A window is opening to show the shameful record of Australia’s state schools on sexual abuse

Sep 12, 2023 by Jill

by Michael Cook, Mercator:

Australia’s Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse wound up in December 2017. In five years, it held 8,000 private sessions, held 444 days of public hearing, heard more than 1,200 witness, commission more than 100 research papers, examined more than 1.2 million documents, and generated more than 45,400 pages of transcripts. The final report comprised 17 volumes. It cost A$342 million.

What has become apparent in recent months is that this was not $342 million well spent.

The institution examined most thoroughly by the Royal Commission was the Catholic Church. According to the chairman, Peter McClelland, “of the survivors who came to tell their story 58.6 per cent reported that they were abused in an institution managed by a religious organisation. Of these, 61.8 per cent, or almost 2500 people, reported that they suffered child sexual abuse in an institution managed by the Catholic Church.”

Other denominations, including the Anglican Church, the Jehovah’s Witnesses, and the Salvation Army, were also investigated, but the media focused on some appallingly abusive priests and cover-ups by Catholic Church leaders.

However, sexual abuse in state schools was barely mentioned by the Royal Commission. Media critic Gerard Henderson complained: “the royal commission conducted 57 case studies, but not one covered an existing government school anywhere in Australia. This was a grievous error of omission, especially since [former Prime Minister Julia] Gillard had stated it could inquire into all institutions.”

McClelland penned an indignant response to Henderson. He sputtered that public schools had not been ignored. However, he wrote: “the royal commission conducted case studies in proportion to the number of complaints received about different types of institutions.”

His words show why the Royal Commission was emotionally cathartic, but informationally bankrupt. It was a $342 million exercise in selection bias. The subjects were not chosen randomly and were not representative of the Australian population.

It is no surprise that victims of Catholic institutions were over-represented. Since 2000, articles about abuse by Catholic priests were in the news constantly. The Boston Globe won a Pulitzer Prize for reporting about horrific incidents of abuse in the Boston Catholic Archdiocese. This sparked more journalistic investigations overseas and in Australia. In 2012, the state of New South Wales set up a special commission of inquiry into Catholic sexual abuse in the Maitland–Newcastle diocese. There was a public uproar. Later that year, Prime Minister Julia Gillard announced the establishment of the Royal Commission. In 2015, in the middle of the Royal Commission’s work, Spotlight won the Academy Award for Best Picture.

So sex abuse in the Catholic Church was never out of the headlines. The intense publicity encouraged Catholics who had been abused as children to tell their stories. No wonder they were over-represented in the Royal Commission’s findings. Selection bias was baked into the terms of reference.

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