Senior MPs reject calls for time limit on child sex abuse inquiry

SENIOR MPs say Julia Gillard's inquiry into child sex abuse must be allowed to run its course, rejecting suggestions a time limit be imposed on its work.

SENIOR MPs say Julia Gillard's royal commission into child sex abuse must be allowed to run its course, rejecting suggestions that a time limit should be imposed on its work.

Amid speculation the inquiry could take up to 10 years, independent senator Nick Xenophon proposed an indicative two-year deadline, drawing a contrast with Ireland's long-running commission.

“The Irish process and inquiry took something like nine or 10 years and that is clearly unacceptable,” Senator Xenophon told Sky News.

“I think about two years seems to be about right.”

But cabinet ministers Brendan O'Connor and Craig Emerson, and opposition legal affairs spokesman George Brandis, said the inquiry should not have a rigid time limit imposed upon it.

“If you do call for a royal commission ... you must allow for that body to consider these matters fully and be in control of its own destiny,” said Mr O'Connor, the Acting Minister for Families.

Senator Brandis said the royal commissioner must “follow where the evidence leads him”.

“I think there should be an indicative time limit,” he said.

“But my point is these time limits can't really be enforced in a strict way, because if a royal commissioner uncovers avenues of inquiry that need to be explored, well they just have to be explored.”

The inquiry will target institutions that have failed to safeguard victims. It will extend far beyond the Catholic Church and other religious orders that have been the focus of sex abuse concerns in the past.

State institutions, including childcare agencies and schools, could also feel the force of the new commission, which gained quick support late yesterday from NSW Premier Barry O'Farrell and Victorian Premier Ted Baillieu.

Chief government whip and member for the Hunter Valley region, Joel Fitzgibbon, said he hoped a royal commission would “provide closure” to the victims of child abuse.

He said he expected the commission would take up to 10 years to complete and so separate state-based inquiries in New South Wales and Victoria should still continue in addition to the national probe.

“The royal commission could take a decade and will be a big and slow moving beast,” Mr Fitzgibbon told ABC radio.

“And make no mistake it will cause trauma for many individuals and organisations.”

Independent MP Tony Windsor acknowledged the inquiry could be lengthy.

“If it takes time, so be it,” he told ABC Radio.

“Hopefully out of the royal commission's findings we get a change of culture where children who have not even been born yet are protected.”

Labor senator Catryna Bilyk, co-convenor of the parliamentarians against child abuse and neglect group, said Australian society had to have a conversation about the issue.

“We need to make sure that these conversations are had and bring things out into the open,” Senator Bilyk said.

Australian Greens leader Christine Milne believes the Catholic Church will be a clear focus of the commission.

“But not the sole focus because there are other institutions, other churches where examples of child abuse have occurred,” Senator Milne told ABC Radio.