A new class war is being mounted between those who feel for Schapelle Corby in her long ordeal in an Indonesian prison for her marijuana offence and those who dismiss her as a stupid, bogan law-breaker who is being grossly rewarded for her crime. At the moment the latter are winning.

The Holy See should defrock child-abusing priests, refer all relevant allegations to the police and open its files to the public. These are among the recommendations of the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child in its recent report. Despite the anti-Catholic tone of the report (or in some cases because of it?) many Australians, perhaps most, will go along with these proposals. There is more. In what amounts to an open letter to the Holy See, the UN committee wants the children of Catholic priests to be told who their fathers are and wants these fathers to care for their children. It wants the Holy See ‘to ensure that churches no longer impose confidentiality agreements’ when providing mothers with financial plans to support children. It wants sex education in all Catholic schools and ‘gender stereotypes’ deleted from school textbooks. These proposals may also command wide support. But the committee shows its anti-Catholic hand more plainly still in its recommendations on contraception, abortion and homosexuality. The Holy See should ensure that contraception is taught in Catholic schools. It should also ‘amend Canon 1,398 relating to abortion with a view to identifying circumstances under which access to abortion services can be permitted.’ The report also calls on the Holy See to condemn discrimination against homosexuals. If the Church has already condemned the harassment of gays and lesbians and teaches ‘respect, compassion and sensitivity’ in dealings with them, the committee wants far more aggressive action. But it does not show how or why any of these proposals should be in a report on the rights of the child. The report is a new anti-Catholic manifesto and a blast at conservatives in general.

Fortunately the three latest and well publicised Australian inquiries into child sexual abuse have more precise and restricted terms of reference than the UN convention and the related charter, declarations and covenants. Only one has reported so far — the inquiry by the Family and Community Committee of the Victorian Parliament into the handling of child abuse by ‘religious and other organisations’, principally the Catholic Church. Premier Napthine said he was ‘ashamed and embarrassed’ by what the inquiry revealed. He spoke as a Catholic. The Victorian government would, he said, act quickly to implement the committee’s recommendations, including the establishing of a statutory body to monitor allegations and to make it a criminal offence to conceal child abuses. In New South Wales the commission of inquiry has been even more precisely targeted. It is examining the investigations by the NSW police into allegations of child abuse in the Catholic diocese of Maitland-Newcastle and inquiring whether the Catholic Church interfered in these investigations. It will report later this month. But the most far-reaching although still carefully targeted inquiry is the national Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse. It is examining institutions ranging from the Scouts and the YMCA through to state institutions, the Salvation Army and churches. It will release a preliminary report on 30 June this year and a final report by 31 December 2015. Cardinal Pell welcomed the Royal Commission. It would, he said, help ‘clear the air’. Maybe, but that will not satisfy the United Nations.

Can a poet or novelist ever earn a living as a full-time writer in Australia? Michael Connor, the Tasmanian historian-novelist-critic, has called (in Quadrant Online) for reconsideration of Les Murray’s royalty supplementation scheme as outlined in the symposium Double Take: Six Incorrect Essays published in 1996. Murray’s idea is to help Australia’s few full-time writers — he thought that there were only about 200 — make a living based on the market rather having to rely on non-literary jobs and occasional government grants. Take, as a simplified illustration, a $20 novel selling 1,000 copies. The author would get his 10 per cent royalty amounting to $2,000. But under the Murray scheme he would also receive from the Literature Board of the Australia Council a 90 per cent top-up of the royalty — that is, $20,000, which with additional income from the usual ‘writerly earners’ — readings, lectures, conferences, workshops, lending rights — becomes a ‘viable’ sum. The scheme would be capped and income-tested. No one earning more than $30,000 (in 1996 money) would be eligible. It would be cheap, feasible and easy to administer (‘an accounts clerk and a computer’.) But the Literature Board, Murray claims, ‘hates and fears my scheme’ although it will not say why. For details, see his chapter (‘The Noblesse Trap’) in Double Take. I should add for ‘full disclosure’ that I edited the book. Worth looking up.

In the Dismissal of 1975 the Governor-General sought and received the advice of the Chief Justice of the High Court. In Sydney during the week Nicholas Hasluck, former judge and author of the novel Dismissal, said this is ‘undesirable’. He supports the current Chief Justice who has argued that there are ‘plainly’ other advisers than the Chief Justice to whom a Governor-General could resort. Yet when it comes to the dismissal of a prime minister no other advisers have the authority of the Chief Justice. The debate is unresolved.