Roxon urges public to protect abuse evidence

Posted November 20, 2012 23:33:42

Attorney-General Nicola Roxon has warned evidence relevant to the royal commission into child sex abuse must not be destroyed.

The inquiry was announced last week after the latest in a series of paedophilia allegations, most of which were directed at the Catholic Church.

On Monday, the Government released a discussion paper on the inquiry and called on any interested parties to provide suggestions about how it should run.

But there have been claims some evidence about past cases has already been destroyed.

Ms Roxon told 7.30 the onus is on the public to ensure documents are preserved.

“Of course we would call on any people that might be potentially called before the royal commission – whether they’re religious institutions, whether they’re government bodies, whether they’re private institutions – to cooperate fully and we would have every expectation that no evidence would be being destroyed,” she said.

“I think that every institution on the record has said they will cooperate with this royal commission. We have to have a high expectation that nothing will be done to try to avoid any queries, questions and materials that the royal commission might ask for.

“I don’t want to jump to conclusions that people are doing that simply because the question’s being raised. But I certainly would call on all people to make sure they’re going to cooperate, and certainly we would be very disappointed if there were any suggestion that people were destroying evidence in order to avoid the reach of the royal commission.”

Topics: royal-commissions, sexual-offences, child-abuse, catholic, religion-and-beliefs, australia

Roxon urges public to protect abuse evidence