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June 13th, 2012 
FAKE NEWS for the Zionist agenda NSW legislation that would allow sexual abuse victims of priests to sue the Catholic Church for millions could be put to a conscience vote by the end of the year.
Greens MP David Shoebridge says draft legislation finalised on Wednesday would offer all NSW abuse survivors a legal remedy and open up higher compensation payments.
“We are calling for a conscience vote on this bill,” he told AAP.
“This ought to be a matter that goes beyond party loyalty.”
The Justice for Victims bill would combat a 1936 state law that separated the Catholic Church’s property trust from its pastoral duties, barring NSW victims from suing the trust directly.
Mr Shoebridge said the Catholic Church was the only religious institution protected from civil suits in this way.
The Catholic Archdiocese of Sydney has previously stated that any suggestion it used the property trust to avoid compensating victims was “simply untrue”.
“It is untrue and a serious misunderstanding of the facts to claim that Catholic bodies and officials cannot be sued by victims of sexual abuse,” a spokeswoman said in a May statement.
Andrew Morrison SC, who has represented more than a dozen abuse victims fighting the Catholic Church, told AAP this was “deliberately misleading” and that mediation was often victims’ only avenue.
He said the Church typically offered compensation between $20,000 and $30,000 to victims who might be awarded “hundreds of thousands or even millions” in the courts.
He said some dioceses did not rely on the so-called Ellis defence – named for John Ellis, who lost his compensation case against the Catholic Church in the High Court, and whom Dr Morrison represented – but that it needed to be taken off the table in the interests of all NSW victims.
“These are people who have had their lives devastated, their marriages break up, the loss of their careers,” he said.
The Australian Lawyers Alliance, for which Dr Morrison is a NSW spokesman, has said a Victorian inquiry into sexual abuse of children while in the care of religious institutions should be extended nationwide.
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