The State government rejected 22 of the inquiry's 33 recommendations, which included allowing the names of known child abusers to be published prominently on church websites.

Just 11 of the 33 inquiry committee's recommendations were accepted by the government or accepted in principle.

Another 14 are being examined further; eight were rejected.

Two recommendations relating to permanent stays were rejected.

These occur when the court halts child abuse proceedings because it considers there is no possibility of a fair trial due to the passage of time, deterioration of evidence or death of the accused.

The inquiry recommended permanent stay applications be allowed only after the end of the trial and that any permanent stays granted against child sexual abuse claims prior to that judgement should be reconsidered.

But it "would result in a court hearing a trial that was necessarily unfair or an abuse of process and could be constitutionally invalid" the government decided.

Abuse survivors lash out

Terry Martino (pictured), an advocate from the group Survivors of Child Abuse (SOCA), is furious at the government's response - and that the SOCA discovered the report had been tabled in the House only after a call from ABC News.

"Survivors bared their souls at the inquiry, they shared the most intimate details of their abuse and the impact it's had on their lives" he said.

"To find out that information was then used to form a report that was then, in large part and in many cases, rejected by the government, it's actually quite cruel.

"It's appalling conduct.

"The report opens with the government stating that they acknowledge the strength of survivors. These are meaningless words that infuriate survivors."

Vigilante fears

Although it would not permit institutions to name abusers on their websites, the government did have recommendations about what might be put there.

It said institutions should adopt the inquiry's recommendations that their websites include policy statements about child safety as well as information about how to report child sexual abuse.

There are significant risks in creating a public register of abusers said the government report tabling its decision. These include defamation actions and breaches of confidentiality provisions in existing legislation.

The WA government said international experience with similar registers suggested public websites could lead to vigilante action against child sex offenders and others who were wrongfully accused.

"If [the names of] known perpetrators are released, it will make it much easier for survivors to come forward and share their experiences, because they'll realise they're not the only ones" Martino argued.

On the cards

The government is considering a recommendation that it fund a new role for a Commissioner for Victims of Crime.

It will also - as recommended - determine if there are any gaps in support and advice to survivors and how these might be addressed.

In addition, it will consider further a recommendation to expand victims' access to the National Redress Scheme.

Source

• ABC

In a new submission the Church said it has now identified 849 victims and 269 offenders. The previous submission cited 618 victims.

The offenders included 98 priests, 114 brothers, nine nuns and 42 lay people (40 male and two female). Two were seminarians and four were unknown.

Church spokesman Father Shane Mackinlay said the revised figures were the result of collating submissions to the inquiry by five Church entities: the Melbourne and Ballarat dioceses, and the Christian Brothers, Salesians and St John of God orders.

The oldest abuse cases dated from the 1930s, and the figures were complete to June 30, 2012, Father Mackinlay said.

He still could not guarantee that the figures were comprehensive — for example, they did not include settlements outside the Towards Healing protocol by other religious orders — "but we're getting very close".

He said the original figure of 618 cases was based only on records from the Melbourne Response and Towards Healing protocols, the only ones that held centralised records, but more detailed research was done as the Church groups prepared to give evidence.

The new figures were submitted on June 6, one day before the deadline for written submissions.

Asked if the Church could have prepared the numbers in time for the public hearings — at which the number of 618 victims was frequently quoted — Father Mackinlay said the Church had done it as early as possible.

"This is the earliest opportunity we've had in working with the detail of the figures and reconciling them," he said.

Father Mackinlay said the Church's priority was to help and not to count victims.

Sources:

The Age

The Age

Image: JW News

According to whistleblowers closely involved with the now-defunct Encompass Australasia clinic — which some New Zealand priests attended — some paedophile clergy were diagnosed with a "mood disorder" so they could be treated at the Wesley Private Hospital in Sydney and meet private health insurance criteria.

Fairfax Media said a "well-placed source" aware of the status of some clergy treated by the Church clinic between 1997 and 2008 said he believed several did not have a mood disorder but were "cold and calculating criminals" who bragged about their exploits with children to others while at the hospital.

Fairfax Media reported that several sources said the clinicians at Encompass Australasia ran a world-class treatment centre, but it was used by some Church leaders as a "smokescreen" to hide paedophile clergy.

New South Wales upper house MP Gordon Moyes, who as superintendent of the Wesley Mission in the late 1990s was closely involved with the Encompass Australasia programme being set up at the Wesley Private Hospital, said that neither he nor hospital administrators knew the identity of clergy sent for treatment or the nature of their offences.

"In general we knew that they were largely priests of the Catholic Church who had engaged in various forms of serious sexual sins, particularly against children," Moyes said. "But Encompass was extremely secretive about all their business relationships."

Encompass Australasia, which was set up by the Australian Catholic Bishops' Conference, treated about 1100 clergy for sexual abuse problems, depression and substance addictions before it was deregistered in 2010.

In a submission to the Victorian parliamentary inquiry on sex abuse, the Catholic Church in Victoria has proposed mandatory reporting by ministers of religion and a new protocol for reporting offenders to police that would protect the privacy of victims who want anonymity.

The Archbishop of Melbourne, Archbishop Denis Hart, said there should be an exemption for information received during the sacrament of confession.

Sources:

The Age

Catholic Archdiocese of Melbourne

Image: World News