Bills

Statutes Amendment (Mandatory Reporting) Bill

Introduction and First Reading

The Hon. C. BONAROS (17:45): Obtained leave and introduced a bill for an act to amend the Children and Young People (Safety) Act 2017 and the Criminal Law Consolidation Act 1935. Read a first time.

Second Reading

The Hon. C. BONAROS (17:46): I move:

That this bill be now read a second time.

As members may recall, I introduced this bill in May 2018. It seeks to tighten legislation that was passed in 2017 and which came into effect in 2018—namely, the Children and Young People (Safety) Act 2017—with respect to mandatory reporting requirements as they pertain to priests or other ministers of religion.

As it currently stands, the act maintains a regulation allowing for a potential future exemption. It is imperative that this loophole is closed so that priests and/or other ministers of religion can never be exempted from those provisions. Victoria passed similar legislation late in 2019, which came into effect on 17 February 2020. Under this bill, priests and/or other ministers of religion who hear confessions or hear other disclosures and form a suspicion about child sex offences and abuse will have a mandatory obligation to report the matter to police, and that will be prescribed in the legislation as opposed to regulations.

The Catholic Church's response to the recommendations of the royal commission has been deplorably inadequate. It blindly continues to hold the sacredness of confession above the interests of children, despite a massive groundswell of alarm throughout the community about its continued recalcitrance in keeping its head buried in the sand. It is business as usual for the church, and shame on it for having that attitude. It is therefore crucial that the loophole provided by the regulation be closed shut, and shut for good. The lives of people literally rely on it. We cannot allow a possible exemption, ever, for priests and/or ministers of religion to avoid the requirement to mandatorily report.

As lawmakers, we have a duty to introduce laws that align with community expectations, and this is one such expectation. The influence of the Catholic Church cannot be underestimated in seeking to lobby this government—or future governments, for that matter—to be exempted through regulation which would not require legislation. I say again that their blind continuation of ignoring the recommendations in relation to the confessional point to that fact.

The bill also broadens the scope of the requirement for priests and/or ministers of religion to report certain child sex offences, including in the course of confession, by specifying that a prescribed child offence include murder, rape, use of children in commercial sexual services, incest and child exploitation material and related offences. I have spoken in this place on a number of occasions about sexual abuse pertaining to children—innocent children—within our religious institutions. Victims of sexual abuse within the Catholic Church represented almost two-thirds of all the victims who bravely came forward to share their harrowing and intensely personal stories of abuse with the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse.

The royal commission received over 42,000 calls. It held 8,013 private sessions, and 2,575 referrals were made to authorities, including police. The royal commission heard from 2,489 survivors of child sexual abuse in 964 different Catholic institutions. The commission found 7 per cent of Catholic priests abused children between 1950 and 2010. In one Catholic order, St John of God Brothers, 40 per cent of clergy were alleged perpetrators, while one in five Marist and Christian Brothers were the subject of allegations.

It is difficult to fathom. It is difficult to comprehend that within the hallowed walls of the Catholic Church there was never a whistleblower, there was never someone who had the courage and integrity to break ranks, there was never anyone these children could trust to protect them. For over six decades the interests of the church were placed above the best interests of the children entrusted in their care. It is a national disgrace.

Those who knew, many of whom were in senior positions of power and influence, preferred to be complicit rather than have the moral fortitude to stand up for what they knew was so appallingly wrong. Among the worst in this category was Australia's most senior Catholic clergy in the world, the disgraced Cardinal George Pell. Just last week previously redacted and shocking findings of the royal commission were tabled in federal parliament, following Cardinal Pell's acquittal in April on child sex charges.

The report implicates Cardinal Pell in the cover-up of abuse of Gerald Ridsdale, Edward Dowlan and Peter Searson, which took place over 30 years. On page 246 of 'Report of Case Study No. 28: Catholic Church authorities in Ballarat' the royal commission found:

We are satisfied that in 1973 Father Pell turned his mind to the prudence of Ridsdale taking boys on overnight camps. The most likely reason for this, as Cardinal Pell acknowledged, was the possibility that if priests were one-on-one with a child then they could sexually abuse a child or at least provoke gossip about such a prospect.

By this time, child sexual abuse was on his radar, in relation to not only Monsignor Day but also Ridsdale. We are also satisfied that by 1973 Cardinal Pell was not only conscious of child sexual abuse by clergy but that he also had considered measures of avoiding situations which might provoke gossip about it.

The extent of knowledge within the various religious institutions is difficult to comprehend. The report lists name after name after name of ministers of various religions who either abused children or knew it was happening—and just as reprehensible as the original perpetrators, did nothing. How they slept at night beggars belief. It is appalling. It reads like a horror movie of the worst kind for these poor, defenceless children. It is clear those who knew preferred to look the other way so that paedophile priests could evade justice rather than face judgement.

Of course, while the Catholic church was the most pervasive in its sexual abuse of children, it most certainly was not alone. There is no doubt—in fact, there is clear evidence—that many other faiths have been implicated. The royal commission also frequently heard about child abuse in Anglican institutions: 594 survivors told the royal commission about abuse in 244 different Anglican institutions. The commission also heard from 294 survivors who were abused as children in 64 different Salvation Army institutions.

