Genre: Opinion/Argumentation

Focus must shift to prevention strategies Date: November 17 2012 The Herald editorial is right to argue that the royal commission could seek "reform and healing rather than just punishment by process" (''Not only truth but reconciliation must be the remit'', November 14). Individuals and organisations that have been complicit in child sexual abuse have not done so in a vacuum. It is through organisational cultures of secrecy, denial and ignorance that child sex offenders gain access to our children. Child abuse is not a problem limited to the past. The royal commission must go beyond the history of complaints: it must examine how the lack of effective, compulsory standards and safeguards has directly led to the sexual abuse of children. We need to shift the paradigm away from a focus on child protection, to one that emphasises child abuse prevention. It is a shift that requires education, training, and community awareness. Children and adults need to be empowered to speak up against child abuse. There is a critical need for national child protection standards: attitudes may change but unless there are mandatory child protection standards, people will not report it and the preconditions for child sexual abuse will remain. Bernadette McMenamin CEO, Child Wise Church should defer to the law I tend to agree with Waleed Aly that the issue of the confessional seal is symbolic and that few cases of child abuse would come to light only through Confession (''It's essential we think outside the confessional box'', November 16). And yet the symbolism is absolutely crucial. In his shrill and spontaneous defence of the confessional seal, Cardinal Pell puts the Catholic Church above the law. He needs urgent and forceful reminding of what century we're living in. Stephen Wilson Five Dock Waleed Aly's article is insightful, but I beg to disagree with his summation. While a secular society's entry into the rules of the confessional may alter the behaviour of the perpetrator of child abuse, by their avoidance of the confessional, that may be a good thing for such a heinous crime. The act of removing or absolving guilt from those that enact such crimes, outside of the law of the land, is simply not appropriate. Better that they are left with the anguish, than relieved of the pain and able to justify a repeat of the process. Ted Keating Tallai (Qld) It appears that the Catholic Church not only has priests and brothers convicted of paedophilia but spends hundreds of thousands of dollars on barristers to defend those same priests time and time again on charges of serious sexual assault against children (''Church pays legal costs of paedophile priests - repeatedly'', November 16). May I suggest that a more productive and positive way to use what is obviously an unlimited cache of funds, would be for the Catholic Church to spend less money on defending those who sexually abuse children and instead invest its millions into supporting the education of its children? Perhaps the federal and state governments could consider withdrawing public funding to Catholic schools as a way of encouraging such positive Christian behaviour? De Brierley Newton Glebe I agree with John Poleson (Letters, November 13). Religious sadists in schools should also be accountable. I remember vividly when I was in year two, aged seven, at a Catholic girls' school being punched and pushed to the ground by a nun and sent outside with my nose bleeding for the rest of the day. This, just for a harmless prank by a friend and me in class. There was never any apology nor did my parents do anything about it; not even speak to the nun. Even though I changed schools, to another Catholic school, beatings still persisted until I entered high school. My mother suffered cruel and sadistic treatment at the hands of nuns in a Catholic orphanage, and I still wonder how she kept her faith and put her children through the Catholic system. She was fanatical about her faith until she died aged 93. Needless to say, the rest of the family discarded the faith after leaving home. It still upsets me to think about it. Denise Oliver Alfords Point Wendy Crew (Letters, November 16) raises a good point: the psychological abuse that religious groups inflict upon children is also worth our consideration. A vital evolutionary trait in children is that they trust and believe the adults around them. Filling their heads with claims about things you can't possibly know to be true is an abuse of this trust. It can take years of anguish to sort fact from fiction and many are never able to do so. Their problem though, becomes everyone's when they encounter others who've been indoctrinated with conflicting, incompatible ''truth'' claims. Larry Tofler Tea Gardens Alfred Hitchcock, devout Catholic and master of the suspense film genre, witnessed, in his words ''the most frightening sight of my life'', while driving through a Swiss town - a priest in conversation with a little boy, his hand on the boy's shoulder. ''Run little boy,'' yelled Hitchcock. ''Run for your life!'' Ian Waters Surry Hills Stand up to the US and Israel and support the Palestinians I am deeply worried about the situation escalating in the Middle East, and extremely concerned about Australia's lack of support for the Palestinian people and Australia's automatic political alliance with Israel and the US. I would like our government to stand up for the Palestinian people, to condemn Israel's illegal wars, and Israel's continual illegal occupation and annexation of Palestinian land, and Israel's illegal economic blockade of Gaza. It is clearly Israel who is the war monger. And it is shameful that Australia does not speak out against Israeli (and therefore, indirectly, US) state terror. If Australia is truly a secular and independent