Saturday's Poem: Henry Lawson- Scots of the Riverina

Oh my ways are
strange ways and
new ways and old 
ways. And deep
ways and steep
ways and high
ways and low. I'm
at home and at ease
on a track that I
know not. And
restless and lost
on a road that I
know.
Henry Lawson

So we must fly a rebel flag,
As others did before us,
And we must sing a rebel song
And join in rebel chorus.
We’ll make the tyrants feel the sting
O’ those that they would throttle;
They needn’t say the fault is ours,
If blood should stain the wattle.
Henry Lawson (Freedom on the Wallaby)

"That he managed to dredge out of disadvantage, adversity and often appalling hardship so many magnificent stories is testimony to a toughness and determination that he is perhaps not often enough given credit for."
Brian Matthews on Henry Lawson


Scots of the Riverina

by Henry Lawson

The boy cleared out to the city from his home at harvest time --
They were Scots of the Riverina, and to run from home was a crime.
The old man burned his letters, the first and last he burned,
And he scratched his name from the Bible when the old wife's back was turned.

A year went past and another. There were calls from the firing-line;
They heard the boy had enlisted, but the old man made no sign.
His name must never be mentioned on the farm by Gundagai --
They were Scots of the Riverina with ever the kirk hard by.

The boy came home on his "final", and the township's bonfire burned.
His mother's arms were about him; but the old man's back was turned.
The daughters begged for pardon till the old man raised his hand --
A Scot of the Riverina who was hard to understand.The boy was killed in Flanders, where the best and bravest die.
There were tears at the Grahame homestead and grief in Gundagai;
But the old man ploughed at daybreak and the old man ploughed till the mirk --
There were furrows of pain in the orchard while his housefolk went to the kirk.

The hurricane lamp in the rafters dimly and dimly burned;
And the old man died at the table when the old wife's back was turned.
Face down on his bare arms folded he sank with his wild grey hair
Outspread o'er the open Bible and a name re-written there.

Henry Lawson's poem tells the story of a young man who leaves the family farm in the Riverina country in outback Australia and moves to the city, with the result that his father disowns him. The young man enlists in the Australian army during WW1 and goes off to France, where he he is killed at Flanders.

Henry Lawson (1867-1922) is one of the best known Australian poets, bush balladeers and writers of the late 19th  and early 20th century. Lawson's first poem was published in 1887 and his first book in 1894.

Lawson was just 21 when his poem "Faces in the Street", was published in 1888. The poem was  a bitter denunciation of the injustices and poverty imposed on the poor and those made marginal. The poem exposed the lie that Australia is the land of plenty and a classless society. It became a revolutionary anthem and almost overnight Lawson became famous.

Many of his poems are bush ballads which have achieved the status of Australian folklore. In the late 19th and early 20th century Lawson was the most popular writer in Australia and considered the voice of ordinary Australians.

Lawson wrote about the hardships of Australian bush life, the social and political events of the times, the plight of the poor, the cause of an Australian republic, the strength of women and the larrikinism and humor of Australians.

Lawson's radicalism and his struggle with alcohol were factors that limited his employment opportunities. His career as a freelance writer was highly precarious and he eked out a marginal existence for much of his life. In 1890 he traveled to Albany in Western Australia (my home town) to pursue a career as a journalist, where he wrote for the Albany Observer and worked as laborer. He visited Albany again in 1896 on his honeymoon.

Of Albany Lawson wrote;

"It will never change much - it is a pretty town but vague. I like it all the better for that."

After he separated from his wife and children in 1903, Lawson struggled with alcohol and depression and lack of money. He lived his final years in poverty. He was frequently gaoled for failure to pay maintenance for his children and often wandered the streets of Sydney, frail and drunk. His final years were spent in and out of mental hospitals and prison. 

Despite his troubles, Lawson continued to write. He died in 1922 as a result of a brain hemorrhage. He was honored with a State funeral, the first Australian writer to receive the honor.

