ACT Greens Leader, Shane Rattenbury will introduce new legislation to broaden vicarious liability for institutions who harboured child abusers.
"Institutions like churches, sporting groups and scout groups have an obligation to protect the children in their care. And that obligation must extend to those acting on their behalf," Mr Rattenbury said.
"At the moment we are in a position where the High Court of Australia in Bird v DP has unanimously said that institutions can avoid taking responsibility for crimes perpetrated by people associated with their organisation, or in positions akin to employment but who were not employed.
"For instance, this means that priests aren't considered employees so churches aren't liable for their abuse. It also includes organisations like sporting codes, scouts, girl guides, where volunteers run so much of the organisation's activities, are under the control of the organisation, but are not strictly employees.
"The bill I'm introducing will remedy this in the ACT so that children who were abused by those people can receive justice. It will mean that institutions can be found vicariously liable for crimes committed by volunteers, those carrying out a role within the organisation and those who are carrying out activities for the benefit of that organisation.
"This bill is about ensuring victims have access to justice for the crimes committed against them as children, and it is about ensuring institutions make amends for the harms caused on their watch.
"Powerful and wealthy institutions like the Catholic Church cannot continue to arm themselves to the hilt with lawyers and worm their way out of compensating the little children who were abused in their organisations.
"The High Court has said it is up to States and Territories to legislate, so here the ACT Greens are making this happen. Now it is incumbent on our Parliament to pass our Bill and set the example for other jurisdictions to do the right thing."
Mr Rattenbury will introduce the bill into the ACT Legislative Assembly later this month.
Ben Mathews, Distinguished Professor in the School of Law at Queensland University of Technology, said:
"This bill is an important advance. It represents a modest yet essential clarification and extension of the law of vicarious liability. In essence, it legitimately extends a religious organisation's vicarious liability for sexual abuse to cases where the acts are done by someone who is either an employee in the normal sense of the term, or by someone who is functionally equivalent to an employee in all relevant ways. The terms of the bill are consistent with fundamental legal principles of vicarious liability, and bring ACT law into alignment with the law in numerous other countries including England, Ireland, and Canada. This bill represents an advance that can be a model for other Australian States and Territories."
The Grace Tame Foundation said:
"As some institutions, including the Catholic Church, apparently learned nothing from the child abuse royal commission, and continue to exploit every legal loophole they can find to evade their corporate responsibility for the decades of harm inflicted on children in their pastoral care, it is essential that parliaments take up their responsibility to ensure that survivors do not keep being left with no recourse.
"This is a simple legal step required to extend institutional liability to cover the sexual predation of individuals who were not technically employees but who were under the control - and protection - of religious institutions when they committed their heinous acts."
Harrison James, Activist and Co-Founder, #YourReferenceAintRelevant Campaign said:
"For too long, powerful institutions have operated like untouchable kingdoms; hiding behind robes, titles, and technicalities to avoid responsibility for the abuse they enabled. Survivors were told to stay quiet, while the establishment protected its own. This legislation draws a line in the sand. If you covered up the sexual abuse of children, you should be held accountable. No more excuses. No more special treatment. I applaud Shane Rattenbury for taking this step, and I stand with every survivor whose pain has been ignored or denied for too long."