state, it would examine Israel's policies for what they are and condemn them as racist, akin to apartheid and fascism. Being of Jewish descent myself, I had hoped that a people who have suffered as much as the Jews would not become perpetrators of the same wrongs done to them in the past. But it is not the Jews who are perpetrators here: it is Israel. It is very important to make this distinction. I am against Israel's policies against the Palestinian people. I am not against Jewish people. It is an anachronism to have a Jewish state, just like it would be an anachronism if Australia declared itself to be a Christian state. Unfortunately not everyone has arrived in the 21st century. Some people seem to still live in Old Testament times. Israel is deeply in need of a strong international community that will make it stop carrying on like a madman. I wish our government would put pressure on the US to stop military support for Israel. And would condemn Israel's actions, and would put pressure on Israel to start obeying UN resolutions. Jepke Goudsmit Coogee I find it interesting and puzzling that the reporting of the Israeli/Gaza conflict seems to take on importance and make news only when the Israelis retaliate to rocket attacks by Hamas. The fact that Hamas continually fires rockets into southern Israel seems to be largely overlooked by the media, possibly because it is a regular event, possibly because the media have an agenda. It must be recognised that Australia regards Hamas as a terrorist organisation, as do most Western nations, and that any similar attack on Australia or other nations would elicit a similar response to that taken by Israel. Turkey's response to incursions by Syria in recent days springs to mind. Michael Hayes Mount Riverview Israel has responded to Gaza's response to its illegal blockade and collective punishment equating to ongoing war crimes against Palestinians. Netanyahu also has an election in two months. Poor Gaza. Stephen Heydt Toowong (Qld) Tit-for-tat rocket fire will not bring lasting peace to the Gaza Strip or Tel Aviv streets but true dialogue could if there was a will. Surely a worthwhile alternative to endless conflict. Eddie Raggett Mosman What hope is there for peace for the Palestinians in Gaza with Hamas in charge? Hamas is ideologically committed to the destruction of Israel. Its charter starts with: ''Israel will exist and will continue to exist until Islam will obliterate it, just as it obliterated others before it''. It persists in shooting rockets at civilian targets in Israel provoking a response and uses its own citizens as shields against that response by embedding its launch sites in civilian areas - a double ''crime against humanity''. Malcolm Bersten Lane Cove Dumbing down TAFE costs dearly David Williamson's condemnation of cuts to arts education rightly points to a funding squeeze which will eventually destroy the public training system ('' 'Python squeeze': Williamson condemns cuts to arts education'', November 16). The comparison he draws with funding to improve the nation's sporting prowess, brawn over brain, should shame our nation's leaders. The selling of TAFE colleges is an inevitable outcome of a competitive training market. Our TAFE colleges have been turned into retail outlets selling courses to customers. Our teachers have been transformed into business managers. The teaching workforce is casualised and the teacher training has been downgraded. The customer, who has the capacity to pay or benefits from government allowances, becomes the determiner of national and regional training priorities. In this market, big industry is a major beneficiary of taxpayer dollars as are fly-by-night training providers. Investment in TAFE has declined proportionately to the growth of the private training market. This allegedly ensures a more responsive public training system. In practice, it ensures its slow decline. Narrow skills for the workforce have become the dominant priority. Courses for personal and social development have been sacrificed because apparently they have no economic outcome. But, courses for people wishing to return to study, to upgrade or update their skills are also fast disappearing. Cheap, low-quality alternatives are the substitutes. What price a clever and creative country? Jozefa Sobski Haberfield Look here, Mr Williamson, it's all right for you arty types to say ''can we have more money, please'', but spare a thought for the rest of us barbarians. We want our bread and circuses. Sport is non-complex. You don't have to think too much. You don't have to participate if you don't want. And if you're any good at it then you get paid a motza and for some unknown reason heaps of people love you. Really it's a bit like being a theatre-goer, actor or playwright. In fact an English bloke once wrote about the world being a stage: ''And all the men and women are merely football, cricket or netball players.'' James Athanasou Maroubra Slashing sport funding cannot be used as an excuse for obese children or adults (''Slash sport funding and risk nation's health'', November 16). It costs nothing to keep fit by walking and letting children play outdoors instead of sitting in front of a computer or television after school. Robyn Lewis Raglan It is ludicrous to suggest that children must necessarily participate in organised sport in order to be healthy. The main causes of ill-health in the Western world are over-eating and over-drinking, together with lack of ordinary daily exercise. I am 80 years old. I haven't taken organised exercise of any kind since I contrived, at school, to avoid participation in games. Enjoying both food and alcohol, I weigh what I weighed when I was 19, and have so far suffered no ill effects from leading a life in which exercise has consisted simply of