Lawson now features on the Australian $10 note.

The Australian singer-songwriter John Schuman and the Vagabond Crew have put Lawson's poem to music.

Lilly Brett and the contemporary resonance of the Holocaust

Leaving You
Lilly Brett

It has taken me
a long time to know
that it was your war
not mine

that I wasn’t
in Auschwitz
myself

that I have never seen
the Lodz Ghetto

or Stuthof
or a cattle wagon
or a selection queue
I thought
I knew
Nazis

I thought
I had lived
with fear

with
ration cards
with work permits

I thought I knew
what bodies gnawed by rats
looked like

and how
the mattresses
smelt

and what
it felt like
to fill your lungs

with
smoke
from flesh

to
live
with death

I have had
trouble
Mother
leaving you.

Lily Brett is an award-winning German- born, Australian novelist, essayist and poet who has lived in New York City since 1988. She began writing profiles of rock musicians in the 1960s for the Australian music magazine Go Set. Brett has published seven volumes of poetry, three collections of essays and six novels.

Brett is recognised as a distinguished Jewish poet of the Holocaust, along with poets like Paul Celan, Dan Pagis, Primo Levi, Hayim Gouri, and Jerzy Ficowski.

Brett was the daughter of Holocaust survivors. Her parents survived six years in Polish ghettos before being transferred to Auschwitz concentration camp where they were separated. At the war's conclusion, they searched for six months to find each other. Brett's parents lost their whole family in the Holocaust-brothers, sisters, grandparents, uncles, aunts.

Lilly Brett was born in a displaced persons' camp in Germany in 1946 and emigrated to Melbourne in 1948, aged two.

Brett is currently in Australia to deliver the 2016 Yom Hashoah Communal Commemoration lecture for the NSW Jewish Board of Deputies to honour Holocaust survivors who migrated to Australia.

In a recent interview she expressed concern about the ways that contemporary politicians are exploiting the politics of hate and demonization for political gain, likening it to tactics used by the Nazis:

"...racism is dangerous. That bigotry is dangerous. It doesn’t matter if you are talking about Jews or anyone else, we cannot allow bigotry. And hatred of other people has become acceptable again. And it is becoming acceptable. Look at Donald Trump. The way he talks about Mexicans, and Muslims. His tactics are the same as any despot in history. It’s the politics of hate. That’s how people operated in the Nazi era, and when politicians do that it makes other people think it is acceptable.
“I have heard Australians — people I like enormously — talk about asylum-seekers in a way that makes me want to cry because we were refugees. And if you look at any community that has taken refugees in, they have enriched those communities."

A conversation between Richard Fidler and Lilly Brett on the ABC program Conversations with Richard Fidler is here.

Sings of Renown: For a Short Time- Weddings, Parties, Anything

"Tell me how long is a short time, is it longer than two hours,

Or a bit less than a weekend. Is it shorter than a year?
Is it the time it takes to not complete your business with a person,
With a friend you make in transit,
to a daughter held so dear."
Mick Thomas and Weddings Parties Anything

The song For a Short Time appears on the 1997 album River'Esque, the ninth album by the Australian folk/alternative rock band Weddings Parties Anything.

Weddings Parties Anything (known as Weddings or WPA) were a seminal Australian band with a passionate fan base and cult following, who played music rooted in Australian history and Australian culture. 

Revered for their live performances, Weddings recorded and toured continuously for 15 years from 1984 until 1999 when they split up. They have reunited occasionally for gigs since then, with the last reunion concert being in 2012.

Mick Thomas, the band's lead singer, front man and composer of the majority of songs, is recognized as one of Australia's finest songwriters. 

The song For a Short Time was written by Mick Thomas and proved to be one of the band's more melodic and emotional songs, regularly featuring as a favorite in live gigs. The song also features regularly in Mick Thomas solo gigs, often closing the show.

