Laws forcing priests to report child abuse passed in Victorian parliament

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Laws forcing priests to report child abuse passed in Victorian parliament

By Noel Towell and Simone Fox Koob
Updated

The Victorian government says it hopes it does not have to jail priests who fail to report child abuse revealed in the confession box.

The state's Parliament passed laws on Tuesday carrying sentences of up to three years for failing to report abuse, but Premier Daniel Andrews said on Wednesday morning that he did not know of any convictions under Victoria's broader mandatory reporting laws, in place for 25 years.

The Premier said the laws, and the new legislation passed on Tuesday, were intended to create a culture in which all abuse or mistreatment of children was reported, regardless of how it came to light.

Mr Andrews said the bill, which passed the upper house on Tuesday night with bipartisan support, was intended to send a message all the way to the top of the Catholic Church in Rome.

"The most important thing is to send a message that the law is to be taken seriously, if people don’t obey the law, then the penalties are very significant," the Premier said.

"The culture is one where people have taken the laws and their responsibilities in terms of mandatory reporting very seriously."

The changes will bring religious leaders into line with police, teachers, doctors, nurses, school counsellors and youth justice workers who are required to report child abuse to authorities.

"The special treatment for churches has ended and child abuse must be reported," Child Protection Minister Luke Donnellan said in the wake of Tuesday night's Parliamentary vote.

The Catholic Church has insisted priests would be obliged to defy the laws, with Melbourne Archbishop Peter Comensoli previously stating he was prepared to go to jail rather than break the confessional seal.

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"For Catholics, confession is a religious encounter of a deeply personal nature. It deserves confidentiality," he said in August.

'Today we've made Victoria a safer place for children': Victorian Child Protection Minister Luke Donnellan.

'Today we've made Victoria a safer place for children': Victorian Child Protection Minister Luke Donnellan.Credit: Paul Jeffers

"They'll have to get the prisons ready," declared Melbourne's best-known Catholic priest, Father Bob Maguire, on Wednesday.

Asked whether the clergy would refuse to report abuse to the police, he said: "I presume so. Well, they have to in principle."

Father Bob said he understood the rationale behind the laws, but said tensions remained between the expectations of secular society and the practices of the church.

“We’d like to ensure the community is safeguarded against another attack and the person who's the predator is dealt with by restorative justice, not by retributive justice."

A spokesman said Archbishop Comensoli would not be responding publicly to the new legislation on Wednesday, and referred The Age to the Archbishop's August remarks.

But Mr Andrews said the state government now expected church workers to obey the law of Victoria, not rules written in Rome.

"I've made it very clear that the law of our state is written by the Parliament of Victoria, it's not made in Rome and there are very significant penalties for anybody and everybody who breaks the Victorian law," the Premier said.

Mr Andrews' government introduced the legislation in early August, compelling priests to break the seal of confession to report disclosures of child abuse, but the Coalition stopped short of supporting it at the time.

However, Opposition Leader Michael O’Brien later revealed he would back the bill.

The Age revealed in August that Archbishop Comensoli began discussions with authorities a year ago about child safety and the principles of confession, despite his claim that the church was not properly consulted on new laws.

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The archbishop, who recently marked his first year in the job, pushed back against the legislation in an opinion piece in the The Age, in which he says the bill is "unworkable" and shows a lack of understanding about the act of confession, particularly the anonymity of penitents.

The introduction of the legislation follows a recommendation in the 2017 final report of the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sex Abuse that clergy and confession no longer be exempt from mandatory reporting.

The Northern Territory and South Australia have introduced mandatory reporting laws to which clergy are subject, and Western Australia and Tasmania have committed to doing so.

Mr Andrews, a practising Catholic, announced the policy in November, during the 2018 state election campaign.

With AAP, Chris Vedelago, Debbie Cuthbertson

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