Anglican Church company to handle sex abuse payouts

The Anglican Church will use an independent company to manage sex-abuse payouts.

An independent company will oversee the Anglicans’ handling of child sex-abuse complaints and compensation as the church moves closer to becoming part of a national redress scheme.

The church announced yesterday it would form the arm’s-length entity with a view to it co-ordinating and managing redress claims, with potential asset sales to fund the system.

The church’s royal commission working group chairman, Garth Blake SC, said a final decision on whether the church would join a proposed national scheme would be made when the framework was unveiled in coming weeks by the Turnbull government.

Mr Blake said the government still had reservations about some issues, including administration costs, but the church had accepted as reasonable the $150,000 cap to the redress scheme advanced by the government. He said the average complaint was expected to cost about $60,000, with the royal commission hearing the church was one of the worst-hit by the abuse scandal in recent decades.

Mr Blake said there were questions about the difference between the government’s definition of wrongdoing and the definition used by insurers.

The government is expected to clear the way for payments if there is a reasonable likelihood abuse occurred, but insurers rely on the balance of probability that offending occurred.

Mr Blake said the church had already paid more than $30 million to victims but the overall payouts under the new system would be substantially higher.

“It will cause significant pain and hardship, but nonetheless is the right thing to do,’’ he said. “We will be paying for a long time to come for the sins of our fathers and of our colleagues.’’

The government will soon announce how the national redress scheme will operate, with the royal commission warning it could cost $4.4 billion.

Child abuse royal commission figures show 1119 reported complaints of child sexual abuse were received by the Anglican Church between 1980 and the end of 2015.

The dioceses of Brisbane and Adelaide were statistically the worst-affected, the royal commission said.

The Anglican company will also be tasked with assisting victims who do not want to be part of the commonwealth scheme. The government announced a $33m commitment on budget night to establish the scheme.