The song is about people who come into the orbit of our lives for short time and then are gone for good, leaving a legacy that combines melancholia, regret and sorrow, with joy and appreciation for the memory of that person. 

As a friend of mine said, the song "speaks to the fragility of the heart".

And sometimes you can feel more, for someone you've barely kissed,

but you don't see it at the time, and the moment that you've missed.
For a short time, she was standing there,
and you saw her, 

she saw you 

and you recall the colour of her hair.

For a long time, you never thought of her,

Then you heard she was gone for good,

You might have cried then if you could,

Would have looked foolish if you did, somewhere

The tears are falling in your mind,

For a short time.

Mick Thomas wrote the song about a young woman, 'a daughter held so dear', who was a friend of the band 'for a short time'. 

There's a photo of your gang, 
on the night she hung about,

and you're looking like a wag, 
you've got your fat tongue poking out.

But she's no-where to be seen, 

you won't spot her anywhere.

It was her who took the picture, 

you were looking straight at her.

A few years later he found out that she had died in an accident.

The song features the haunting violin of Jen Anderson and the evocative piano accordion playing of Mark Wallace.

For a Short Time
Michael Thomas and Weddings, Parties Anything

Sometimes you can say more, in a drunken hour or so
than some people get across, in a life of lying low.
And sometimes you can feel more, for someone you've barely kissed
but you don't see it at the time, and the moment that you've missed.
For a short time, she was standing there,
and you saw her, she saw you and you recall the colour of her hair.
For a long time, you never thought of her,
Then you heard she was gone for good,
You might have cried then if you could,
Would have looked foolish if you did, somewhere
The tears are falling in your mind,
For a short time.
There's a photo of your gang, on the night she hung about,

and you're looking like a wag, you've got your fat tongue poking out.

But she's no-where to be seen, you won't spot her anywhere.

It was her who took the picture, you were looking straight at her.

For a short time, she was standing there,

and you saw her, she saw you and you recall the colour of her hair.

For a long time, you never thought of her,

Then you heard she was gone for good,

You might have cried then if you could,

Would have looked foolish if you did, somewhere

The tears are falling in your mind,

For a short time.

Tell me how long is a short time, is it longer than two hours,

Or a bit less than a weekend. Is it shorter than a year?

Is it the time it takes to not complete your business with a person,

With a friend you make in transit,
to a daughter held so dear.

Songs as historical markers: Martin Simpson's Jackie and Murphy and the Anzac legend

The myth of Anzac was promulgated to enable Australians to live with the otherwise unbearable carnage of WW1  
Marilyn Lake

Somethings never change Jackie/But perhaps they never will/While the bloodless fools in Whitehall/ They sit in judgement still/
Martin Simpson (final lines from Jackie and Murphy)

Martin Simpson's song Jackie and Murphy is not just a magnificent tribute to John Simpson Kirkpatrick and his donkey Murphy. It is a song that speaks forgotten truths about the disastrous Gallipoli campaign.

In recounting the life story of John Simpson Kirkpatrick, the song describes the horror and carnage of the Gallipoli campaign (where Simpson Kirkpatrick was a stretcher bearer for 4 weeks before he was killed).

The song also demonstrates the ways the history of the campaign and the terrible suffering of ordinary soldiers is used to serve political and military agendas.

When I was at primary school the story of Simpson and his donkey was used to indoctrinate us about the history of the Gallipoli campaign and to conceal the truth about Australia's invasion of a sovereign nation and the horror of war. We were schooled into an interpretation of Gallipoli that affirmed a contemporary and conservative view of Australian identity.

 

As Joan Beaumont argues, this emphasis on Gallipoli and a particular view of the Anzac legend is a distinctive and powerful part of Australia's political culture.

