Hiding behind a mask of respectability

The charges against the New South Wales Labour MP Milton Orkopoulos and the allegations that party officials heard rumours about it and did nothing, have caused more than a ripple of public concern.

Couple that with the charges earlier this year, against NSW senior prosecutor Patrick Powers SC, relating to suggestions of child porn found on his computer, and these could still look like isolated incidents.

But, consider this: a couple of years ago, former detective Deborah Locke, whose reports of police corruption lead to the NSW Wood Royal Commission, told me child sex offending in the halls of power in NSW went far beyond the police force.

Just before the Commission was wound up, its terms of reference were widened to include the investigation of child sex crimes outside the police service that would implicate senior members of the legal and political fraternity.

When one judge, about to be investigated under the new terms, hanged himself, powers that be decided the Royal Commission had gone far enough.

A couple of years ago, the plans for a national Royal Commission into child sexual abuse in this country were so far advanced the terms of reference were already written. Once again, at the 11th hour, plans for it were quashed.

As a social campaigner and speaker at child protection conferences, I meet a lot of people who work with sexually abused children. What I hear is more than rumour.

I’m regularly told, in furtive whispers, that the most senior levels of power are involved in sexually abusing children.

I know. Sexually abused at 14, my perpetrator was a 42-year-old senior Melbourne barrister. He once told me if I ever told anyone nobody would believe me because I was the daughter of a sex worker and he was a barrister.

The implications of this statement, perceived or real, can be devastating both for individuals and the wider community.

One law librarian and law student together carried out an investigation into all the cases, over a 30-year career, of one senior judge, and found that he had never given a custodial sentence in cases involving child sexual abuse unless the accused had pleaded guilty.

And he is just one. Melbourne police prosecutors who regularly go to court on these matters have told me they know which judges are sympathetic to those accused of child sexual abuse. So much so, that where possible, they try to have their cases adjourned to get another judge.

And on the political front, if it turns out to be true that the NSW Labor Party heard rumours about Orkopoulos and did nothing, what does that say about politician’s priorities and cover-ups?

Australian research shows that one in four girls and one in seven boys are sexually abused before the age of 16.

The terrible tragedy about the charging of NSW Aboriginal Affairs Minister, Orkopoulos, whether true or not, is that Aboriginal communities fare far worse. Last year a Townsville Koori radio announcer told me that nine in ten local Koori children are sexually abused.

If this were bird flu, or any other plague which claimed lives and/or affected the lifelong health of its victims, and we knew was often passed from one generation to another, a state of national emergency would be declared.

Instead we continue to be in denial. We minimise both the extent of the crime and it’s long-term affect on victims. Because it’s ugly, we simply don’t want it to be true, so refuse to believe that our law-makers and gate keepers could possibly be involved in a systemic cover-up.

The only way to get to the bottom of it is through a national Royal Commission. The cost would be high, but the social and financial costs of allowing systemic abuses to continue, are enormous.

My own story illustrates the point.

My mother went to prison twice, two siblings suicided, we are three generations of sex workers, I had four suicide attempts before I was 20, one sister was a heroin addict and another psychotic.

I don’t think it’s coincidental that four of the six children in my family, as well as my mother, were sexually abused as children - all by different, unrelated perpetrators.

I was lucky enough to survive and become a finance journalist, author and volunteer raising awareness about the issue of child sexual abuse.

More typical is the son of my suicided sister. He has been in and out of prison on heroin-related burglaries for a decade. The cost to the community of the social fallout of my family’s child sexual abuse alone would stretch into the millions of dollars.

So, whatever the cost of a Royal Commission, the long-term financial cost of not having one, is higher. The personal cost and lives lost is less measurable.