The Prime Minister’s address to the Australian Christian Lobby’s (ACL) National Conference tomorrow, should address the issue of child sex abuse in Australian religious institutions and the reasons for its existence. Over 600 cases of child sex abuse by church clergy have been dealt with in Australian courts over the past 20 years (deception.com.au and brokenrites.alphalink.com.au). There are approximately 20,000 church clergy employed by Australia’s churches giving this sector the highest rate of child sex abuse of any profession in
Australia.

Australian Sex Party convenor and candidate for the Higgins by election, Fiona Patten, said that Mr Rudd’s attendance at the ACL meeting was not dissimilar to Peter Costello’s production of videos for the Catch the Fire Ministries or John Howard’s meetings with the Exclusive Brethren. “If Mr Rudd addresses child sex abuse, gay marriage, contraception and abortion issues in his talk, he might also represent the views of the large numbers of people in the community who believe that religious institutions have to much involvement in politics (Newspoll: Oct 09, 34%*)”, she said. “I have extended an invitation to Mr Rudd to attend this year’s Melbourne Sexpo and address the 70,000 people who will attend this event, on the above issues and I genuinely hope he will consider this”.

Ms Patten said that any enquiry into Scientology in the federal parliament would be seen as discriminatory and biased against new age religions, unless it was balanced by an investigation into abuse in mainstream religious institutions. The Australian Sex Party, Broken Rites and other organisations have been calling for a Royal Commission into child sex abuse in the church for many years now. “Senator Xenophon’s calls for an enquiry into allegations about the Church of Scientology need to be investigated but the 600 court cases involving the mainstream churches are already proven. They have never been subject to an inquiry that might uncover the reasons for the abuse or developing secular ways of stopping further abuse.” She said that both the major parties were guilty of shielding the churches from an official investigation. NSW Liberal powerbroker, David Clarke will address The National Conference for Concerned Christians in Sydney tomorrow at the same time as the PM talks in Canberra.

“Mr Clarke, like Mr Rudd, will ignore the suffering of thousands of people at the hands of church clergy, to further their own moral agendas”, Ms Patten said. “Together with Pastor Danny Nulliah and the Rev Fred Nile, they will conveniently ignore child sex abuse issues and push for greater religious intervention in the nation’s legislatures.” Ms Patten said that with the Sex Party running candidates in the Higgins and Bradfield by elections, moral issues would be directly taken up to religious parties for the first time.

* Poll results available on request
Australian Sex Party: PO Box 181 Deakin West ACT 2600. Ph 02 6285 2477. www.sexparty.org.au