OUR SAY: Speaking the truth a difficult but essential way to untangle lies

It's a moral compass, a measure of integrity, a guide to doing what's right.

The polar opposite could not be more stark, for out of lies come secrets and sometimes those secrets can literally destroy lives.

One of the clearest examples of how hiding the truth can do so is the dark menace entangled in child sexual abuse.

In recent years, with various royal commissions and parliamentary inquiries, the stories of immense damage, hurt and suffering have been openly told.

So much of that has been the revelations of abuse suffered by children because of the closeted, patriarchal and all-encompassing repression of the voiceless by institutions - the protection of paedophile priests the most obvious example.

But it's clear, as more people come forward, even long after it has been perpetrated, that such abuse is more widespread than we once could have ever imagined.

The courage that victims have been able to muster has no doubt been essential to their own recovery, as well as giving strength to others to tread the same path.

The terrible legacy of paedophile teacher Vincent Henry Reynolds, for one, continues to be felt in the Wodonga region.

Ultimately though it was courage that led to him being investigated, charged and dealt with by the courts.

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He's in jail, for crimes where punishment and general deterrence hold considerably more weight than any notion of rehabilitation.

But as one survivor of his sick, criminal behaviours can attest, the damage cuts deep. He tells of being abused constantly as a child by Reynolds.

Decades have come and gone and yet, as you would expect, he remains deeply affected.

It's better though, he says, to speak up in order to right those wrongs and to bring to justice those who silenced children with their evil deeds.

It's why he supports a Victorian government commitment to a "truth-telling" process aimed at giving victims of abuse in the state school system the opportunity to tell their stories.

Confronting the past in such a way will never be an easy thing, but for some it will be the opportunity they desperately need and deserve.