There's room for improvement on complaints system, says George Pell

PROTOCOLS to deal with child abuse introduced in the Catholic Church in 1996 by George Pell could be refined and improved.

PROTOCOLS to deal with child abuse introduced in the Catholic Church in 1996 by George Pell could be refined and improved by the royal commission, the Archbishop of Sydney said yesterday.

Speaking at a press conference in Sydney, Cardinal Pell said he had brought in the church's first system for dealing with complaints, known as the Melbourne Response, when he was archbishop in that city 16 years ago.

"For quite a few years, it was very, very well regarded," Cardinal Pell said. But he expected the royal commission to cast a critical eye over it and the equivalent system adopted the following year by the church in the rest of the country, called Towards Healing.

Cardinal Pell's Melbourne Response had been "absolutely groundbreaking", the Archbishop of Melbourne and president of the Australian Catholic Bishop's Conference, Denis Hart, said yesterday. "It was one of the first in the English-speaking world and Archbishop Pell saw that we really needed to get on and address this awful matter," he said.

Both systems were intended to provide an avenue for sexual abuse victims to complain to the church and receive pastoral and psychological care and compensation. This included victims who did not want to take their cases to the police, losing privacy and confidentiality and potentially facing the trauma of court.

Each system has attracted trenchant criticism from victims' groups and others, and has been reviewed. According to Cardinal Pell, further suggestions from the royal commission would be welcome.

"We are quite open to introducing further improvements and refinements," he said.

"I have said publicly I think both procedures are adequate -- that doesn't mean they haven't been mucked up. They are adequate if they are followed."

He said he had been told by former Victorian premier Jeff Kennett to deal with the issue of child abuse in the Catholic Church in Melbourne soon after he became archbishop. "Premier Jeff Kennett said to me, 'Clean it up, clean it up' and I said 'I'm prepared to do so'," Cardinal Pell said.

The role of independent commissioner was set up after consultation with the police and the solicitor-general. Peter O'Callaghan QC, now 81, was appointed by Cardinal Pell, and another independent commissioner, Jeff Gleeson SC, was appointed this year.

Cardinal Pell said the response had received early bipartisan support in Victoria. "I know the senior leadership on both sides of parliament said 'this is something that is working well'," he said.

The principal difference between the two systems is that all cases were managed by the independent commissioner in the Melbourne Response, whereas cases passed through the hands of a range of people in the Towards Healing process, starting with the church's directors of professional standards in each state.

Both provide pastoral and psychological care, but while in Melbourne compensation is capped at $75,000, Towards Healing has no limit on "reparations".

Regarding criticism of the Melbourne Response and whether victims had to sign confidentiality agreements, Cardinal Pell said that whatever had been the case originally, "certainly that's not the case now, and certainly anybody who has received compensation and has gone public has never been pursued".

Speaking on the ABC's Lateline on Monday, Jesuit priest and law professor Frank Brennan said Towards Healing had been set up in response to the Wood royal commission in NSW.

"There is still work to be done; the question is how that's best to be improved," he said.