“You have ignited a spark of hope in the darkness that surrounds me, as I shuffle through this life of shattered dreams and lost aspirations.”
Those are the words of a survivor, penned in a letter to Australia’s Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse.
This was just one voice among the thousands that contributed to the harrowing, five-year enquiry. One among the 42,041 calls, 25,96 letters and emails, 8013 private face-to-face sessions that lead to 2575 people being referred to authorities and informed the 409 recommendations released by the Commission on Friday.
While it is them – the men and women who wrote, called, spoke – that deserve our praise, we should also acknowledge the person who gave them someone who would listen, who would advocate for them.
Julia Gillard.
It was on November 12, 2012, that the former Labor Prime Minister formally requested what was decades in the making and years overdue: a national enquiry into the way religious organisations, not-for-profit bodies, state care providers, police and child protection agencies had handled child sexual abuse.
The stories had been seeping out for years. Gerald Ridsdale, a priest from Ballarat who assaulted more than 65 children by 1988, was bounced from parish to parish as allegations emerged. Father Michael Glennon who assaulted a 10-year-old girl and was jailed but never defrocked. Dennis McKenna, a sex offender whose abuse of teenage boys at a hostel in Katanning, WA, went unchecked for 15 years.
But it was explosive allegations by senior New South Wales police investigator, Peter Fox, that the Catholic Church had covered up evidence involving paedophile priests that compelled Gillard to act.
“Too many children have suffered child abuse… they’ve not only had their trust betrayed by the abuser, but other adults who could have acted to assist them have failed to do so,” she told the media at the time.
“There have been too many revelations of adults who have averted their eyes from this evil.”
While it remains to be seen how the institutions that enabled that culture will respond to today’s recommendations, it is the scope, the diligence, the trust the Commission established with survivors that has become the global standard for other nations that have endured a similar shame.
As Gillard told ABC’s 7.30, “They want to know how we did it, really. Because this is the one that worked, the royal commission that actually worked to do what the nation needed it to do.”
Of course, critics will be quick to point out that Gillard had previously expressed her opposition to a Royal Commission, that she thought it inappropriate. But this was because she was nervous it wouldn’t work, that survivors would – again – be betrayed by people who were meant to act their interest.
“But ultimately I came to the decision that it would offer more healing than its potential capacity for hurt,” she told ABC. “That ultimately, for survivors, being listened to was the thing that they wanted.”
It was. More than 1200 witnesses gave testimony over the course of 400 days, some telling stories they had never before uttered to another human being. Yes, there was anger, shame, trauma in their accounts. But there was also relief, healing, empowerment, “a spark of hope”.
So whatever comes of today’s report, thank you Julia Gillard for doing what so few leaders can; thank you for changing your mind.
Top Comments
And then you have a PM like Abbott who wrote a reference for George Pell!
She is the best thing we have had in our government since Federation. It's now clear how hard she was working for the people.
The amount of legislation she got through in a hung parliament with probably the most combative of "colleagues" & opposition, (including a hostile media) in the short time that she was in power hasn't been matched since.
I would suggest though that readers look at David Marr's article in the guardian around the long term effects of the findings of the RC as & (I agree) that the Catholic church & many of the institutions have had way too much power & control over how they function within Australia's landscape & society.
There needs to be a review into many of these church organisations, charity status & how they use our business structures to hide, also obfuscate any financial responsibility, whether to the country or to those who were unfortunate enough to get caught in their web of lies, deceit & self protection that has occurred over so many generations, with a culture of coverup and/or victim blaming.
We need more politicians like Julia, though they engage with the less desirable stuff, ie sitting through interminable meetings, doing the research & listening to what is going on outside in the real world. Rather than going to the opening of every envelope, just to either get their faces in the media, or like Abbott shoring up an ever decreasing popularity rating, (being seen as the everyman @ the pub with a pot in hand)
The way the media works around the 24/7 news cycle can only do damage to how our governance works, it attracts the wrong type of people who are too busy trying to be seen as doing "work" rather than actually getting anything of any worth done. Yes they may highlight causes, but there are too many competing influences to sidetrack what they are supposed to be doing, which is working for the Australian people, which includes those that have suffered at the hands of these institutions & their damaged/broken representatives.