Mark Pearson disappointed by NSW Parliament's 'watered down' child sex abuse motion

Mr Pearson was disappointed that Labor and the Coalition on Thursday refused to support his motion to condemn the church, first raised in October, and instead voted on a motion condemning child sexual abuse in all institutions.

The two major parties also refused to support the Animal Justice Party MP’s motion for Parliament to convey its “utter disgust and profound disappointment in Cardinal George Pell for his ongoing failure”, and instead expressed its “utter disgust and profound disappointment in all those in leadership positions for their failure”.

“There’s no doubt it’s been watered down and I’m very disappointed with that,” Mr Pearson said.

“The Catholic Church should be singled out. The facts speak for themselves but there’s a nervousness about this. It’s this protection the state has always afforded the church, and that has fed this sense of immunity the Catholic Church has enjoyed. That has to be struck away.”

The Catholic Church should be singled out. The facts speak for themselves but there’s a nervousness about this. It’s this protection the state has always afforded the church, and that has fed this sense of immunity the Catholic Church has enjoyed. That has to be struck away.

Newcastle Upper House MP Mark Pearson

Greens MP David Shoebridge, who argued strongly in October for Australia to rescind the diplomatic status it granted the Catholic Church in 1973, said the watering down of Mr Pearson’s motion on Thursday showed “the major parties don’t get it”.

“We need to hold individual institutions to account, and it’s no use talking in generalisations. When it comes to diplomatic immunity I am yet to hear a rational argument why this one religious organisation is entitled to the same status as the European Union,” Mr Shoebridge said.

Mr Pearson recalled boys running for seats near the walls at Marist Hamilton in the 1970s when he was a student, and while sexual predators including Brother Patrick were teachers.

“They couldn’t get you in those seats,” he said.

He said he took a friend as a witness to report to a trusted Marist Brother how two other Brothers walked the aisles of their classrooms and put their hands down boys’ pants and up their legs.

The Brother told him he had reported it to the headmaster, but Mr Pearson said there was no change. The trusted Brother left the order the following year, he said.

Mr Pearson said he proposed his motion in October because of the scale of the abuse within the Catholic Church that was revealed by the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse, and the need for profound change both within the church, and in the wider community.

“I had people asking me why I put it up, because the Royal Commission was already making this public, but we can’t be sitting in Parliament with our fingers in our ears and not stating something,” he said.

In his speech in October Mr Shoebridge said it was time for politicians to act on what the Royal Commission had revealed.

“I want to make clear that the next steps must be taken by politicians, by parliaments and by the authorities, not just in NSW but across Australia,” Mr Shoebridge said.

For decades and decades people in positions of authority shut their ears to the victims and bowed down to what they perceived as the political power and authority of the Catholic Church.

NSW Greens Justice spokesman David Shoebridge

“We need to move rapidly to establish a comprehensive and fair compensation scheme for victims. We need to move rapidly to remove the archaic protections that exist for the Catholic Church, so that its assets are not treated as more precious than the children it abused. We need to remove the trust structures that hide the Catholic Church's assets from victims.

“We need to remove the diplomatic protection that the Catholic Church has used to avoid accountability and avoid producing key documents for the royal commission.”

He said the royal commission had made it “very clear” that the diplomatic protection the Australian Government granted the Catholic Church in 1973 “must be challenged”.

“We need to rescind that special protection that has only been handed to one religious organisation on the planet. Imagine for one minute a politician suggesting granting diplomatic recognition to the religion of, say, Sunni Islam or Scientology or the Anglican Church. There would be outrage, and quite rightly.

“But for some reason politicians, political leaders and authority figures in this country think it is perfectly okay for the Catholic Church to be given special protection, which we know it abuses.

“The general public thinks it is grossly unreasonable, indeed complicit with an abusive institution, to allow the institution to hide behind diplomatic protections to avoid producing the documents that show the extent of its culpability and the manner in which it failed to respond to the claims of thousands and thousands of children and victims of abuse.”

Mr Shoebridge said Mr Pearson’s motion singling out the Catholic Church should have been supported.

“For decades and decades people in positions of authority - within the Catholic Church, within this Parliament, within our police forces, within civic society – knew about child sexual abuse happening in the Catholic Church.

“They knew about it because survivors had told them. Some of them knew about it because their family members had told them. Others knew about it because in their positions as either a member of Parliament, a police officer or a local councillor they had heard from survivors or the family members of victims who had taken their lives.

“They were told the stories and the accounts of child abuse happening within the Catholic Church by members of the Catholic Church, yet for decades and decades people in positions of authority shut their ears to the victims and bowed down to what they perceived as the political power and authority of the Catholic Church.

“That ends now, and it should end now with the unanimous support of this Chamber for an extremely timely motion moved by the Hon. Mark Pearson.”