MS PATTEN (Northern Metropolitan) (15:33:02): Cardinal George Pell is now a convicted child sex offender and sits on remand in prison awaiting sentence. Twenty years ago I published a book called Hypocrites, which detailed hundreds of cases of sexual abuse within the Catholic Church. At the time, Cardinal Pell came out strongly against me. Time has now proven his criticisms to be false, and indeed while he rallied against me and my associates for making so‑called ‘outrageous claims’, he had in fact abused children. Pell was the architect of the Melbourne Response—the compensation scheme now widely recognised as having minimised the Church’s legal and financial liability. Under the Melbourne Response compensation payments were unfairly capped, with an average payout of $36 000, and victims were forced to sign a deed of settlement waiving their right to further civil action. As has been revealed since, victims were pushed into this substandard scheme without being offered legal advice as to their rights. After Pell’s guilty conviction last week, there are growing calls for victims who obtained compensation through the Melbourne Response scheme to have their deed of settlement with the Church set aside. This would give them a chance to pursue a fairer settlement amount. I hope that this is a reform that this government can facilitate. The Melbourne Response was a sham. It was concerned with protecting the Church’s reputation and attempting to minimise their financial and legal liability. I urge every member here to work with victims to ensure they are fairly compensated, and I join others in urging the government— (Time expired)
