Peter Hollingworth in crosshairs on pension reform

Attempts are under way to overhaul the law affecting pension payments to former governors-general if they are deemed to have engaged in serious misconduct.

Peter Hollingworth with his wife Anne. Picture: David Geraghty/The Australian

Peter Hollingworth’s near $700,000-a-year taxpayer-funded retirement package could be imperilled by a plan to amend the law to stop payments to former governors-general who parliament decides have engaged in ­serious misconduct or where it’s deemed in the public interest.

Greens leader Adam Bandt is backing the call by a major abuse support group for reforms to the way former governors-general are remunerated.

This comes after years of controversy over Dr Hollingworth, who left the governor-general’s post in 2003 under a cloud of controversy over his handling of child sex abuse cases when a high-ranking Anglican clergyman.

The Australian revealed last month Dr Hollingworth’s pension and other support measures are now costing taxpayers close to $700,000 a year, including more than $315,000 a year to run his ­office, hire staff and pay for travel and communications.

Greens Leader Adam Bandt. Picture: NCA NewsWire/Martin Ollman

Beyond Abuse CEO Steven Fisher has written to Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and Mr Bandt urging the government and the Greens to work together to amend the Governor-General Act 1974 to stop ongoing payments to former governors-general where they are “culpable of serious misconduct or otherwise where it is (in) the public interest”.

“This matter should be a minor and routine amendment. It is a provision that should have been included routinely in the original (Act) and it is an oversight that it was not,” he wrote. “The proposed amendment is also consistent with the Albanese Labor government’s intentions to improve federal integrity and accountability – the reform could easily be done as part of the commendable federal integrity bill initiative.”

Mr Bandt is considering the letter from Mr Fisher and said the Greens in the past had supported a similar reform. “My colleague, Rachel Siewert, brought forward the Governor-General Amendment (Cessation of Allowances in the Public Interest) Bill 2019 to prevent a governor-general who has committed serious misconduct from receiving public money,” he said.

“This remains a vital pathway to addressing trauma of victim-survivors. It’s crucial that the principles of justice apply to everyone. No one, including a governor-general, is above the law.”

The government has not yet examined the proposition; The Weekend Australian has seen a copy of the letter sent to the Prime Minister and Mr Bandt. Dr Hollingworth did not comment.

“Without the amendment, a former governor-general can engage in egregious conduct, contrary to the national interest, up to and including committing a crime, and yet still receives enormous after-office funding from the taxpayer (even while they are in prison),’’ Mr Fisher writes. “At a time when ordinary Australians are struggling financially more than ever, we do not think it is tenable that such perks continue to be provided without any measure of scrutiny or accountability.”

Dr Hollingworth is facing an internal investigation over his handling of the child sex abuse issue both as governor-general and as the former Anglican archbishop of Brisbane.

In 2003, an Anglican Church inquiry found Dr Hollingworth had allowed a known paedophile to remain a priest and described his action as untenable. In 2017, the sex abuse royal commission found he had made a ­“serious error of judgment” for ­allowing a rector who admitted to abusing a child to continue in the ministry.

Investigative body Kooyoora is inching closer to deciding whether Dr ­Hollingworth, 87, should be stripped of holy orders – that is, defrocked – after several ­complaints about his conduct while archbishop of Brisbane in the late 1980s and ’90s and his comments as governor-­general.

The Weekend Australian has made repeated efforts to contact Dr Hollingworth.