COMMENT BY GERARD HENDERSON FOR THE WEEKEND AUSTRALIAN – SATURDAY

26 JULY 2025

It’s an unusual phenomenon when a senior politician acknowledges that he or she could have done better. But such an instance occurred on July 3 when Jason Clare, the Minister for Education, was interviewed by ABC TV 7.30 presenter Sarah Ferguson. At issue was the topic of safety in child care and early education.

The interview took place in the aftermath of a man being charged with serious child sex offences while working at a childcare centre in Melbourne. Ferguson commented on a report which said that “if you look across all data, at least one report a day of sexual misconduct comes from childcare centres”.

In response to a question as to what he had been doing for the last three years, Clare replied that: “The bottom line is that ministers haven’t been doing enough, fast enough”. Asked whether that included him, Clare responded, “Including me”.

To be fair to Clare, he is supposed to be advised by public servants concerning such matters and should not be expected to take responsibility for acts of commission or omission in childcare centres. Moreover, he is the Commonwealth minister in an area where the various states and territories have specific responsibilities.

But there is a bigger issue which is unfashionable to raise. Namely, the matter of child safety while in institutional childcare should have been leading the news bulletins and on the front pages at least a decade ago.

On November 12, 2012 then Prime Minister Julia Gillard – with the support of then Opposition leader Tony Abbott and in co-operation with the States and Territories – set up the Royal Commission Into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse. It was headed by Justice Peter McClellan KC, who was assisted by five other commissioners.

The royal commission had a maximum budget of $372.8 million – of which $342 million was spent. It employed around 300 staff at any one time. McClellan presented his final report to the Governor-General on December 15, 2017. All up, the royal commission produced 17 reports, conducted 57 Case Studies and made 409 recommendations.

And what did McClellan and his fellow commissioners have to say about child care and early education? Well, not much at all. It is doubtful if its lengthy reports were read by many – even though they contained considerable valuable information. Such work, primarily drafted by public servants, does not compelling reading make.

McClellan became a public figure, along with his counsel assisting Gail Furness KC, due to the royal commission’s case studies which involved hearings. They were open to the media and filmed. In addition, transcripts (with detailed indexes) were available online on the day after each proceeding.

At Gillard’s media conference, the first question turned on whether the royal commission “would look beyond the Catholic Church to all institutions”. She replied, “absolutely correct”. However, the then prime minister told journalists she had phoned Cardinal George Pell as a courtesy prior to the announcement. No other leader, religious or otherwise, was mentioned.

It soon became apparent that the focus of the royal commission was the Catholic Church and, to a lesser extent, the Anglican Church. Indeed, Pell spent around 36 hours giving evidence. The second longest evidence given was by an Anglican archbishop.

The problem here was that, to many Australians, the royal commission appeared to be focused on the Christian churches, particularly the Catholic Church. Writing in these pages on August 19, 2017 Professor Greg Craven (a former Crown counsel to the Victorian government) commented that “the obsession of the royal commission with ‘the Catholics’ has all but crowded out the scrutiny of other institutions”.

Craven added: “I have some insight into historic child abuse within Australian public institutions; State governments collectively are breathing a sigh of relief the commission’s focus on church abuse largely has let them off the hook.”

And so it came to pass. Of the royal commission’s 57 case studies, over a quarter were into Catholic institutions and many of the rest into other Christian institutions. There was not one case study into an existing government school.

When I wrote this in my column previously, McClellan replied that it was “not correct” to say that the royal commission had failed to have a public hearing into a state school. He said that “the royal commission did examine three NSW public schools in a case study”. What McClellan did not point out was that this was a very brief report into sexual abuse in government schools by students against other students. This did not involve pedophilia. I wrote to McClellan, by post and email, about this. He did not respond.

The end of the royal commission led to many complaints from those who had attended government schools. Commissions of inquiry have been held into historical child sexual abuse by adults in Tasmania and Victoria. The latter inquiry is yet to be finalised.

Recently in NSW, a former teacher at Vaucluse Primary, a government school in Sydney, was convicted of historical child sexual abuse. The NSW government had yet to set up an inquiry into pedophilia within its Department of Education schools – despite the evidence of considerable offending having taken place.

I have been advised that a parent of a (then) child who was educated at Vaucluse Primary approached the royal commission but it declined to take up his matter. I have written elsewhere about a teacher who approached the royal commission about a pedophile teacher at a government school in Melbourne. No action was taken.

Both of these cases involved teachers who had previously been accused or convicted of child sexual abuse and whose cases were reported in the media. But the royal commission didn’t notice. Yet most Australian students attend government schools.

As far as I can determine, the royal commission did not do a case study into child care institutions – although it did mention child safety in its reports.

If historical child sexual abuse in child care institutions had become a public issue around the time the royal commission was established, Australians would not have been so shocked by the recent appalling accounts. And Clare would have no genuine excuse for failing to focus on these crimes.

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Gerard Henderson is executive director of The Sydney Institute.

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