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Almost two years have passed since the youth justice royal commission prompted by the abuses at Darwin's Don Dale youth detention facility. Yet many of its recommendations remain unrealised, largely due to a lack of federal funding support. In the meantime, youth justice has remained at the crossroads in many parts of Australia.
No security measures will ever be able to suppress inclinations to hatred or violence which grow in the depths of the human heart. And yet there is a difference between Colombo and Christchurch which might be worth exploring. Paradoxically, the most useful things that governments can do are those which are least often tried.
Regardless of the outcome of the upcoming election, Australia must respond promptly and fairly to the needs of all survivors, not only of institutional child sexual abuse, but of all forms of childhood trauma. Every time we create a new class of survivor and more 'have nots' we replicate the inequities of abusive systems.
The visit was clearly choreographed as part of the pre-election opera to draw public attention to the dramatic act of a strong leader who is prepared to stop boats and keep out asylum seekers. But it was supplanted even on the front page of the Coalition-friendly Australian by the story of a National Party insurgency in Queensland.
This week the presidents of bishops conferences and representatives of religious congregations around the world will meet in Rome to reflect on responses to the sexual abuse of children To understand and evaluate the meeting, we should keep in mind its background and the different groups that have a particular interest in it.
If refugees drown in the Mediterranean, scrutiny is directed towards Europe. If the deaths happen in Libya, the EU is able to manipulate human rights rhetoric alongside the bloc's concerns. Meanwhile, it remains committed to its deals with the Libyan coastguard, which is fuelling its fair share of human trafficking and exploitation.
In the wake of the St Kilda riots, while I sit petrified, third generation to Holocaust survivors, I can't stop thinking about my grandfather, who lived and came to Australia. In 2018 there was a rise in antisemitic incidents across Australia compared with 2017, which also saw a rise on previous years.
The numbers show this is not a witch hunt, merely the tip of a conclave. Any man who becomes a seminarian, then a deacon, then a priest, then a bishop, then a cardinal, will almost certainly have bumped into, bounced off or blindfolded himself to the endemic problem within the Church of the sexual abuse of children and vulnerable persons.
I am a survivor of sexual abuse. It was me who first made a complaint to NSW police that Wilson knew what Fletcher had been up to, who wrote an opinion piece for Fairfax asking what Wilson knew, who appeared on ABC TV naming the Archbishop. By extension, it must be me who initiated the witch-hunt and stirred up public hysteria.
I have interviewed Wilson just once, while working for the ABC in Adelaide. I am not a Catholic. I abhor sexual abuse and its concealment. I do not wish to debate the rights or wrongs of resignation but simply reflect on whether the pursuit of Wilson could be described as a witch-hunt and whether he might be a scapegoat for the sins of many.
It has become clear that the brutal Australian treatment of people who seek protection is part of an international punitive policy. This is sometimes attributed to a failure of political leadership. But it may reflect a deeper cultural change in the Western attitude to strangers, seen in migrant and refugee policy, penal policy, international relations and the scope of the rule of law.
Philip Wilson has been sentenced to 12 months' detention for concealing child sexual abuse. It's very likely that he will appeal his conviction and sentence. An appeal may well succeed, but that's not the end of the matter. This has been a six-year saga relating to events which occurred more than 40 years ago. Emotions are running high.
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