'The Anzac legend today serves particular purposes. One is to reinforce those values which court the Anzac legend such as endurance, sacrifice, mateship. Those values continue to be very important to Australian governments who are trying in a very materialistic and secular and individualistic society to still persuade Australians to be willing to volunteer for war or even to serve as police officers or fire fighters'

 Joan Beaumont also argues that constant commemoration of  Gallipoli and the ANZAC legend works to deflect debate about the legitimacy of war.

'This was very obvious during the Iraq intervention of 2003, when the then-prime minister John Howard made it difficult to criticise the war because it was suggested you would thereby be criticising those who chose to serve. With that goes a silencing of debate about the reasons that those soldiers are being deployed, and that is a concern to a number of commentators.'

Joan Beaumont's brilliant book Broken Nation: Australians in the Great War  challenges the way that Australia's war experience is presented as the predominant historical narrative. 

A review of the book by Marilyn Lake is here.

You can listen to a live version and explanation of Martin Simpson's song here:

Jackie and Murphy by Martin Simpson
(copyright Martin Simpson)

There's a statue of a donkey on Southshield sea front
He's a decorated donkey
and with him stands a man

and the man's name is Jackie he has no decoration

though he was a war hero.
 

Down on the sands Jackie sold donkey rides

His favorite was Murphy

and they waited on the tide 

to give rides to little children and flirt with the pretty girls.
 

And he's joined the merchant navy and he's off to see the world.

Well he sailed the wide world all over Jackie

till he came to Newcastle in NSW

he'd had enough of stoking coals, rollin seas and heavy gales.
 

So you changed your name to plain John Simpson

So you jumped ship and you rambled all down the shore

shearing, droving, larrikin and a new recruit for war.

Give a dog a bad name Jackie

Somethings never change 

a hundred years are almost gone

Not a medal to your name

Somethings never change Jackie

They give a dog a bad name

but your a hero still.

Well I signed up for this army Murphy

Thought I might catch a troop ship home

Maybe change my name again and never more to roam.
But we didn't sail to England Murphy

We sailed right into hell

Now I am a stretcher bearer in the bloody Dardanelles.
 

Now I don't like taking orders Murphy

That's not the way I am

But now we've got this job to do and I'll do the best I can.
You and me are mockers here Murphy

Down here on the sand

I'll whistle and we sing our songs and we'll march to the beat of the band.

Jesus you know I am tired Murphy

Breakfast wasn't ready today

They said they would keep dinner hot

Come on lads we are on our way

Down to shrapnel gully again

To the land of blood, flesh and bone

You have been there so many times

You can damn near fetch them on your own.

Did you hear the machine guns rattle?

Did you feel those bullets tearing through?

I pray that peace and quiet and dark are the last things you know

You saved 300 wounded men

You and Murphy on their own

You died to save the very last but Murphy fetched him back alive.

Give a dog a bad name Jackie

Some things never change 

a hundred years are almost gone 

Not a medal to your name

Somethings never change Jackie

But perhaps they never will.
While the bloodless fools in Whitehall

They sit in judgement still

Remembering Peter Norman: A athlete who sacrificied personal glory for the cause of justice

"Even as late as August 2012, the AOC denied blacklisting Peter Norman. The time is right to tell the story of the former teacher who won a silver medal in one of the strongest sprint races ever run.  Indeed his athletic achievements warrant greater recognition on this alone. But Norman was more than this; his words to Smith and Carlos “I will stand with you” represents one of the high points of Australian sporting history"

Steve Georgakis 

Nine years have passed since the death of Peter Norman, who is one of the Australian sportsmen I admire the most.

Peter Norman did something few Australian sportsman are willing to do.

He choose to surrender personal glory and fame to a greater good and to the fight against injustice. It was a decision that was to affect the rest of his life.
 

Peter Norman won the silver medal in the 200 metres at the 1968 Mexico Olympics behind American Tommie Smith and ahead of American John Carlos.

 

In that race Peter Norman ran a time for the 200 meters that has never been bettered by an Australian. Norman still holds the 200 meter record for the fastest Australian.

