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Concerns about church institutional abuse and mismanagement of abuse allegations have again emerged in Australia. There have been numerous revelations in the media, not just about what happened in religious organisations, but how it was either covered up or badly managed.

The Anglican Church was the focus of the first recent wave of public disapproval following accusations of failing to act on allegations of abuse by a teacher in a Queensland church school. This was all the more interesting to the national press because the current governor general of Australia, Peter Hollingworth, had been Archbishop of Brisbane at the time of the allegations. His clumsy responses, in which he appeared to minimise the seriousness of sexual relations with children by priests, added to the outrage about how churches were handling these matters.

The next controversy surrounded the recently appointed Catholic archbishop of Sydney, whose management of alleged and proven abuse when in his previous diocese in Melbourne was being questioned. Here, a central concern was whether compensation payments carried any obligation on the victim not to discuss their allegations. This was seized upon by the media as "hush money".

People who were subject to abuse 10, 20 or 30 years ago have come forward to speak about feeling betrayed by churches' responses. Revelations have included priests being allowed to continue work following substantiation of abuse with often little more than "counselling", and some perpetrators who faced criminal charges receiving more support from the churches than did their victims.

Initiatives within the churches, such as the Catholic Church's report and new guidelines for responding to allegations, Towards Understanding, have so far failed to be convincing in establishing a more enlightened response. This report acknowledges that the Catholic Church engaged in minimisation, denial and cover-up of sex abuse allegations and had given priority to its reputation, insurance and liability concerns over those of the victims. It reported that predatory priests were retained because the permanency of priesthood took precedence over the need for justice. Also, criminal sexual offences by priests were seen merely as personal moral lapses.

The recent revelations have highlighted the lack of progress in understanding or combating institutional child abuse, despite the landmark 1977 NSW Royal Commission. This recommended sweeping changes to institutional systems. A raft of legislation followed and many other states undertook similar reforms. A mandatory employment screening process - the "working with children check" - was introduced along with legislation that prohibited employment of sex offenders in child-related areas, and the compulsory reporting of allegations of child abuse against staff to a special unit within the NSW ombudsman's office. This occurred at the same time as the central child welfare legislation was overhauled and updated.

The clumsy responses by church leaders are all the more surprising given that the churches in Australia have social welfare agencies that provide some of the most respected services for abused children and young people. It appears to be the religious rather than the social work arms of the church organisations that are taking the lead on handling the current crises.

What is clear is that the NSW and wider Australian community have much work to do to achieve effective and compassionate systems of notification, inter-agency co-operation, investigation and child protection.

Eric Scott is manager, policy and membership, Association of Children's Welfare Agencies, Sydney www.acwa.asn.au

Background

- New South Wales has a population of about 6.2 million, of whom more than 4 million live in the greater Sydney metropolitan area.

- There were 73,000 notifications of child abuse and neglect received in NSW in 2000 of which about 13.5 per cent were substantiated.