Dr Kerryn Phelps, AMA President, with Panel and Richard Glover, Radio 2BL

HOLLINGWORTH: What people are going to have to face is that if certain persons and certain organisations wish to keep up this campaign - I call it that - of innuendo, of allegation against me, that is something I am going to have to live with.

GLOVER: Have organisations in the past been generally too keen to deal with such allegations internally and have they been too forgiving of those who have admitted transgressions? Kerryn Phelps?

PHELPS: I think that we, as a community, must protect the most vulnerable in our community and children who have been sexually abused, particularly when they have been under the care of an authority like a religious institution, deserve to have their safety taken care of, they deserve to be listened to when there's been a problem and they deserve action when there's been a problem such as sexual abuse, which can have lifelong implications under any circumstances but certainly can need extensive counselling and a lot of healing.

If the actions of the institution have been to protect the institution rather than the child, then I think that they have breached their duty of care.

GLOVER: In this case there's a lot of dispute about what has happened. Should Hollingworth stand aside from the office of Governor-General while it's sorted out or should he stay in there?

PHELPS: I think that the office of Governor-General is currently under a cloud. It's been brought into some question because of these allegations and until the real nature of the responses from the Archbishop have been, or from the Governor-General now, have been clarified, I think the community is now demanding answers.

GLOVER: Hugh Mackay?

MACKAY: Yes, I support what Kerry is saying, very strongly. I think the word vulnerable is the important word and I think we have to separate the principle about an organisation's duty of care from the question of whether people who have transgressed are repentant and whether they should be forgiven.

Of course, if they're remorseful they should be forgiven but that's a personal issue to be settled with that individual. The idea, for example, in one of the allegations, is that a priest who was involved in some child abuse was then appointed by Archbishop Hollingworth, as he then was, to a committee to look into the problem.

That sounds to me not just like, well, we forgive this man and give him another go, that's yes, let's forgive him but that does sound like a failure to fully understand the responsibility of certain institutions. Not all institutions. The ABC doesn't have that kind of responsibility but the church does and a hospital does and a school does.

Back to Kerryn's word vulnerable, when vulnerable members of the community are at risk then the call for diligence, absolutely uncompromising diligence, a duty of uncompromising care, I think is of a standard, as a community, we should demand and that's a quite separate principle from forgiveness of the individual who's transgressed.

GLOVER: And of course the case you mentioned, David Acton, who just joined us a little earlier on Drive, who was on that committee, saying that not only was there that first allegation but then a later allegation which the priest accepted, in this case of a mature man rather than a boy, but nonetheless a second case and yet still in control of the choir.

MACKAY: The best you can say is that someone in authority took their eye off the ball. The worst you can say is that the duty of care was breached.

GLOVER: Dr George Pell?

PELL: Good evening, Richard. I think I'd agree with both the previous speakers. There's no doubt the different churches, we need our own internal procedures just like lawyers and doctors do but those procedures have got to be open, they've got to be effective. The public has got a right to require that our procedures are credible and the victims have a right to justice.

Now, in the past we haven't always done that as well as we should but there's no ifs or buts, we must do it and both in Melbourne and here I've taken steps to ensure that, in fact, we do do that.

GLOVER: In the past when it hasn't happened, whether it be in the Catholic Church or the Anglican Church, has it been an attempt to protect the institution rather foolishly? Has that been the urge?

PELL: It's difficult to assign motives. It's certainly been done badly. It's sometimes been a desire to protect the institution because of shame, sometimes been naivety, sometimes it's been tied up with a confused idea of forgiveness and sometimes just stupidity in awareness of what is really appropriate. So a whole combination of factors.

GLOVER: One of the things I think most upsets people in both this case and in perhaps cases in your own church is the offender being moved back perhaps to a new position but one still in charge of children or other vulnerable people.

PELL: That's a mistake. I mean, the great criterion is public danger. Now, if something happened, say, 40 years ago, one instance, and it's now emerged and the man is six months from retirement, that's quite a different situation. It's always difficult to know, if there's one accusation, how many other instances there might be but public safety is a prime consideration.

GLOVER: Can I ask you, in your cathedral, would you ever put a person who had allegations against them onto a sexual abuse committee?

