Legislation forcing priests to break the seal of the confessional to report child sexual abuse could be introduced within the year, as Victoria's Attorney-General ponders legal avenues for victims who signed up under the Melbourne Response.

Key points: Attorney-General Hennessy said there was a compelling case to look at other options for victims who signed up for the Melbourne Response

Attorney-General Hennessy said there was a compelling case to look at other options for victims who signed up for the Melbourne Response Legislation forcing priests to report sexual abuse from the confessional could be introduced this year

Legislation forcing priests to report sexual abuse from the confessional could be introduced this year A spokesperson for the Minister of Social Services says the Government is constantly looking for ways to improve the system for survivors

The Melbourne Response was a compensation model set up by Cardinal George Pell, who was last year convicted of child sexual offences.

The Cardinal is appealing against the conviction, but the news has prompted calls for the Melbourne Response to be torn down.

The Melbourne Response limited the amount of compensation a victim could seek.

But Attorney-General Jill Hennessy said the Government was looking at legislation that could allow those people to sue for more compensation.

"I do think there is a compelling case for government to look at what options might be available to us, so that work is currently being done," she said.

The Victorian Government plans to introduce laws by the end of the year forcing priests to break the seal of the confessional to report abuse.

The State Opposition called for similar changes before the last state election, and while the Catholic Church said it welcomed the expansion of mandatory reporting, it maintained the confessional seal cannot be broken.

Father Kevin Maloney, the Vicar-General of the Diocese of Ballarat, said the church would need to consider its position if the changes become law.

"If that happens, the leadership in the church is going to have to sit down and work out how they're going to respond to it," he said.

"But from my point of view, if that law goes through that's the law I'll have to work with."

Redress claims progressing slowly

Only a fraction of Victorian abuse survivors have been given access to redress.

The Government has also released figures showing few Victorians who have applied to the National Redress Scheme have been given access to compensation or counselling.

In a letter to Federal Social Services Minister Paul Fletcher, Ms Hennessy cited figures from the Victorian Department of Justice showing long delays in processing applications.

The National Redress Scheme was established in response to the royal commission into institutional child sexual abuse, to offer compensation and counselling to victims.

Ms Hennessy said of 66 applications made for redress in 2018, only about a third have been offered access to the scheme.

In 2019, 34 applications from Victoria had been made with only two offered redress.

Ms Hennessy told the ABC the long delays in accessing the scheme would be harmful to survivors of abuse.

"Just one in three applications put forward by Victoria have been offered redress by the Morrison Government," she said.

"Survivors have lived for such a long period of time, often not disclosing their abuse, that when we finally have a system that seeks to acknowledge that then we've got to make sure that the system works, that it works quickly and that it doesn't re-traumatise people.

"We want the Morrison Government to focus on making sure that these applications are processed quickly and fairly."

In a statement, a spokesperson for the Social Services Minister, Paul Fletcher, said the Government was constantly looking at ways to improve the scheme to make sure it met the needs of survivors.

The spokeswoman said applications were considered on a case-by-case basis, and the National Redress Scheme aimed to progress applications in the shortest time possible, prioritising cases where individuals were elderly or suffering from a terminal illness.

Victoria's Opposition Leader Michael O'Brien said he needed to find out more about how Victorian redress applications were being handled.

"Certainly people [who] have suffered sexual abuse at the hands of people in positions of authority do need to receive redress," he said.

"Obviously as a scheme it needs to have eligibility [criteria] … I think that the Federal Government should be as compassionate as possible to people in these circumstances — these people have suffered a lot already."

Editor's note: On Tuesday April 7, 2020, the High Court in a unanimous decision upheld Cardinal Pell's appeal and quashed his convictions on all five charges.