IT took the NSW Upper House seven months to debate Newcastle Animal Justice Party Upper House MP Mark Pearson’s motion to condemn the Catholic Church for its history of child sexual abuse in Australia.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
He first raised it in October, 2016, in a powerful speech in Parliament after a Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse public hearing in Newcastle about abuse in the Hunter Catholic Church over decades.
Shine the Light: the Newcastle Herald’s complete coverage of the Royal Commission
He was supported by barrister and NSW Greens Justice spokesman David Shoebridge, who has been a champion for survivors of child sexual abuse in Australia for many years.
It was not until Thursday that the major parties responded, and survivors and survivor groups experienced a chill about the future – after the royal commission has delivered its final report in December and politicians are responsible for how governments address its recommendations.
Mr Pearson went to the Marist Brothers’ Hamilton high school. He was not sexually abused, but he saw notorious Brothers run their hands into the genital areas of other boys.
He wanted Parliament to single out the Catholic Church for condemnation, not only because of the sheer volume of abuse when compared to other institutions, but because the church’s own structure and laws ensured the abuse continued for decades, and in many respects still do.
“For 20 years, in the face of growing public anger about paedophile priests, political leaders backed the Catholic Church,” Mr Pearson told Parliament.
The church “cultivates an aura of untouchability”, he said.
On Thursday, when the major parties responded, it was unsettling to see how Mr Pearson’s original motion was watered down so that the Catholic Church was just one of a number of institutions condemned, and then watered down again so that no institutions are named.
In speeches on Thursday major party politicians talked about legislation that’s in place to charge those alleged to have covered up child sex offences. They talked about governments taking strong action against institutions that act as if they’re above the law.
But it’s all words and no action, and in the case of NSW Parliament it’s not even a case of specific words.
Issue: 38,502.
