Talk:Peter Hollingworth
|
|
Notes about controversy:
Stories about maladministration started to break in late 2001.
Further allegations about a series of coverups - "Sunday" program, 2002/02/17. The television program claimed that Dr. Hollingworth attempted to cover up the abuse of Guy Murphy, a teacher at an Anglican school in Toowoomba, amongst other coverups.
Controversy about an "Australian Story" appearance 2002/02/18 - in regards to a bishop who had sex with an under-age parishoner: "The great tragedy about this situation is that the genesis of it was 40 years ago and it occurred between a young priest and a teenage girl who was under the age of consent. I believe she was more than 14. And I also understand that many years later in adult life, their relationship resumed and it was partly a pastoral relationship and it was partly something more. My belief is that this was not sex abuse. There was no suggestion of rape or anything like that. Quite the contrary, my information is that it was, rather, the other way around. And I don't want to say any more than that."
Anglican Church in Brisbane instituted its own internal inquiry around the same time.
Age editorial called for resignation around Feb. 19, 2002 - and if he wouldn't resign, Howard should sack him.
When did Crean call for resignation??
On Feb. 21 - Crean called for the Governor-General's resignation, citing the Governor-General's "serious errors of judgement" and referring to what he viewed as the lack of support for the governor-general in the community and the damage that the controversy was causing to the office.
What did Howard reply - same day, Howard gave a press conference where he stated that he believe that while Dr. Hollingworth may have made "errors of judgement", Howard saw no evidence that Hollingworth had been "soft on child abuse". He further responded that he did not believe that sacking the governor-general on the basis of the current controversy was wise, because of the future risk that a future governor-general may be hounded out of office purely through "unreasonable scrutiny".
There the matter basically rested until May 2003, when the final report of the Anglican Church enquiry was tabled in the Queensland State Parliament by the Premier, Peter Beattie. It had to be tabled in parliament for media discussion to occur, because without parliamentary privilege presumably it was libellous.
The report
Sources:
- http://sunday.ninemsn.com.au/sunday//feature_stories/transcript_1267.asp - Sunday program, 2003/05/05 to the following website;
- http://www.parliament.qld.gov.au/AnglicanReport.pdf - the report by the Anglican Church
the last paragraph seems outdated. --Jiang