Senator BARTLETT (Leader of the Australian Democrats) (4:38 PM) —On behalf of the Australian Democrats, I rise to speak on this motion, as will some of my other colleagues. I indicate at the outset our support for this motion. I think it is a good and comprehensive motion. It is a historic motion. It concerns matters that are very serious for the office of the Governor-General and, even more importantly, in terms of child sexual assault. It concerns issues that are often very emotional and very dark. I will try to be measured in my contribution, but I think the deep significance of the issue should not be swept aside in the interests of simply trying to appear unemotional on an issue.

I have a bit of extra feeling for, or interest in, the specifics of the allegations in the Aspinall report, given that they relate to the Brisbane archdiocese, where I have lived my entire life, and to schools that I am very familiar with. Indeed, in Senator Hill's comments about the particular needs for Queensland especially—perhaps more than other states—to get to the bottom of issues to do with child sexual assault, I do not know if he is suggesting or implying that there are more serious issues in Queensland than in other states, but I do think some issues of history do suggest that Queensland very much could do with an inquiry. But to say that that is a matter for Peter Beattie and the Commonwealth government washes its hands of it is a cop-out.

I am very much of the view that this issue is of significance nationally and would be best dealt with nationally rather than by six or seven different state based inquiries. Whether or not there should be a state based inquiry, to try and leave those thousands of survivors of sexual assault without justice simply because the government feels that the state should do something about it is really to say to them that they do not matter, that they can be swept aside and that we will just point the finger somewhere else. Child sexual assault survivors are a bit sick of the finger being pointed somewhere else; they would like to be taken seriously.

As I said, this is a comprehensive motion and it has a number of points. I will simply refer to the ones which I think are most significant. Firstly, there is the introduction, which notes that the government has failed to respond adequately to evidence of sexual abuse of children in our society and within our public institutions. I believe that that should be supported very strongly. There has been action, particularly by the Senate. I note and commend the work of my Democrat colleague Senator Andrew Murray, who has been the prime initiator of a Senate inquiry into treatment of children in institutions who were brought to this country as orphans. Only through that inquiry was an enormous amount of material able to be made public for the first time. There is another Senate inquiry now into the treatment of other children in institutions in Australia and again, that will be very valuable for many people, but it has to be said that that in itself is not enough. This is why a national royal commission is so important. All of us in this chamber know a Senate committee can only go so far. It cannot realistically compel witnesses to appear, particularly in issues such as this. It cannot compel witnesses to answer. It cannot compel people to produce documents. It cannot use search warrants to investigate people's places. It can give parliamentary privilege to evidence, but that evidence cannot then necessarily be used in a court of law if there is a prosecution relating to it. So it is inadequate in many ways when you are talking about issues and crimes such as sexual assault.

The recent church inquiry by the Brisbane archdiocese was in itself inadequate, not through any fault of the church but because they could only do so much. As the Prime Minister, astonishingly, said last weekend, it was only a private inquiry and did not have legal standing. Of course, we all know that the only reason it was a private inquiry is that the Prime Minister refused the request of the Anglican Church to establish a judicial inquiry or a royal commission. If he had done that in the first place we would have been able to have a legally based inquiry—many more people would have had the opportunity to provide evidence and we would not have had all these red herrings about natural justice suddenly being thrown out.

I suggest that it probably would even have been in Dr Hollingworth's interest to have a broader and fuller inquiry into the whole situation rather than simply focusing on a few cases surrounding him. That is another error of judgment this Prime Minister has made. It highlights again why a royal commission is the only way to get to the bottom of this issue comprehensively, completely and effectively, providing justice and a platform for the survivors and providing a fair process and all the protections of an inquiry and the legal process for any people who are accused. It is astonishing, I believe, that the Prime Minister is continuing to ignore what is so clearly a fundamental and serious area.

Other parts of the motion, parts (1)(f) and (1)(g), relate specifically to the Governor-General and state that in the opinion of the Senate:

the Governor-General is now no longer able to fulfil his symbolic role as a figure of unity for the Australian people.