PELL: No, I certainly wouldn't.

GLOVER: Do you think if that's what's happened in this case, it's a clear breach of proper governance?

PELL: I would depend what the first allegation was. It would depend, if there was a serious investigation of it, what evidence came through but even if there wasn't much conclusive evidence I think it would be foolish to put such a man on such a commission and if there had been significant evidence, it's worse than foolish.

GLOVER: Can I put to you the case again, of this man? One allegation which was obviously discounted - we don't know whether for good reason or bad - but one allegation against a minor followed up by an allegation which he admitted to, I understand, of transgressions with an adult male, is it appropriate for that person - doubts in one case and certainty in the second - to be sent back and be in control of a cathedral choir?

PELL: I can only talk from within my own tradition and within the practices we've now established, and everybody's got a right to justice including the person that's being accused but if there were one-and-a-half strikes or two strikes against a person like that and, of course, it's a radically different thing, a misdemeanour with an adult from a misdemeanour with a child, but it would depend basically and first of all on the strength of the evidence in the first case because that would primarily be on which you would judge whether such a person was an appropriate person to be working with a choir.

GLOVER: Kerryn Phelps?

PHELPS: Surely the question here is whether this should be dealt with internally by the institutions or whether, in the case of, for example, teachers or doctors there should mandatory reporting of any kind of abuse by any person in authority, by the churches. This is not something that they should be dealing with internally.

GLOVER: OK, and, of course, in this case, there's a suggestion which has been denied by Hollingworth, that one person, he counselled them against going to the police.

PHELPS: I think that's totally inappropriate. I don't think that the community could be satisfied that there's been a clear and transparent and unbiased process that has gone into determining the guilt or innocence of the alleged perpetrator in these cases and I think it should be always referred to the appropriate authorities to sort out what has exactly happened in an open and just manner.

GLOVER: Dr Pell, some people would say, and maybe this is a cynical view, why is it always churchmen who are involved in these things? Which is not to imply that all churchmen are but we had this serious scandal in the Anglican Church, we've got another case, an awful case before the courts today involving a former Catholic priest and then, of course, a history going back. Is there a connection between religion and this sort of sexual abuse?

PELL: I hope not. I've said on other occasions I think we get coverage that is sometimes repetitive and sometimes disproportionate. The immense majority of these paedophilia cases are never covered in the press at all. I think it's something like 90% of them happen within family situations.

Now, that doesn't excuse the Church at all. There are too many of them.

If I could say a word or two about internal procedures. The law of the land has got to be followed absolutely. If there's mandatory reporting which includes priests, that's got to be followed.

Many people though, many victims don't want to go to the police and I think the question is whether the procedures are adequate and at some distance.

Both in Melbourne where I was and here, I wouldn't do the judging. I would refer it - in Melbourne, we had a very senior QC. Here we have a human resources officer who appoints trained investigators who are not clerics or anyone like that. They're independent of the Church and they then make an investigation and give a- -

GLOVER: OK, but would anybody ever suggest to somebody that they shouldn't got to the police?

PELL: I wouldn't do that. We tell everybody who is in the Catholic Church that you shouldn't do that, that people have an unfettered right, the victim has an unfettered right to go to the police.

GLOVER: We should move on but let me just ask you finally, what about the Governor-General? Should he stand aside while this thing is properly sorted out?

PELL: I don't believe so. I think a lot will depend on what he says tonight. He's done a good job as Governor-General. I feel for him as the wolves circle but it's a very, very important office and it's important that he can fulfil it with all reasonable people in the community being satisfied.

GLOVER: When you say the wolves circle, does that imply that people, as he has suggested, are out to get him for perhaps political reasons?

PELL: I would be surprised if that wasn't one part of the equation. I don't want to imply any disrespect for people who are victims or are complaining but it's an unusual conjunction of circumstances.

GLOVER: Do you think there's some politics in this, Kerry Phelps?

PHELPS: I think it's an unusual conjunction of circumstances for the head of a religious institution to be appointed as the Governor-General. And when you get a mixture of religion and politics in this way I think you're really asking for trouble in some circumstances if for no other reason than that there are millions of Australians who don't follow that particular religion and would be feeling disenfranchised by that appointment.

GLOVER: Hugh Mackay?

