Greens MP, David Shoebridge has urged the government not to delay in releasing the report from the commission into child sex abuse in the Hunter.
Mr Shoebridge says the public needs to review the effectiveness of the commission themselves.
“People in the Hunter in particular have been given an expectation of what this report will deal with and assess this institutional failure to deal with child abuse in the Hunter,” Mr Shoebridge said.
The report form the NSW Special Commission of Inquiry into child sexual abuse in the Hunter is expected to be handed down this week.
The inquiry was supposed to look into alleged cover-ups by the police and Catholic Church however, Mr Shoebridge claims the commission focused too much on whistle-blower Peter Fox.
“Peter Fox… has been in the witness box for some 14 days that’s close to institutional abuse of the whistle-blower and it doesn’t seem like anything like the same attention has been applied to the church and the police.”
Mr Shoebidge said the inquiry has become a “side show” and had lost direction.
“Have the inquiry run in a more balanced consideration of, yes, the allegations and the veracity of Peter Fox but also the obvious failings of the church and polices seeming inability to deal with that,” Mr Shoebridge said.