That is quite clear. Whether or not that is fair is an issue I will get to later, but it is simply a matter of fact. In addition, the following paragraph states:

the Governor-General is now no longer able to exercise the constitutional powers of the Office in a manner that will be seen as impartial and non-partisan;

Again, that is clearly just a statement of fact. The constitutional powers of the office may not be used that often, but when they are they are very important and to have any taint of partiality in those decisions is a serious matter indeed. It is the highest office in the country. The functions of the office are wide ranging and the powers are significant—they may not be used often, but they are significant. The Governor-General is the one person who has the power to appoint and dismiss the Prime Minister. He is responsible for assenting to every new Australian law and he has the power to dissolve both houses of parliament if certain constitutional requirements are met. It is fundamental that the person who fills this office hold the respect and confidence of the majority of the Australian people. I believe a lack of confidence in the Governor-General casts a significant shadow on the foundations of our system of government. That is partly why this motion is so important and so serious. It has been moved in a house of the Australian parliament—the Senate, which reflects the views and composition of the Australian people more directly than does the lower house—and notes that the Governor-General is now no longer able to exercise the two major aspects of his role—his symbolic role and his constitutional role. Whether you call that a censure motion or a no-confidence motion, as the Democrats initially flagged some weeks back—and I would suggest that this is probably even stronger than a no-confidence motion—it is very comprehensive, and that is why we support it.

There have been some critics in the community. One of those critics, who comes from Queensland, is Terry O'Gorman. He has a strong record as an upholder of civil liberties over many years and has been outspoken for some time about the need to ensure that the rights and civil liberties of accused sex offenders and accused paedophiles are protected. It is important that we get the balance right. In my view, the balance has been wrong for many years, protecting the accused and known offenders at the expense of victims and survivors. We still have a way to go to get that balance right.

I totally reject suggestions that these debates about the Governor-General are somehow a witch-hunt. This is a public office. This is the highest office in the land and you cannot expect that office to be immune from public commentary, particularly when it is an office that the public have no say in appointing. We cannot criticise and then vote out the Governor-General; the Governor-General is appointed solely on the say-so of one person, the Prime Minister. To suggest that this office, which in some ways is meant to represent us all as a nation, is immune from public criticism is simply extraordinary. To suggest that we cannot raise an issue as fundamental and as serious as child sexual assault when there are clear questions around the actions of the person who currently holds that position because we might get accused of conducting a witch-hunt is, again, simply of no foundation.

I do not enjoy criticising individual people in any context. I certainly do not enjoy calling on people to resign from positions or publicly criticising them strongly, as I have been doing, but as leader of a parliamentary party, I have a responsibility—and I believe we all have the responsibility—to remember the many thousands of victims of sexual assault who have not had their voices heard, who have been ignored and who have not been treated seriously. I admit that I am more concerned about those damaged people who need support than I am about the Governor-General. I am sure he is much more able to answer for himself, for starters, and to be in a position where he can have people defend him. Many people who have survived or endured child sexual assault have had nobody to defend them or stand up for them and it is well and truly beyond time that we now start to do so. Again, the other part of the motion that I believe is most important and significant is the call on the Prime Minister to establish a royal commission into child sexual abuse.

I have made my view clear—as have the Democrats, as have many other people around the country—that the Governor-General should resign. Other people have a different view. In my view, if the Governor-General stays in the office, the office will continue to be severely compromised and the Prime Minister will be seen to be continuing to not address the issue. If the Governor-General stays in the office, I believe it will continue to send a signal that the Prime Minister and the Governor-General do not believe child sexual assault is a serious enough issue and that it can just be dismissed as not that big a deal.

That is a terrible message to the Australian people. I think it will send a particularly painful message to people who have been touched by child sexual assault, whether they are survivors or the families of survivors. But that is even less important than the need to address this issue on a comprehensive basis. If the Governor-General stays in office, it is unfortunate; it is not the end of the world. But it is quite literally the end of the world for many people if they cannot get their voices heard about this issue.

The Leader of the Government in the Senate, Senator Hill, mentioned that the Governor-General came from a social services background, rather than some of the other traditional backgrounds for governors-general. I think that is probably a good thing. As people may know, my background is in social work and community work. I do not profess to be a complete expert on the issue, but I have had contact and done work with individuals who have had their lives absolutely destroyed by sexual assault and sexual abuse. That basic fact should not be forgotten. This destroys lives, and that is why it is literally for some people the end of the world, the end of their world, if they are not able to get justice.