reasonable daily walking. As for the notion that organised sport encourages respect for discipline and rules - has Brad Walter watched any organised sport lately? A good number of professional sportsmen demonstrate rather that breaking the rules is the way to fame and fortune. As for gold medals - is the idolisation of a man or woman simply because he or she demonstrates physical dominance over someone else actually a practice of any value at all? What could possibly be going on? No cause for alarm, dear reader, just another property/mining deal going down in the Emerald City. Derek Douglas McMahons Point On the beat - or doing the beating I can see all the Joe Thug police around the world figuring their best shot at promotion in policing is to migrate to NSW (''Taser police kept on normal duties'', November 16). Terry Simpson Point Clare Following the shooting murders of two policewomen on the beat in London earlier this year, there were calls for officers on the beat to be given guns. The calls were refused - officers on the beat continue to go unarmed, citing ''tradition'' as the leading reason. What does the NSW Police think ''tradition'' is? The Wild West? Alexander Elliott Bilgola Plateau What happened to a short sharp jab or whack with a truncheon? Michael Skinner Blackheath If a police officer was the only thing between me and my family and a drug-crazed, alcohol-fuelled criminal I'd much prefer an old-style cop, adequately armed and committed to protecting me and other law-abiding citizens, thank you. Unlike Pierre Mars (Letters, November 16), I wouldn't give a damn about his or her ATAR. Stuart Salvage Huskisson In days of old ... This latest ICAC inquiry makes the days of the old brown paper bag pale into insignificance. Paint us another one The loyalty, expertise and corporate memory of these people is only worth a piddling $500,000 a year? What brilliant mind came up with that one? Watch this space for other government institutions having to do the same due to Macquarie Street brilliance. I'd love to see the full explanation of just how this amount is to be saved when the norm is that contractors cost a premium over the salaries of the workers they replace. Show us the calculations. Patrick Dodd Wahroonga It's just politics Julia Gillard is not above the law, Leo (Letters, November 16). There are no charges against her - unsubstantiated allegations by politically biased opponents. Stephen Thomas Wahroonga Certain memories best passed over Relax, Campo, the Kiwis are only getting revenge for our underarm bowling in ''that'' pyjamas match (''Sack Deans, says angry Campese'', November 16 ). We just have to ensure they don't plant a coach in our cricket team. Regarding passing, I remember you gave a shocker in your own in-goal. Frank Tweedie Morpeth In a short note Nathan Lee's list of acronyms (Letters, November 16) missed out on one of the most important: NIMTOFF (Not In My Term Of Office). Bruce Hyland Daleys Point Cheers to that As Movember winds down, hard on the heels of Ocsober, Sidetember and Dry July, I wonder if there is a link to the recent sharemarket slide. All that abstinence can't be good for the economy, with barbers, bartenders and bottle-shop attendants twiddling their thumbs for extended periods. The economy needs stimulation. I reckon we should have a month when we keep a record of drinks consumed and in return breweries, distillers and wine producers contribute to a charity of our choice. Next month looks good. Let's call it Bendercember. James McArdle Sanctuary Point Man of many parts Marie Watkins (Letters, November 16) suggests the next actor to play 007 should be Tony Abbott, but I have been told by numerous talent scouts that he is the leading contender for the role of Dr No. Early warning Unseasonal chill With a couple of days of warm weather last week I put away the heater and Doona. Big mistake. I fall for it every year. Down to 20 degrees today and jumper on. Philip Lidbury Marrickville Postscript The Catholics got a drubbing from all angles all week - and for a good reason, according to most readers. The ''louts'' who rubbished the reputation of St John's College with their alcohol-fuelled antics were front page. Frank Adshead called them ''disgusting and shameless'', although Sarah Bell, a former student at St John's College, asked that not all students ''be tarred with the same brush''. Not satisfied with the Premier's order for a ''diluted, narrow'' inquiry - as John Fryer described it - into claims of interference in police investigations of alleged paedophile Catholic priests in the Hunter Valley, many readers demanded a nationwide royal commission. Their prayers were answered. The next day the Prime Minister launched the most comprehensive inquiry into child sexual abuse in Australia's history with a nationwide royal commission. Readers welcomed the move and many called Detective Chief Inspector Peter Fox, who blew the whistle on alleged abuses and cover-ups by the church in the Hunter, a hero. But few were satisfied with Cardinal Pell's insistence on the sanctity of the confessional and his claim there was a smear campaign against the church. Julian Brown said the Catholic leader was in denial. But Pell had his defenders. Martin Fitzgerald said the archbishop had done more to uncover child sexual abuse than any other senior cleric in Australia. Sins of the flesh stayed on the minds of readers thanks to the now former CIA director David Petraeus's bed-hopping, but raising blood pressure was the coroner's findings into the death of a Brazilian student after ''thuggish'' police used a Taser on him. Annabel Little wondered why no one had been charged with manslaughter. Marc McEvoy Letters co-editor This material is subject to copyright and any unauthorised use, copying or mirroring is prohibited.