PM’S APOLOGY TO VICTIMS ‘WORTHWHILE AND SPECIAL’
A GOLD Coast victim of child abuse at an Anglican church orphanage said the Prime Minister’s national apology was worthwhile and special.
Pensioner Richard ‘Tommy’ Campion stood with hundres of others in Canberra’s Great Hall yesterday as Prime Minister Scott Morrison delivering a national apology to victims of child sexual abuse in schools, churches and other institutions.
“The whole thing was very emotional, 100 per cent worthwhile doing and going there to witness something pretty special,” Mr Campion said
“But for me it hasn’t cleared my head of what happened. I still feel the same as before. However, I’m so pleased for the thousands who got the apology.”
Mr Morrison apologised in Federal Parliament on behalf of the nation for failing to “listen, to believe and to provide justice”.
“To the children we have failed, sorry. To the spouses, partners, wives, husbands, children, who have dealt with the consequences of the abuse, cover ups and obstruction, sorry,” he said.
Mr Campion was among the first to testify before the Royal Commission into the Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse, established in November, 2012 under then-Prime Minister Julia Gillard.
Mr Campion said she received a major cheer and applause and it led to her being asked to give an impromptu speech too.
Mr Campion spent years campaigning for apologies and compensation for fellow victims of child abuse at the Anglican Church North Coast Children’s Home at Lismore in the 1950s.
In a five-page letter to the Anglican Church, he graphically detailed sadistic treatment including “cowardly physical, verbal, emotional and sexua abuse from the staff, clergymen and matron”, corroborated by many other victims.
Opposition leader Bill Shorten warned abuse of children was continuing and called for concrete steps to stamp it out.