MACKAY: I think the sort of conspiracy theory which is being floated somewhat by the Governor-General himself is completely unwarranted. The issue is so clearly about whether - it's an issue about the integrity of decisions he's taken in the past and that goes to the character of the man. These are appropriate issues to be canvassed when they are so serious and involving children and vulnerable members of the community.

GLOVER: There's no sign the victims who are complaining are closet republicans.

MACKAY: Exactly. It doesn't matter whether you happen to be a republican or whether you believe in the ordination of women or any of the things that Dr Hollingworth has suggested comprise this conspiracy against him. It seems to me that really is a red herring, that the issue is one that has to be addressed on its own merits.

GLOVER: It emerges that the photos of children in the water, said to prove that the asylum-seekers had thrown in their children, were from a set which showed the context of a sinking ship.

HOWARD: I can tell you bluntly and directly that at no stage was I involved in any kind of discussion or consideration of just putting out two photographs to put the best light on what the Government was putting forward.

GLOVER: The Prime Minister, of course. Who should bear the blame for the stories that circulated? The bureaucracy, the politicians, maybe even all of us, in that we all seemed so keen to believe ill of the asylum-seekers?

Hugh Mackay, in your column in the Herald on the weekend, you suggested the third.

MACKAY: Yes, I think we can point the finger at two places and one of them certainly is at us, the community. There's no question that by the time the federal election took place this was a community that had become, well, sub-hysterical on the subject of refugees, asylum-seekers.

We had demonised the refugees, we did seem to want to believe that these were the kind of people who would throw their own children into the sea in a desperate attempt to be taken onto the Australian mainland and I suspect, indeed, in the few days before the election, there was serious doubt about whether the alleged videotape existed and about whether the photographs showed what they purported to show. Those doubts were aired but this Government was re-elected.

Now that says to me, and evidence from public opinion polls and from my own qualitative research since then strongly suggests that the community want to believe the worst about Afghan refugees for some reason.

GLOVER: Secretly we knew but we didn't want to admit it to ourselves.

MACKAY: We didn't want the truth to be less sensational and less awful than the story so I think we do have to look in the mirror and examine ourselves about that but I also think that the Prime Minister condemns himself out of his own mouth in that quote we just heard because this was an election essentially about border protection, about national security and about refugees.

When the election is about that it is inconceivable to me, I mean, I'm sorry if I sound too incredulous about this but it's inconceivable to me that senior ministers including the Prime Minister would not seek confirmation of the veracity of this story.

GLOVER: In other words, it's like having an election about, say, tax policy and not checking out the facts and figures.

MACKAY: Don't tell me what the truth is about this because I don't want to know in case I'd have to admit it. Now, to say we were not told is no defence at all because that's not the issue. The issue is not were you told, the issue is, did you ask?

GLOVER: Dr Pell, I know you've been passionate about the asylum-seekers issue for some time. What do you make of this latest kafuffle or argument?

PELL: There's no doubt about it, it's not the Government's finest hour and I think the facts are slowly emerging, whether we've got them all or not. They'll speak for themselves. People can then judge. I'm not sure that public opinion is quite as simply and accurately described as Dr Mackay said.

And I think though that all those, whoever they might have been, who played on the fears of the community and really deepened them and developed them, I think must pay a measure of the blame because sometimes these things can really take off and run right out of control and it's a sorry, sad, incident because undoubtedly most of these people were like most of our forebears. They mightn't have been strictly political refugees but they wanted to come for a better life. They were just silly enough to want to come to Australia and to get tied up with these criminal elements who run the illegal boats.

GLOVER: Kerryn Phelps?

PHELPS: I think it's been a very nasty exercise in xenophobia and I think perhaps Afghani culture is probably one that Australians are not terribly familiar with, don't understand very well, they've seen the photographs on television, it doesn't look particularly familiar to us and I think there are a lot of people over the last few weeks who have begun to feel a little embarrassed about being Australian, which is not a good way to be because we have, I believe, a culture that is a fair go culture and that seems to have been lost in our treatment of the asylum-seekers.

And certainly once these people are here there's a question of how they're handled in the detention centres but the pack 'em up and send 'em home or the let them sink mentality that's been going around is something I don't think any one of us in Australia can be proud of.

