Fed: Childrens' rights campaigner has form

AAP General News (Australia)
12-21-2001
Fed: Childrens' rights campaigner has form

By Barbara Adam

BRISBANE, Dec 21 AAP - Hetty Johnston has already been involved in bringing down a
government, so she knows how much work is involved in bringing down a Governor-General.

The vivacious children's rights activist says she'll continue her campaign for years
if that's what it takes before Governor-General Peter Hollingworth does what she believes
is the right thing and stands down.

Ms Johnston wants Dr Hollingworth to quit as an apology for failing to act on child
abuse allegations at a Toowoomba Anglican school when he was Anglican Archbishop of Brisbane.

Dr Hollingworth has denied he was involved in a cover-up of the child sex abuse cases,
but he's said in a statement legal and insurance considerations prevented him from being
more active in dealing with the crisis.

Earlier this month, a court ordered the Anglican Diocese of Brisbane to pay $834,800
damages to a 24-year-old woman sexually abused by a former boarding master at Toowoomba
Preparatory School.

The church has maintained it knew nothing about the activities of Kevin George Guy
until the day he committed suicide in 1990, leaving a letter saying he had "loved" 20
girls at the school.

The diocese faces a second lawsuit from another former student of the school, who is
reportedly suing the church for $326,000 in damages.

Ms Johnston maintains Dr Hollingworth has no right to continue as Governor-General,
a position she says makes him the nation's conscience.

Six years ago, Ms Johnston was involved in the campaign to stop the Goss government's
proposed $700 million eastern tollway, which would have run through a sensitive koala
habitat in Brisbane's south-east.

She quit her job for two years to dedicate herself to VETO, the action group opposed
to the development.

That campaign was considered the main contributing factor in the 1995 election, in
which the Goss Labor government lost nine seats.

Labor also lost its one-seat majority in the subsequent Mundingburra by-election, allowing
the Borbidge Coalition government to take office.

The anti-tollway campaign was Ms Johnston's first brush with the grubby world of politics.

A political novice, her efforts caught the attention of Australian Democrats leader
Cheryl Kernot, who offered her a job.

Overcoming her initial reluctance, Ms Johnston joined the Queensland Senator's staff,
a position which further opened her eyes to the machinations of government and the media.

Ms Johnston eventually joined the Australian Democrats and soon became the Queensland
leader of the party.

But while preparing for the 1996 federal election, the bottom fell out of Ms Johnston's world.

She'd packed her husband and youngest daughter, then aged seven, off to New Zealand
to spare them from neglect during the election campaign.

But only hours after arriving in New Zealand, her virtually incoherent husband phoned
to tell her their daughter had been abused by his father.

"Poppa" was later jailed and other family members also came forward to report more
cases of abuse.

"I will never forget. To my dying day I will never forget that day when she walked
down the escalators at the international airport," Ms Johnston said.

"She was crying and she had her hands out, Mummy Mummy.

"I did not know."

Ms Johnston said she was so floored by the horror of what had happened to her daughter
she couldn't even negotiate a phone book for several days.

"She was seven," Ms Johnston said, as tears welled up in her eyes.

"It turned out she'd been sexually assaulted between the ages of three and seven."

"The day that she disclosed, it stopped for seven other kids. She wasn't the only one."

Ms Johnston did not let the crisis defeat her or her family.

Taught from childhood to always look for a silver lining behind every cloud, Ms Johnston
can remember sitting on her verandah in despair, thinking to herself "how do I get something
positive out of this".

Her determination to find the good side led Ms Johnston to begin White Balloon Day
and found the People's Alliance Against Child Sexual Abuse (PAACSA).

The former bookkeeper now works fulltime for PAACSA.

She does not draw a salary from the organisation, which she keeps going with corporate
donations - she feels accepting government grants would prevent her from criticising the
government - and volunteer labour.

Her work as an environmental activist, a political staffer, as state leader of a political
party and as a children's rights campaigner, she says, has prepared her for her current
campaign to bring down the Governor-General.

Ms Johnston says it's nothing personal.

But, after all, her organisation's motto is "breaking the silence on child sexual abuse"

and that's exactly what she intends to keep doing.

"I'm nothing special," she said.

"I just believe it's right.

"I believe healthy children, healthy environment, healthy economy, healthy future.

"If any one of those things are sick we're all very sick, our whole future is sick."

AAP bja/jhm/mg/de

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