Last updated 12.20pm
Australia’s Prime Minister Scott Morrison has delivered a national apology to victims and survivors of institutional child sexual abuse in the nation’s Federal Parliament.
“Silenced voices. Muffled cries in the darkness. Unacknowledged tears. The tyranny of invisible suffering. The never-heard pleas of tortured souls bewildered by an indifference to the unthinkable theft of their innocence,” he said. “Today Australia confronts a trauma, an abomination, hiding in plain sight for far too long.
“Today we confront a question too horrible to ask, let alone answer: Why weren’t the children of our nation, loved, nurtured and protected? Why was their trust betrayed? Why did those who know cover it up? Why were the cries of children and parents ignored? Why was our system of justice blind to injustice? Why has it taken so long to act? Why were other things more important than this, the care of innocent children? Why didn’t we believe? Today we dare to ask these questions and finally acknowledge and confront the lost screams of our children.”
Morrison, who was noticeably emotional during the apology, said that, as a nation, “we confront our failure to listen, to believe, and to provide justice”, and offered an apology that “dare not ask for forgiveness” and did “not insult with an incredible promise” but was a “sorry that speaks only of profound grief and loss”.
“And, again, today, we say sorry. To the children we failed, sorry. To the parents whose trust was betrayed and who have struggled to pick up the pieces, sorry. To the whistleblowers, who we did not listen to, sorry. To the spouses, partners, wives, husbands, children, who have dealt with the consequences of the abuse, cover-ups and obstruction, sorry. To generations past and present, sorry.”
He paid tribute to those survivors and victims who were watching both at Parliament and elsewhere around Australia, acknowledging their “long and painful” journey.
“We honour every survivor in this country. We love you, we hear you, and we honour you.”
Morrison said the abuse happened anywhere a “predator thought they could get away with it” and where the systems “allowed it to happen” and turned a blind eye.
“It happened day after day, week after week, month after month, decade after decade – unrelenting torment.”
He said that, not just as a father, but as a Prime Minister, he was angry at the “calculating destruction of lives and the abuse of trust” including by those who “abused the shield of faith and of religion to hide their crimes”.
Among initiatives Morrison announced during the apology was a new national museum – “a place of truth and commemoration” – to raise awareness and understanding of the impacts of child sexual abuse. He also committed to funding the establishment of a new national research centre “as place to raise awareness and understanding of the impacts of child sexual abuse, to deal with the stigma, to support, help and seeking and guide best practice a for training and other services”.
He also committed to an annual reporting scheme to Parliament on the progress made in implementing the recommendations of the Royal Commission.
He tabled the apology with the words: “I believe you, we believe you, your country believes you.”
Opposition Leader Bill Shorten told survivors and victims “our nation let you down”.
“Today we offer you our nation’s apology with humility, with honesty, with hope for healing now, and with a fire in our belly to ensure that our children will grow up safe in the future. We do this because it is right and because it is overdue and because must know and face up to the truth about our past.”
He said the day belonged to all survivors and victims, their families and loved ones.
“Today belongs to your families. Today belongs to your loved ones who have been there for you in the darkest of times. Today also belongs to your brothers and sisters who are not here, people who perhaps never told a single soul about what happened to them. Today belongs to people who have locked away the pain so deeply in order to survive, to get by, they simply cannot revisit the ordeal. Today belongs to people who have moved overseas to try and escape the memory. Today belongs to the people who are too ill to be here. Today belongs to people who are in the grip of addiction or poverty. Today belongs to people in the prison system whose lives were shunted on the wrong track by the abuse they suffered as children. Today belongs to the children who might not have suffered direct sexual abuse, but endured other terrible forms of abuse – violence, cruelty, neglect.”
He also said the day belonged to those who had taken their own lives as a result of the hardship they had endured.
Speaking to all those to whom the day belongs, Shorten said: “We are sorry for every childhood stolen, every life lost. We are sorry for every betrayal of trust every abuse of power. We are sorry for trauma measured in decades, for scars that can never heal. We are sorry for every cry for help that fell on deaf ears and hard hearts. We are sorry for every crime that was not investigated, every criminal who went unpunished. We are sorry for every time that you were not heard, not believed. We hear you now, we believe you. Australia believes you.”
He added that “we are sorry that the abuse and the assault and the rape of children is still going on and being covered up”.
“This very day, in this very country, we are sorry that we still cannot protect all our children. And we are sorry all of us in this Parliament that we’ve not yet done enough to guarantee that this cannot happen again. Too many Australian children are still living unsafe lives at risk.”
All MPs stood to observe a moment of silence.
The Prime Minister later read the text of the formal apology to some 800 survivors who had gathered in Parliament House’s Great Hall.
The apology was a key recommendation of the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse which was handed to the Federal Government in December last year.