Collectively, these figures are hard to comprehend. I also despair at the countless other victims living amongst us who are not willing or are unable to speak out because of the complex reasons this sort of trauma causes—or, worse still, like many others who knew about it, could not live with the trauma and have taken their own lives.

As the royal commission highlighted in its report, the occurrence of child sexual abuse was most common in religious schools and residential institutions. It is against this backdrop we need to consider the impact these organisations have had in Australian society, especially given their pivotal role in education and welfare services to large numbers of children over decades and the considerable government funding they have received for such services.

It is also important to acknowledge the similar impacts caused to the lives of a large number of Indigenous Australians, including many who were forcibly removed from their families as children and placed in Christian missions.

I have previously spoken in this place of notorious paedophile priest Father Michael McArdle. McArdle admitted in confession to child abuse on more than 1,500 times. He disclosed in an affidavit in 2004 that he confessed to 30 different priests over a 25-year period. He was advised by clergy to pray. Thirty different priests kept silent. Thirty different priests did not consider the best interests of children to be a paramount consideration over the interests of the church. I cannot believe that not one of those priests chose to break ranks—not one.

McArdle's reign of absolute terror on young children highlights the crucial need for priests to be told by senior leaders that they must report crimes to authorities. If McArdle's crimes had been reported, so many innocent children would have been saved from a lifetime of pain and suffering. Instead, this disgusting excuse of a human being was allowed by the church to continue to sexually abuse children. This sick monster has explained how he felt after each confession. I have said it before, and I will say it again: 'It was like a magic wand had been waved over me.' He was forgiven 1,500 times, told to pray, and then kept on abusing children.

In 2004, McArdle was gaoled for six years for his abuse of two girls and 14 boys over a 22-year period. Those are the ones whom we knew of or who were willing or able to come forward. He molested altar boys and girls in the sacred confessional, in the presbytery, in the vestry and on church and school camps. Lawyer Mal Byrne, who has represented many child sex abusers, said it best:

Paedophiles do not stop harming children because they have been to confession. What they are doing is unburdening themselves to a priest in the hope that they might feel a little bit better but then continue to commit their heinous crimes. There is a difference between confessing something just to get it off your chest and make yourself feel better, and confessing in real terms which means proper atonement for what you have done. In the case of paedophilia, this means being properly accountable by handing yourself in to police, accepting the penalty that is coming to you and trying to reform. If you are not making that type of confession, why should you be protected?

Reverend Rob MacPherson, a minister of the Unitarian Church in Adelaide, has steadfastly argued that canon law must not come before the need to protect children. MacPherson was himself abused by a member of the clergy under the seal of confession and suffered as his abuser continued to hold a position of influence in his parish. He was just a nine-year-old boy when a Catholic Church deacon violently raped him. His life spiralled out of control following his abuse. He spent years recovering with the support of professional help. He said:

Had mandatory reporting applied at the time and place of my abuse, I could have started then on the path of healing earlier—and my abuser brought to justice.

The case studies I have touched on are historical, but that does not mean children are not sexually abused today. Volume 16 of the royal commission's findings states:

It would be a mistake to regard this child sexual abuse as historical; as something we no longer need to be concerned about. While much of the abuse we heard about in religious institutions occurred before 1990, long delays in victims disclosing abuse mean that an accurate contemporary understanding of the problem is not possible. Some of the abuse we heard about was just recent.

More than 200 survivors told us they had experienced child sexual abuse in a religious institution since 1990. We have no way of knowing how many others may have had similar experiences.

New cases continue to come forward. By all indications, Catholic priests would rather go to gaol than break the silence of the sacred seal of confession, even today. We must legislate to ensure that child sexual abuse is reported by everyone—no exceptions, not now, not ever.

As a parent—and I have said this before—nothing terrifies me more than the thought of anyone harming my child, and I know that I am not alone. I know that everybody in here feels the same. In considering this bill, I ask honourable members just for a moment to put themselves in the shoes of the countless children who were sexually abused, or even the parents and loved ones of the abused victims, and imagine their pain. Someone should have done something. It can never happen again. In closing, I remind honourable members that Australia is a signatory to the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. Article 3 states:

In all actions concerning children, whether undertaken by public or private social welfare institutions, courts of law, administrative authorities or legislative bodies, the best interests of the child shall be a primary consideration.

Article 4 provides:

States Parties shall undertake all appropriate legislative, administrative and other measures for the implementation of the rights recognized in the present Convention. With regard to economic, social and cultural rights, States Parties shall undertake such measures to the maximum extent of their available resources and, where needed, within the framework of international co-operation.

Article 34 recognises the States Parties must 'undertake to protect the child from all forms of sexual exploitation and sexual abuse'. The best interests of the child are paramount to any rights of any religion, minister or church. It is everyone's business to protect our children. It is your business, it is my business, it is the business of every member of every church in South Australia and, indeed, Australia. With those words, I commend the bill to the chamber.

Debate adjourned on motion of Hon. D.G.E. Hood.