The child abuse royal commission wants quick and lasting action from governments and institutions to protect children but its most controversial calls for changes to centuries-old church laws appear destined for failure.

The five-year inquiry's final report calls for a national strategy to prevent child sexual abuse, warning governments, churches, charities and other organisations that they must not fail children again.

It wants widespread reforms including extending mandatory reporting laws to include people in religious ministry, even if the information was revealed in confession.

The inquiry controversially suggests the Catholic Church consider voluntary celibacy for its priests, despite acknowledging it has been a major strand of the Catholic tradition from the earliest centuries.

Australia's Catholic leaders have agreed to take the commission's recommendations to the Holy See, but do not expect the church's laws to be changed even if its priests face the prospect of criminal charges for failing to report child abuse revealed in confession.

A victim writes in Messages to Australia. (Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse)

"Killing off confession is not going to help anybody," Sydney Archbishop Anthony Fisher said.

The commission said institutions, their staff and volunteers should be legally obliged to report child sexual abuse.

It wants religious ministers, people working in out-of-home care, early childhood and juvenile justice workers and school counsellors to join doctors, nurses, teachers and police as mandatory reporters.

The final report released on Friday contains a raft of recommendations aimed at churches, warning it would be a mistake to regard child sexual abuse as a historical problem.

It acknowledged there has been progress in some religious institutions over the past two decades, but said "others remained reluctant to accept the need for significant internal changes".

One of the pages in Messages to Australia. (Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse)

The commission wants the Jehovah's Witnesses to stop shunning victims who leave the organisation and to abandon a 2000-year-old rule in handling child sex abuse cases, a step the restorationist denomination has rejected because it is required by scripture.

The commission said some of its 400 recommendations can be implemented without delay, including its child safe standards.

"There is no need for institutions to wait until state and territory governments legislate to require all institutions that engage in child-related work to meet these standards," it said.

It has given the federal, state and territory governments six months to formally respond to its recommendations and major institutions a year to report on what they have done to implement the reforms.

"Further necessary and lasting change must come from a resolve by governments, institutions and the entire community to acknowledge the failures of the past and ensure they are not repeated," the report said.

"Australian society must never go back to a state of denial about the nature, cause and impact of child sexual abuse in institutional contexts."

The commission said there was no simple explanation for why child sexual abuse had occurred in a multitude of institutions.

"It is remarkable that in so many cases the perpetrator of abuse was a member of an organisation that professed to care for children.

One of the hundreds of messages. (Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse)

"Just as remarkable was the failure of the leaders of that institution to respond with compassion to the survivor."

The commission wants the federal government to oversee the development and implementation of a national strategy to prevent future abuse, including a federal minister for children's issues, and a new framework for child safety.

Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull said the government will set up a task force in January to act on the recommendations.

The state and territory governments said they will carefully consider the report's recommendations, in addition to steps they have already taken.

The commission also called for abusers to be stripped of any honours and a national memorial to recognise the tens of thousands of children sexually abused in more than 4000 Australian institutions.

One victim's note in Messages to Australia. (Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse)