Focus will not be confined to one institution

THE royal commission will be empowered to compel witnesses to give evidence and produce documents.

THE royal commission into the handling of child sexual abuse will be established by the end of the year and will be empowered to compel witnesses to give evidence and produce documents.

Julia Gillard said consultation on the terms of reference would take place with a range of organisations including groups that represented the survivors of child abuse, religious institutions and state and territory governments.

She confirmed there could be more than one royal commissioner appointed and did not put a time limit on the commission's investigations.

The Prime Minister said the consultation was to be led by two Labor frontbenchers: Attorney-General Nicola Roxon and Acting Minister for Families Brendan O'Connor.

Ms Gillard said the royal commission would not confine its focus to any one institution. It would instead focus on the responses of groups that had traditionally dealt with children, ranging from government and non-government schools to sporting groups and scout organisations to child service agencies and even police.

"This is about children who were in the care of religious organisations," Ms Gillard said yesterday. "It's about children who were in state care. It's about children who were in the care of not-for-profit bodies other than religious organisations. It will therefore go to the response of children's services agencies and the response of the police."

Ms Gillard said she believed the inquiry would take a long time to be completed and its cost would be accounted for in next year's May budget. However she dodged questions on whether compensation to victims of abuse should be included in the terms of reference or how far back a royal commission should investigate.

Coercive information gathering powers were afforded to royal commissions under the 1902 Royal Commissions Act. But they lack the judicial power of being officially able to make a formal determination on the legal status of any particular individual.

There have been 130 federal royal commissions, including recently into the Australian Wheat Board oil-for-food scandal.