Tommie Smith and John Carlos's act of defiance during the medal ceremony- black gloves, closed fist, black power salute and black socks- was designed to express their solidarity with the American civil rights and black power movements and intended as a statement against racism and injustice.

For me it is an iconic moment in sporting and political history.

Matt Norman's documentary Salute and Damien Johnstone's biography of Peter Norman show that Peter Norman was an active co-creator and participant in this act of political defiance. It was Norman who suggested the Americans each wear one glove (hence the reason why one salutes with the left fist and the other with the right). 

Norman was proud and committed in standing alongside the two Americans. His was an act of solidarity in recognition of a greater cause. Norman actively supported the American's action and on his chest he wore the same the same large button as the Smith and Carlos. It was emblazoned with the letters O-P-H-R- Olympic Project for Human Rights.

At Peter Norman's funeral in 2006, John Carlos described how events unfolded on the way to victory dais that fateful day in Mexico:

Carlos and Smith asked Norman if he believed in human rights. He said he did. They asked him if he believed in God. Norman said he did. When they told Norman what they were going to do he said "I will stand with you". Carlos noted how Norman never flinched on the dais, never turning his eyes or head"

Norman, who was a teacher and guided by his Salvation Army faith, was also motivated to take part in the Black Power salute because of his opposition to racism and the White Australia Policy.

The backlash against all three was not long coming.

Smith and Carlos were withdrawn from other races and sent home. On returning to the USA they were ostracized and had trouble finding employment. All three athletes suffered for their stand for human rights and against racism and injustice. Smith and Carlos were never again chosen to represent their country and were hounded out of athletics. 

On his return to Australia Norman faced horrendous criticism and was treated as a pariah, despite his remarkable performance. His desire to coach athletics at the highest level never came to fruition and he was the victim of a blacklist in Australia. He was forced to work as a physical education teacher to survive.

Despite being the 5 time national champion in the 200 metres, the Australian record holder for 200m and an Olympic silver medalist, Norman was not selected for the 1972 Munich Olympics, despite qualifying.

Despite the brilliance of his performance, Norman's name  still does not appear in discussion or books about finest Australian sporting performances or the greatest moments in Australian sport.

Norman, who died in 2006 aged 64, was a lifelong campaigner and fighter against injustice, and continues to be denied a place in Australian sporting history because of his act of defiance. He was not invited to the 2000 Sydney Olympics, but went as a guest of the American Olympic Team.

In 2012 the Labor politician Andrew Leigh led an officially apology in Parliament to Peter Norman's family for his treatment in Australia.

Judith Wright and 'the heave of the great corporations'

'Only those coral insects live

that work and endure under

the breaker's cold continual thunder.

They are the quick of the reef

that rots and crumbles in calmer water

Only those men survive

who dare to hold their love against the world;

who dare to live and doubt what they are told.

They are the quick of life;

their faith is insolence; joyful is their grief'

Builders

Judith Wright

Today I am thinking about Judith Wright, Australia's finest poet and long time campaigner and activist and her biographer, Veronica Brady. 

They were both warriors- of the imagination, of the spirit and against injustice.

Judith Wright died in 2000  and Veronica Brady died in Perth in August this year. They are both deeply missed.

But their lives and their writing stand as a testimony and reminder of their remarkable contribution.

At Fremantle Library today I found the new republished edition of Judith Wright's The Coral Battleground, a book published in 1977, that documents the campaign to protect the Great Barrier Reef from oil and gas exploration and mining.

The book was re-published in 2014 by Spinifex Press. In it Judith Wright wrote:

 

"The Reef's fate is a microcosm of the new battle within ourselves. So this is not just a story of one campaign. The human attitudes, the social and industrial forces, and the people who in one way or other take their part in the campaign, represent a much wider field, and one in which the future of the human race may finally be decided".

The Coral Battleground begins in 1963, when Judith Wright was involved in the formation of the Queensland Wildlife Preservation Society. 

