Stripping Rolf Harris of Australian royal honours 'sends strong message'

Rolf Harris.

Child protection campaigner Hetty Johnston says stripping convicted child abuser Rolf Harris of his Order of Australia honours sends a strong message that people who harm children will be caught and will face consequences.

The disgraced entertainer's awards as an Officer and a Member of the Order of Australia were terminated in a government gazette yesterday.

Harris, 84, is serving just under three years in a British jail after being convicted in 2014 of assaulting four girls - one as young as 7 or 8 - in Britain between 1968 and 1986.

Johnston, the founder of child protection group Bravehearts, said taking the honours away showed that wealth, power and influence could not protect wrongdoers. "It does send a very strong message to survivors everywhere that, if you harm a child, you will be found, you will be caught, you will be punished.

"No matter how much money you have, or how powerful your friends, there will be consequences. A lot of the time these people use their positions of power and authority to gain access to kids."

The decision on Harris's honours was gazetted by Governor-General General Sir Peter Cosgrove. "It is notified that the Governor-General has terminated the appointments of Officer and Member of the Order of Australia in the General Division made to Mr Rolf Harris," the notice said.

In 2006, the Queen made Harris a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE), a status he is also expected to lose.

— AAP