- guardian.co.uk, Sunday February 24 2002 01.41 GMT
A poll published yesterday showed 65 per cent of Australians believe Peter Hollingworth should stand down while an inquiry is held into his handling of sex abuse cases during his time as Anglican Archbishop of Brisbane in the 1990s.
And as many as 53 per cent think he should be summarily dismissed by Prime Minister John Howard, who is continuing to support him and is unlikely to take action, in any case, during the royal visit.
Hollingworth has denied hushing up and failing to act on reports of child sexual abuse by clergy and employees in the church and a school in his jurisdiction. He will be called as a witness in a church inquiry. The row became yet more heated when, in an interview on national television, he implied that a female sexual abuse victim, who was a child when assaulted by a priest more than 40 years ago, was to blame for the attack.
He later said he had not understood the question and apologised publicly to the woman, 'and to the whole Australian public'. Holling worth also rejected claims that when he was Brisbane's archbishop he told another alleged sexual assault victim he thought it was true some men were only human and could not control their urges.
The Australian Republican Movement, which failed to win a referendum on severing ties with the monarchy two years ago, seized on the issue. Chairman Greg Barns, said: 'It demonstrates the inadequacy of a system where only two people, the Australian Prime Minister and the Queen of England, are empowered to appoint and remove Australia's Governor-General.'
Republican sentiment is rising, too, in New Zealand, where the Queen and Duke of Edinburgh arrived from Jamaica on Friday on the latest stage of the Royal Jubilee tour. Prime Minister Helen Clarke denied snubbing the royal couple, saying she would be back in New Zealand from a summit of centre-left governments at Stockholm in time for the official part of the visit which begins today.
But she told BBC Radio 4's Today that she thought it 'inevitable' that New Zealand would become a republic. A newspaper poll showed only 58 per cent of the population thought the monarchy relevant to their lives.