GLOVER: Hugh?

MACKAY: I just want to echo something that Archbishop Pell said which I think is important. While I'm suggesting, and the research is clear on the subject, that the community's prejudices on this subject were very strong, I don't for a moment deny that leadership of a different kind could have turned public opinion around.

GLOVER: But aren't the prejudices - aren't they deep by their very nature?

MACKAY: Yes, they are deep and xenophobia and racism are in all of us.

GLOVER: So are they susceptible to leadership?

MACKAY: Yes, because they're susceptible to positive conversion or negative reinforcement and what we saw during most of 20/01, leading up to that federal election, was exploitation of prejudice, reinforcement of prejudice for political ends and that, I think, is where I think we're agreeing is a morally reprehensible situation.

GLOVER: The best story of the Winter Olympics, I think at least for Australians, has to be the tale of Steven Bradbury, the speed skater who won gold after all the other skaters fell in their wild dash to the line.

BRADBURY: (From earlier interview) I don't know, it's a feeling that was incredible going over the line. It was like, "Hang on a minute, I think I just won." And I was sure that they were going to have to rerun the race or something was going to happen. But yeah, it was amazing how the cards fell. It was, you know, definitely a stroke of luck that I ended up where I was.

GLOVER: Hasn't he got a fabulous attitude to it? Steven Bradbury talking to Sally Loane here on 702 a little earlier.

We love his victory. I wonder why so much? It seems to me we love it almost more than if he'd won with simple speed. What appeals so much about his tale? Dr Pell.

PELL: Well, I think the best thing about it is his modesty after the event. I heard him interviewed and he said, "I wasn't the best skater, but it just worked out like that. I'd been at Olympics before, I felt I was hard done by, that I didn't give it my best shot or get my best chance." And I think we can be proud of him, one for winning and secondly, for being so realistic and modest and decent about it afterwards.

GLOVER: You just like him because he thanked God at the end there. Kerryn Phelps.

PHELPS: I love the headline this morning that said "The Accidental Medallist". And just the sheer joy of such an unexpected victory was so wonderful. I think it's one of the best news stories I've seen in a long time.

But you know, in the way that he responded he, I think, accidentally challenged us to say, "No, no, you were the best. You won because you're so smart. It's not just about strength and speed, it's about being clever and thinking about tactics."

I mean, I went to a grand prix a few years ago and it struck me that it's not necessarily the fastest driver down the straight who wins. You've got to turn the corners too and not end up in the kitty litter. And it's similar with speed skating.

I mean, he showed obviously endurance and persistence and strength and speed to get to the final. Bit of luck along the way, but that's what sport's all about, it's about the bounce of the ball or whether your opponent falls over before the line. And you know, all power to him. It's fantastic.

GLOVER: But I think everyone who ever came 10th out of a class of 12 at school or 16th in the first 15 or something like that, thinks, "This is a man for me." Hugh McKay.

McKAY: I'm a great believer in this proposition that sport does not build character but it reveals character. And I agree with what Dr Pell and Dr Phelps have both said that what's great about this is what it reveals about this man's character.

And of course, what's really wonderful is that he didn't fall over. I mean, that's really all it's about. Here is a man who did not fall over. Lesson to the children: if you want to win, you have to not fall over.

GLOVER: You have to not fall over. But I mean, we shouldn't take it too much away from him because of course you have to be among the five best in the world.

McKAY: He was in the final. I think we shouldn't overlook that. But it is a wonderful demonstration of the fact that at moments of great crisis, tension, pleasure or pain in sport, the real character of the person is revealed.

GLOVER: And not for a moment did he suggest that, "Oh yes, well, that was my plan all along." But is there a hint of the Australian love of the underdog in it?

McKAY: Well, I was hoping you weren't going to raise this, Richard. There's a terrible temptation for us all to say, "Yes, there's something quintessentially Australian about winning the gold medal for coming last." Let's not go there.

GLOVER: Let's not go there.

Thank you very much for coming in this afternoon. Dr George Pell, the Catholic Archbishop of Sydney, thanks for joining us. Dr Kerryn Phelps, the President of the Australian Medical Association, thanks, Kerryn. And Hugh McKay, thank you.

Ends