You’d have to look hard to find a darker time in Australian history, than what was revealed by the 2008 South Australian Mullighan Inquiry. It pains me to say that the topic of the Inquiry was children being sexually abused while in Government care.
The numbers of children being sexually abused in the care of the South Australian Government care were so vast that a Commission of Inquiry was called:
Source: Excerpt from the original PDF report. 1
Ted Mullighan QC presented his report to the Governor of South Australia, Rear Admiral Kevin Scarce, on the 31 March 2008.
His preface to the report was quite chilling and extremely ‘weighty’ in terms of the crimes he had become aware of.
Ibid.
While the victims were heard, and I truly hope this process allowed for some level of healing. Any sane person would also hope that some level of justice might follow. I mean there would be some administrative records, and some people who remembered things, wouldn’t there?
In fact, the opposite appears to have happened. While there were some recommendations to help prevent such atrocities into the future, Labor Premier Mike Rann placed an 80-year suppression order on the report. Why was this muzzle applied?
Could it be that hidden powers wanted to make this go away, until everyone involved is dead? Was it required by the Crown Prosecutor for some reason we don’t know about? Was a comprehensive Order the easiest way to protect victims?
Whatever the case, those involved with the case were rocked to their core, particularly in relation to the scale of the crimes.
Here is a screen-shot of one article, which was released the day after the Mullighan report was released. It has since been removed from the internet.
Pondering the unthinkable, I went back to [trusted] Government sources that published the original Mullighan report. I dug up the original source page that I’d saved offline, years earlier:
I searched for a new location within the government’s website. I found a November 2010 report entitled, “Second annual report by the Minister for Families and Communities” that was offered to the Commission. Dates are going to matter here, as I’ll show in a moment.
Anyway, good news; this SA Government report had hyper-links to all the information that Ted Mullighan had found:
I clicked on the government’s web-link to see the full report:
Shocked that Government would relocate or remove such important documents, I continued to search. Sometime later, I did manage to find a 28-page summary of the 583-page original document. Most of the detail had been stripped out.
Despite the best efforts of the South Australian Government to conceal these findings, thank God that the Federal Child Abuse Royal Commission still provides a copy of the full report. The state that committed the offences doesn’t seem to think it is necessary anymore! You can download the report here.
Increasingly it is critical to save things off line and screen shot critical information. This kind of behaviour by our governments invites some serious questions:
Who is controlling these arms of Government?
Why are comprehensive suppression orders consistently placed on Pedophile Inquiries, when it is possible to just suppress victims?
What infrastructure and connection must exist to enable child sexual abuse for so long without it coming to light?
Now, recall that the Commission had received a second report in November 2010, providing an update on how the implementation of the original recommendations were going. An arrest months later, in April 2011, indicated that they probably weren’t going so well:
As details of Finnigan’s arrest emerged, a few other strange coincidences came to light:
Ibid.
This Member for Parliament (MP) had been promoted just two months prior, by the same leader who placed the suppression Order on the Mullighan Report. Let that sink in. Doesn’t the government do background checks? If Finnigan was arrested in April, wouldn’t the police have already been investigating him in February?
Don’t worry; it gets weirder.
Lawyers fought for years to have many of the original charges removed, as well as have Finnigan’s identity suppressed. The details are in the above article, for those interested. At different times his identity was suppressed, before different courts lifted it again.
If you think the system isn’t broken, have a look at the legal word salad that brought an end to this four-year debacle:
Ibid.
Finnigan was found guilty of obtaining access to kiddy porn, but not guilty of attempting to obtain access. But he succeeded! Doesn’t success at something logically follow an attempt? What the hell is going on with our legal system?
In yet another twist of insanity, Finnegan continued to serve as an MP after his arrest in 2011, right up until his trial commenced in April 2015. He even made a speech to Parliament on 22 May, 2014, following the 2014 State Election:
You’ll be pleased to know that Finnigan didn’t actually win that election in 2014; he was elected to the South Australian Legislative Council in 2010, on an eight-year term.
I point out all this insanity, because this was the period where things were meant to be getting better in South Australia. Maybe things improved in terms of protecting children in care, but it seems that another Inquiry into pedo’s in Parliament might be in order!
Fast forward to 2023, and an odd thing happened in South Australia in relation to the Mullighan Inquiry:
The temptation, when it comes to justice for crimes against children, is to remain doubtful that any good things will ever happen. On the surface, this is a good-news story. One of the South Australian victims feels some level of restoration, now that he has been acknowledged, and the South Australian Premier has acknowledged sorrow.
We are in a time of massive disclosure, particularly in relation to crimes against humanity, much of which involves children. Child sex trafficking is being fully exposed on the world stage, and a big part of this ‘reveal’ is coming to Australia:
Are the South Australian Government and the ABC news network exposing something, or trying to get ahead of the story?
My skepticism was compounded when I noticed that the ABC had been following this one victim since 2008:
Following just one victim for 15 years is enough to activate any conspiracy theorist’s alarm bell, particularly when it comes to the Australian ABC.
To counter my own doubts, this ABC article did go on to make several references to Judge Ted Mullighan, and his 2008 Inquiry. They even published a photo that memorialized his work:
Ibid.
Having honoured Ted Mullighan’s work in speaking for victims of child sex abuse while in government care, this ABC article goes on to stunningly detail the exact nature of the identity transformation that the Premier’s apology brought to Ki Meekins:
This is a beautiful comment from Premier Malinauskas, and it is lovely that Meekins appreciated the gesture, noting that the apology gave “me my identity back”. However, there is something very odd about this entire story.
Why do I say this? Because Meekins already got his apology in 2008:
Meekins was happy to be in the limelight:
Premier Rann’s apology in June of 2008 seemed like an acknowledgement that mistakes were made. Coincidently, Rann’s June 2008 apology was preceded by Meekins’ book that had just been released, a few weeks earlier:
Ibid. 13
What a coincidence of timing! The Mullighan Inquiry Report is released on 31 March 2008, and Ki’s book is released on 28 April. Whatever the case, Meekins was the only victim identified in the Mullighan Report who published a book.
It is also a funny coincidence that the ABC news have followed Ki since 2008. It was probably due to his willingness to go public. Notwithstanding, why are the ABC revisiting Ki’s apology again today?
Why did this 2023 apology give Ki his identity back, but the 2008 apology did not?
Why did Mike Rann say sorry to victims, but also put an 80-year suppression Order on Mullighan’s findings?
I mean, really contemplate this…
Who does the suppression Order really protect? Does a blanket suppression Order to protect victims, also protect the perpetrators?
The truth about all this may never be known. What we do know is that a world-wide ground-swell of public opinion intends to fully expose this scourge upon humanity, and put an end to the government secrecy around it all. This movement will not be stopped.
It is way past time for transparency by our governments. Victims consistently claim that pedophilia is taking place at in the upper echelons of politics, police, clergy and the business community. Obviously, evidence of this remains extremely illusive. This is because most people cannot believe it is true. In this way, the horrid truth of all this hides behind a veil.
Some heroes have tried to expose these evils, but magically, the narrative just disappeared. One of these heroes is Bill Heffernan. He produced police documents, including 28 prominent people who are named as pedophiles. He even noted there was a former Prime Minister was named (1:34):
How did this not go anywhere? Who are the real leaders in Australia? Do any of them care about child sex abuse?
The broader nature the South Australian context, and numerous links to vast amounts of further evidence is captured beautifully in this short documentary (23:40):
The exposure continues…
https://www.sa.gov.au/mullighaninquiry
https://redtaperape.wordpress.com/