damning review

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Coalition committed to respond in ‘early 2022’ but failed to do so, while Labor has not issued a full response since taking office

Successive governments have failed to produce a response to a damning review of the child abuse redress scheme published 18 months ago, missing a self-imposed deadline by at least five months despite the review’s pleas for urgency.

The national redress scheme, established in the wake of the 2017 child abuse royal commission, has been operating for four years, offering capped amounts of compensation to survivors of institutional child sexual abuse.

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Catholic church uses paedophile priest’s death as shield against new allegations in NSW

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Lismore diocese wins halt on civil case after arguing woman had never complained before Clarence Anderson died in 1996

The Catholic church has used the death of a known paedophile priest to shield itself from being sued over new complaints of child sexual abuse.

Earlier this month, the Lismore diocese won its argument for a permanent stay of civil proceedings brought by a woman who was 14 years old when she was allegedly sexually assaulted by Father Clarence Anderson in 1968 inside her family home.

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Thousands of survivors of childhood sexual abuse still waiting for redress claims to be processed

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Average wait has blown out to almost 12 months, nearly double intended timeframe

More than six thousand redress claims from survivors of childhood sexual abuse are yet to be processed and the average wait has blown out to almost 12 months, which is close to double the intended timeframe, new government data reveals.

Of the 15,442 claims made up until 29 April, just over half – 8,160 – have resulted in redress payments being made to survivors, totalling approximately $706.2m, according to data from the Department of Social Services, which runs the scheme.

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Former Victorian orphanage carer, 81, jailed for sexually abusing five boys

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William Parker Skelland abused children at Burwood boys’ home in 1973 and 1974

A former carer at a Victorian boys’ orphanage in the 1970s will spend at least four years in prison for sexually abusing five of the young children.

William Parker Skelland, 81, was living in the UK in 2019 when he was arrested for his crimes and extradited back to Australia to answer for them.

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Hillsong founder Brian Houston to plead not guilty to concealing sexual abuse charge

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Police allege megachurch founder was aware of information relating to the abuse of a young man in the 1970s by his late father

The Hillsong founder Brian Houston will plead not guilty to charges alleging he concealed child sexual abuse by his late father in the 1970s.

The megachurch founder did not appear during a first mention of the case at Sydney’s Downing Centre local court on Tuesday morning.

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George Pell: cardinal was aware of children being sexually abused, royal commission report finds

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Previously redacted findings from the commission’s report into Pell’s handling of child sexual abuse claims have now been made public

Cardinal George Pell was aware of children being sexually abused within the Archdiocese of Ballarat by notorious paedophile priest Gerald Ridsdale, Australia’s child abuse royal commission found, and it was “implausible” that other senior church figures did not tell Pell abuse was occurring.

More than 100 previously redacted pages of the child abuse royal commission report relating to Cardinal George Pell and what he knew about child sexual abuse within the Catholic church were tabled to parliament on Thursday morning.

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Police investigating George Pell over fresh child sexual abuse allegation – report

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News Corp says acquitted cardinal faces new claims over alleged incident in the 1970s when he was a priest in Ballarat

Cardinal George Pell is being investigated by police over a new allegation of child sexual abuse, according to News Corp reports.

Pell was released from jail last Tuesday after the high court acquitted him on five historical child sexual abuse charges. Pell, 78, spent more than 400 days in jail after being convicted by a jury in December 2018. The high court acquitted Pell after finding the jury should have held a reasonable doubt as to his guilt.

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George Pell’s accuser issues rallying cry to sexual abuse survivors in wake of verdict

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Witness J says he is glad the legal process is over, but the saga does not define him

The man at the heart of the failed case against Cardinal George Pell has issued a rallying cry to sexual abuse survivors.

He said he would hate to think that anyone might not report to the police because of his outcome.

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George Pell’s bid for freedom: high court verdict to decide cardinal’s future

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Australian high court’s decision is Pell’s last chance to overturn conviction for historical child sexual abuse

On Tuesday, almost two years after being committed to stand trial on multiple charges of historical child sexual abuse, the case against the former financial controller of the Vatican, Cardinal George Pell, will likely end with him either walking free or remaining in jail to serve the rest of his sentence.

After failing to appeal to Victoria’s appellate court in August, Pell’s legal team took his case to the high court, the final avenue in his bid for freedom. Across two days in March, the full bench of seven justices heard Pell’s barrister Bret Walker SC argue that Victoria’s appellate judges, who dismissed Pell’s first appeal in 2019 by a majority of two-to-one, may have been unduly influenced by the complainant’s testimony by watching a recorded video of it rather than just reading the transcript of his evidence.

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Queensland archbishop opposes planned law to compel priests to report child sexual abuse

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Mark Coleridge says move to legislate against the sanctity of the confessional will fail to make children safer

A move to compel Queensland priests to report child sexual abuse offences disclosed during confessions would fail to make children safer, Brisbane’s Catholic archbishop has said. 

Mark Coleridge has opposed a state government plan to legislate against the sanctity of the confessional as an excuse, defence or privilege. 

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Archbishop’s response to mandatory child sex abuse reporting labelled ‘pig-headed’

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Perth’s Timothy Costelloe says forcing revelations will interfere with the ‘free practice of the Catholic faith’

Perth’s Catholic archbishop, Timothy Costelloe, says forcing religious leaders in Western Australia to reveal knowledge of child sex abuse risks “interfering with the free practice of the Catholic faith” and will be ineffective – a stance that advocates say is “ignorant and pig-headed”.

The state government plans to expand mandatory reporting laws to include religious leaders such as priests, ministers, imams, rabbis, pastors and Salvation Army officers.

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