Sack the G-G
the Sunday MailCHRIS TAYLOR
03feb02
A MEETING of sexual-abuse victims from a Toowoomba school and their parents yesterday demanded that Governor-General Peter Hollingworth resign immediately – or be sacked.
The group of about 40 former Toowoomba Preparatory School students and their relatives voted to pursue Mr Hollingworth over allegations he failed to act on abuse claims reported to him a decade ago.
The call came as Mr Hollingworth's successor as Anglican Archbishop of Brisbane, Phillip Aspinall, yesterday used his first public address to acknowledge the church had been slow to act on child sexual abuse claims in its schools.
Archbishop Aspinall spoke of the "confronting reality that children in our care have been abused and that we have failed to respond decisively with care and compassion".
It was also revealed yesterday that some families planned further legal action against the Anglican church, which operates the exclusive Toowoomba school.
A former student was awarded $834,000 in compensation by a Supreme Court jury last year for sexual abuse suffered at the hands of the school's boarding house master, Kevin Guy, who committed suicide.
The student's mother supported the motion against Mr Hollingworth, who was Brisbane's Anglican archbishop between 1990 and last year.
The meeting organiser, People's Alliance Against Child Sexual Abuse president Hetty Johnston, said the group was insulted at Mr Hollingworth's failure to acknowledge the students' plight.
Ms Johnston said the group was also devastated by Prime Minister John Howard's attitude to the issue.
She said Mr Howard had been invited to send a representative to the meeting but had failed to respond.
"The Prime Minister needs to ask himself if this were his child, would he have the same attitude? If not, sack the Governor-General," Ms Johnston said.
Mr Howard has said claims Mr Hollingworth covered up the abuse were "ridiculous".
Ms Johnston foreshadowed a string of lawsuits and said the Anglican church needed to brace itself.
"This has never been about money and it would never have got to this stage if the church had responded at the time of the allegations," she said.
"The failing of the then-archbishop was of such magnitude it attracted the highest damages payout of its kind in Australian history."