Convicted pedophile George Pell will be stripped of his Order of Australia award after his appeal on historic child sex offences failed.
The Prime Minister confirmed today Australia will revoke the honour awarded to Australia’s highest ranking Catholic, a process he indicated would be ‘‘done independently.’’
The decision reflects the protocol applied to another famous convicted child abuser Rolf Harris, who also lost his awards after his own conviction in 2015.
In 2015, Pell was made a companion of the Order of Australia – the highest category – for “service to the Catholic church in Australia and internationally, to raising debate on matters of an ethical and spiritual nature, to education and to social justice”.
Mr Morrison said his thoughts were with all victims of child sex abuse and the trauma that they have experienced.
“As I said at the time of the earlier finding, that events like this today bring it all back and I would urge Australians who find themselves re-living these experiences to reach out to those around them, to reach out to the services that are there,” Mr Morrison said.
“These things can take you back a long way and so that’s where my sympathies are. The courts have done their job. They’ve rendered their verdict. That is the system of justice in this country and that must be respected.
“And, of course, my understanding is that this would result in the stripping of the honours that are decided externally to the government. That is a process that is done independently, and that course will now follow.”
Previous reports suggested that Mr Morrison would need to personally write to the Governor-General to commence this process.
A change.org petition by writer and activist Amy Gray has gathered more than 215,000 signatures calling for Pell’s honours to be stripped now that the appeal process is complete.
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