Between 1967-1971, the Society was instrumental in a campaign led by Judith Wright  and artist John Busst and environmentalist and scientist Len Webb to prevent the Queensland State Government, led by Premier Joh Bjelke-Peterson, from opening up the Great Barrier Reef to mining.

 

At the time they were denounced as radicals, fanatics and cranks.

 

Judith Wright, John Busst and Len Webb mobilized an alliance of citizens, conservation groups and trade unions against plans by the development oriented (and corrupt) Bjelke- Peterson Government  to allow the Great Barrier Reef to be exploited by mining companies.

Their campaign eventually led to the Federal Government claiming Commonwealth sovereignty over the Great Barrier Reef. In 1975 the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority was established. The creation of the Great Barrier Marine Park was the first such national park in the world. The reef and its waters were listed as a world heritage site in 1981.

 

Wright once wrote:

 

 "If the Great Barrier Reef could think, it would fear us ... Slowly but surely we are destroying those great water-gardens, lovely indeed as cherry boughs and flowers under the once clear sea."

 

And now the reef is under threat again. 
 

In the Foreword to the 2014 edition of The Coral Battleground the conservationist and environmental activist Margaret Thorsborne documents a series of threat to the reef including: human induced climate change; loss of seagrass; shrinking populations of many dependent species; infestation of the crown of thorns starfish; development pressures; reduction in water quality; catchment run off; coastal and port developments and the Queensland mining boom which is driving the demand for bigger port facilities, more dredging, more reclamations, more sea dumping of dredge spoil and more and deeper channels to serve bigger ships.

 

The United Nations has warned Australia and the Queensland Governments that unless real improvement  are made to the deteriorating condition of the reef, it may be listed as a world heritage site in danger.

 

As Thorsborne notes, although Judith Wright's battle was won in the 1970's and 1980's, Australian's must face the harsh reality that the Barrier Reef is never safe while the real destroyers- industrial, financial and resource extractive capitalism- continue to declare war on the natural world.

 

Of course Judith Wright knew all this well.  In her poem For Today (from For a Pastoral Family) she wrote: 

 

We were always part of a process. It has expanded.

What swells over us now is a logical spread

from the small horizons we made-

the heave of the great corporations

whose bellies are never full.

 

Previous posts  on this blog about Judith Wright are here.

Transfield, Father Rod Bower and the "what would Jesus do" test

Last week I wrote this piece  about attempts by Transfield Chair Dianne Gander-Smith to silence Anglican Priest Rod Bowers whose tweets and signs outside his church in Gosford (about Transfield's culpability and involvement in the abuse and mistreatment of asylum seekers on Manus Island and Naura) had angered and upset the Transfield Chair.

The Transfield Chairperson sought a meeting with Father Bower's superior, the Anglican Bishop of Newcastle Greg Thompson, because she was concerned to engage with the Church in light of Father Bower's message.

 

A report of the meeting between Bishop Thompson and Transfield Chair Dianne Gander- Smith can be found here in the Newcastle Herald.

 

The Bishop apparently raised his own concerns with the Transfield Chair over their treatment of asylum seekers on Naura and Manus Island and urged the Transfield Chair to consider the "what Jesus would do" test to review their involvement.

 

Bishop Thompson also raised the church’s failure to respond to child sexual abuse allegations to show that organisations and individuals need to account for ‘‘what you did when you knew’’ about suspected abuse. 

 

Bishop Thompson was reported as saying:

‘‘I spoke at length on the importance of responding to matters of abuse. I shared my learning on abuse history of the church, its culture of avoidance and the impact of this on leadership.’’

The Transfield Chair apparently claimed she was an activist on Indigenous issues herself to demonstrate her credentials and to claim that she understood  what Father Bower was trying to achieve.

