Page 1676 - Week 06 - Thursday, 23 July 2020
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commission recommended the construction of the offence as providing the best opportunity to charge repeated or ongoing child sexual abuse in a manner that is more consistent with the sort of evidence that a complainant is more likely to be able to give.
In relation to the tendency and coincidence evidence, the royal commission found that there should be reforms on the basis of several conversations, including the expert-conducted 2016 jury reasoning research, which showed that juries treat tendency and coincidence evidence carefully and not in a way that unfairly prejudices the accused. The Council of Attorneys-General working group was tasked with developing a model bill on the reforms to tendency and coincidence evidence provisions, noting the considerations and noting the carefulness that must be undertaken in regard to this particular reform. This reform is for all uniform-evidence jurisdictions to implement to ensure consistency and in a way that would give effect to the relevant royal commission recommendations. This bill brings those amendments into place.
In relation to section 127 of the Evidence Act, the government has introduced comprehensive reporting laws and the Royal Commission Criminal Justice Legislation Amendment Bill 2019, which require all adults who receive information about the commission of a sexual offence against a child to report it, and that includes information received under the seal of the confessional. Failing to report information about child sexual abuse leaves individual children vulnerable and it exposes other children to the risks of abuse, given that we know that those who commit child sexual abuse may offend against many individual victims over lengthy periods and may well have multiple victims.
Children are less likely to have the ability to report abuse or to protect themselves. Adults must proactively report it when they receive such information. Not to do so is a fundamental breach of a child’s right of safety and protection; and it was for that reason that the reporting laws were introduced in 2019, and those laws extended the requirement to report the information which is disclosed under the seal of the confessional.
As I said when introducing this bill, it would be inconsistent to suspend the confessional privilege for the purpose of reporting child sexual abuse to police, only to have it be a shield behind which a person could hide during court proceedings. That scenario would render inadmissible the reporting laws power, hindering the prosecution of perpetrators.
The royal commission’s findings were unequivocal. Many of our institutions have failed victims of child sexual abuse and with that failure they have failed us all. With the introduction and the passing of these laws, the ACT community will have a light shone into the dark hearts of these institutions. Protecting children is and will remain our absolute priority.
In the implementation of the royal commission recommendations in this, the fifth and the final, bill, we make good on our promise to keep improving our institutional
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