Page 562 - Week 02 - Thursday, 21 February 2019
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recommendations of the royal commission on the reporting of child sexual abuse, which had implications for the treatment of the confessional seal.
The royal commission’s report details countless instances of adults knowing about child sexual abuse and yet staying silent. The testimony of survivors made clear the further abuse and trauma facilitated by that silence. This offence makes clear that adults must not stay silent and that they have a duty to report child sexual abuse to police.
As the royal commission emphasised, it is important that adults proactively report information about child sexual abuse. Children are less likely to have the ability to report the abuse or to take steps to protect themselves. We also know that those who commit child sexual abuse offences may have multiple victims and may offend against particular victims over lengthy periods of time. A failure to report leaves the particular child exposed to repeated abuse and it exposes other children to abuse, leading to a fundamental breach of a child’s most basic human right to safety and protection.
I have spoken before about the primacy of children’s rights to safety and the priority that must be accorded to their rights. In view of this, the offence makes clear that a member of the clergy must report relevant information that is disclosed in religious confession. The right to freedom of religion is not absolute, and the freedom to practise religion in a particular way must never take precedence over children’s rights to safety. This new offence sends a clear message that a child’s rights are paramount and that we all play a part in keeping our society safe for our children.
The bill also adds ministers of religion as mandated reporters under the Children and Young People Act. This will require ministers of religion, religious leaders and members of the clergy to report physical and sexual abuse to child and youth protective services. These amendments recognise that ministers of religion are likely to be the recipients of information relating both to the sexual and physical abuse of children. Like the new failure to report offence, the new obligations under the mandatory reporting scheme apply to information disclosed in the confessional seal, recognising the primary importance of protecting children’s safety.
The third change this bill makes to reporting laws is to clarify the application of the reportable conduct scheme to information disclosed in a religious confession. Last year the Assembly passed the Ombudsman Amendment Act. That act extended the application of the reportable conduct scheme to religious organisations, ensuring that they came within the scope of the ACT’s scheme for the oversight of investigations of employee misconduct involving children. The act included a nine-month exclusion for information disclosed in a religious confession, to allow time to undertake further consultation on this element of the scheme. There has been extensive consultation on this in recent months, in particular, the work that was undertaken by Her Honour Justice Julie Dodds-Streeton.
Based on this consultation, the bill amends the Ombudsman Act so that physical or sexual abuse against a child disclosed in a religious confession falls within the purview of the reportable conduct scheme. This achieves consistency between the
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