The Newcastle Herald report continues:

"The Bishop said Ms Smith-Gander ‘came across as a genuine person’ who said she would ‘pass on my thoughts to her board’. ‘She said she was an activist for indigenous issues and understood what Rod’s signs were seeking to achieve,’’ Bishop Thompson said. ‘‘The 45-minute conversation ended well.’"

The Newcastle Herald also reports that Father Bower has supported and met with University of Newcastle staff and students protesting against Transfield’s 5-year, $88 million contract with the University to manage the its facilities across the state. 

 

The Herald wrote:

Father Bower said organisations like the university that did business with Transfield, and wanted to be seen as ethical operators, ‘‘must have concerns about an asylum seeker process that creates a deterrent through deprivation’’.

‘‘The question has to be asked whether letting a contract to a company involved with intentional deprivation fits with the university’s ethical guidelines? Clearly it doesn’t,’’ Father Bower said.

Two tumultous years but little real progress for adult victims of child sexual abuse

“Victims and their families have been fighting for recognition and justice for decades and great victories were achieved when the Victorian Inquiry and the Royal Commission were established. But ‘for what’ they say.”

Judy Courtin

The Australian Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse is after 2 years, at its halfway mark. The Commission is focused on systemic issues and institutional responses to allegations and incidents of child sexual abuse. Public hearings have been the main way the Commission does its work.

 

Although the Royal Commission’s brief is overwhelming, the hearings have been revelatory and harrowing. The Commission has heard evidence of horrific and horrendous systematic and institutional physical and sexual abuse and rape of children within religious, faith and welfare organisations. 

 

Evidence to the Commission shows that both low and high level officials in institutions supposed to protect children actively conspired to abuse and rape them. In many cases these were highly sophisticated, organized institutional crimes committed against children.
 

 The Commission has exposed the breadth of institutional settings - churches, schools, hospitals, out-of-homecare, children's homes, juvenile centres, NFPs and charities- where abuse occurred.

Hearings have demonstrated that the impact of the abuse has been profound and multi-dimensional and the damage compounds year after year and that suicides and premature deaths of victims are widespread. Evidence presented to the Commission shows that the impact and trauma resulting from the abuse is intergenerational, affecting victims, extended family, partners, wives, husbands, children, parents and grandchildren.

But two years into the Royal Commission, progress has been slow for victims, who still suffer at the hands of the churches and institutions responsible for the abuse, as well as the legal system and the inaction of Federal and State Governments.

Lawyer and campaigner Judy Courtin argues that many survivors who have been fighting for justice for decades, particularly for adequate financial compensation and support, have had enough.

Worn out by having to fight institutions and government, and despite taking serious personal risks by giving evidence in public hearings to the Commission, Courtin argues that many victims and families have had their hopes for justice dashed by the failure of the Federal Government and the responsible institutions.

Courtin writes that many continue to be victimized by the system and by institutions and are shattered that justice has not prevailed. 

There is also growing concern that recommendations of the Royal Commission are likely to be cast aside, particularly where they are costly, difficult to implement and/or where they are too much of a threat to powerful institutions, such as the churches, Governments, government agencies and Police. 

Earlier this year the Abbott Government bluntly rejected the Royal Commission’s call for a National Redress scheme. The Abbott Government scoffed at suggestions that it be the ‘funder of last resort’ for people abused within and by institutions that no longer exist.

 Judy Courtin writes that the Federal Government not only showed contempt for child victims of sexual abuse, but its response further abuses victims of child sexual abuse. Further, she argues that the Abbott Government abandoned the 65,000 survivors of child sex crimes who now have to fight the institutions where the crimes occurred.

Evidence to the Commission shows that officials in institutions supposed to protect children actively conspired to abuse and rape them, however, more than 80% of alleged clergy sex offenders have evaded criminal accountability.

Many of the victims gave evidence that they tried to tell people in authority of the horrors they suffered, only to be severely punished, dismissed or forgotten.