Another reason why the Democrats believe a royal commission is so important is for the children of today and the future. In some ways, it is too late—far too late—for many people, but we must do what we can to ensure that everything is done to prevent this occurring. We all live in an imperfect world. I am not being utopian. There will always be these sorts of acts committed. But we can do an enormous amount better. It is true, as Senator Hill said, that the majority of sexual assaults and sexual abuses occur within families or extended families, amongst people known to the victim. There are issues there as well.

But we also need to look at our institutions, both those institutions that care for children and those various departments that work with families. We see repeated inquiries, repeated acknowledgements by governments, by people in the field that the resources and the processes of those departments are not adequate. To say that is just a state issue is simply a cop-out. This federal government provides enormous amounts of funding. Some may argue about whether it is enough in specific areas, but we provide an enormous amounts of funding at the Commonwealth level to states to undertake certain activities.

What this federal government should be doing—something a royal commission can quite comprehensively do—is putting in place a set of standards, of benchmarks that must be met, whether it is by state departments, whether it is by churches, whether it is by sporting groups, whether it is by schools; you do not get money, you do not function, you do not have the right to oversee the care of children unless you have your act together.

Some organisations have got better in recent years—we have started to move towards screening of people who have contact with children, with criminal checks, character checks, mandatory reporting, putting in place procedures for dealing with complaints—but I do not think anybody could suggest that we do not still have a long way to go. I would suggest that it is not only clearly in the interests of survivors and institutions but in the interests of the government to have a proper, decent, comprehensive inquiry that can look into this fully, because there are plenty of other instances out there. Anybody in this place who has raised these issues—and I am sure Senator Murray would affirm this—knows that all you have to do is show an interest in trying to raise these issues and promote these issues and you will have people coming to you who are desperate to get their situation addressed, to be acknowledged.

There are plenty of other cases, other situations, other dioceses, other churches where cases will come to light in the future. If the government wants to have them dribble out, case by case, instance by instance, month after month, year after year, repeatedly being shown that they could have acted and have not, I would suggest that is not in their political interests. Of course, I am not particularly interested in the political interests of the government, or the rest of us, when we are talking about this issue; I am interested in getting action to try to prevent this sort of issue from coming to the fore.

There have been over 100 clergy from the Catholic and Anglican churches alone who have been convicted of child sexual assault in the past five years with thousands of assaults on children, allegations that have been put forward by the Voices group in Australia's first sexual assault class action. The particular report and incident we are talking about relate to simply one diocese of one church in relation to a small number of cases in a specific period of time. There is an argument that has not been put forward today but has been put forward by some in the community that we should stop criticising the Governor-General because, sure, he made a mistake but it was a long time ago; standards were different back then. Firstly, I do not think 1993 was that long ago; nor was 1998 or 1999. The fact is that hundreds of thousands of Australians are still paying a terrible price for these so-called standards. I am not sure that they were ever official standards—in fact, they certainly were not; they were unspoken, institutionalised standards—but they deserve to be highlighted as completely inadequate and should be condemned. The only way of doing that is by sending a message that the government should take this seriously. The Senate certainly takes this seriously.

We can all say individually that this is a serious issue, but that does not cut it with people anymore. People want action; people want direct acknowledgment. We have to acknowledge that the actions of Dr Hollingworth in his previous role were not that long ago, were grossly inadequate, put children at risk and put the interests of the institution and the perpetrator—someone who was later convicted—ahead of the interests of the victims. We as a house of parliament or as people who are in leadership roles in the community cannot simply wave that away as a simple error of judgment. That is why I believe we as a Senate need to send a strong message, and that is why I believe the Governor-General and the Prime Minister should send a strong message. It is not pleasant; no-one is suggesting it is. I am not saying the Governor-General should be tarred and feathered for the rest of his life. All I am saying is that he is no longer adequate to perform in the position that he is in. It would send a very strong positive message about child sexual assault if he were to recognise that and stand down.

In any case the Democrats—and I urge others in this chamber to do the same—continue to push for action on the issue of a royal commission because it is what we believe is necessary. We believe that it is the best way forward on this issue. It should continue in many ways beyond the debate about the Governor-General—that simply serves to draw attention to the importance of the issue. We need to get action for people. The Prime Minister said today in question time, `Some people say you're better off spending $60 million on services than on a royal commission.' If that means the government is going to announce an extra $60 million in spending, that is great, but let us have a royal commission as well. (Time expired)

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