Victims have provided evidence implicating influential Church, religious and community leaders in cover up of abuse. Crimes were actively denied, ignored or covered up. 

 

Cover ups were reliant on the abuse of institutional power. In addition, authoritarian leadership and toxic power structures and cultures, enabled and extended sexual abuse and its subsequent cover up. Evidence presented to the Commission showed that perpetrators often had a profound sense of entitlement and that the authoritarian nature of the institutions and their cultures aided the abuse and cover up.

The hierarchy and leadership of many churches, faith groups and institutions, as well as public authorities, knew about the abuse as far back as the 1950’s and 1960’s, but acted to protect their own interests, image and credibility at the expense of victims. The response by most institutions to victims has been hostile, dismissive, legalistic and victim blaming.

Judy Courtin argues that survivors want the whole truth to come out and that should go further than what the offenders themselves did, arguing that :

'It was much more important to have accountability of the hierarchy on the concealing than accountability of the offender'

Courtin believes the lack of convictions for concealing abuse means church figures and leaders enjoy impunity. Her research shows that there has not been one conviction for the crime of concealing sex crimes and a serious lack of accountability and impunity by the institutions involved.  She writes:

 

The only legal entity for the church that can be sued is a property trust, the trustees of which cannot be held responsible for the behaviour of the offending priests. Victims do not have access to the civil courts and instead have had little choice but to return to the very church that protected their offenders. Based on my research, these hostile and legalistic processes deliver very little. Victims feel silenced by these processes and are forced to sign a deed of release preventing them from ever suing the church or any of its clergy.

The Catholic Archbishop of Adelaide  has been charged with the concealment of an allegation of child sexual abuse by a convicted paedophile priest as part of NSW Police investigations arising from the NSW Inquiry.

Cardinal George Pell (formerly Australia’s highest rank Catholic leader) has been accused of knowing of serious sexual abuse and rape and doing nothing; of trying to bribe victims to keep quiet; of ignoring or dismissing complaints; of colluding to protect perpetrators; and of transferring known offenders.

 

Evidence presented at the hearings has shown that Government departments, police, welfare authorities, community leaders, public agencies, NFPs and ordinary citizens also did nothing or were complicit in the abuse.  The Commission hearings have shown that those who experienced child sexual abuse in institutions were ignored and disbelieved by the adults and institutions who were supposed to protect them.

 

Judy Courtin has written that some Police investigations tried to silence and discredit victims.

Many charitable organizations made it possible for powerful and influential people to engage in and conceal highly sophisticated and organized criminal activities. Victims and victim groups have made a serious critique of behaviour by churches, faith and charitable organizations who benefit from significant public funding and support and in some cases tax exempt status.

Some victims and victim groups have called for churches and charities involved in abuse to have their tax free status withdrawn.

Given the power and influence of the churches, it is unlikely that such a recommendation would be supported by Governments. 

The Royal Commission has recently published a Research Paper suggesting that organizations be held criminally responsible when their negligence results in harms to children. 

 

The Paper proposes the creation of offences of criminal negligence to hold organisations criminally responsible for the creation and/or management of risk of harm and for their response when harm is done to a child.  This would require state governments to create new offences to cover such conduct.

 

It is difficult to see State Governments supporting this recommendation and no doubt charities and NFPs, as well as corporate and business lobbies who see the risks this recommendation presents to corporations and business involved in profiting from the care and welfare of children, would mobilise to oppose such a recommendation. 

In recent years there has been a plethora of State and now Federal Inquiries into child sexual abuse and child protection. The Royal Commission commissioned a study of the extent to which recommendations from those inquiries had been implemented which found that less than half (48%) of the recommendations had been implemented fully.

 

In light of the implementation gap concerning the failure of State and Federal governments to take up recommendations from previous Inquiries and Commissions, there are serious questions as to whether the Royal Commission's work will make a  significant difference for victims or for children.

 

The signs so far are not overly encouraging.