Following this bombshell hearing, resistance to the work of the Commission from the police service and media crumbled and they were inundated with calls from serving officers seeking to determine whether they could make a deal.

[citation needed] The Commissioner emphasised that the goal of the inquiry was to ascertain the prevalence and nature of corruption in the NSW Police and advise on the reforms necessary to address the problem.

[citation needed] In addition to the Kings Cross hearings, hundreds of police officers were compelled to resign as evidence of wrongdoing and misconduct was brought to light.

For the purposes of this article, and in the Commission Report Volume 4, the term paedophile is used as an umbrella for sexual offences and behaviours that include paedophilia, pederasty and hebephilia.

[4] In pursuing this term of reference, the Commission investigated the activities of the particular pederastic/hebephilic network of which Fisk was a member, and its relationship with a group of corrupt NSW Police Service detectives.

[citation needed] Syndicate members also carried on an amphetamine-trafficking enterprise to raise money to help with the significant expense imposed by the requirement to pay bribes, and the high price of illicit materials and services.

[citation needed] The inquiry also conceded that there were probably other such networks and corrupt dealings unknown to them but based on the extensive evidence provided by large numbers of sex-offenders, victims and law enforcement officers, it felt able to put that aside and concentrate on its instruction to examine police procedure and care arrangements for minors.

[citation needed] The Commission made comprehensive recommendations for the reform of care arrangements and police and public service procedures in dealing with child victims of sexual offences.

[citation needed] However, the inquiry debunked the most sensational allegations made by Fisk and was emphatic that there was no compelling evidence for the existence of a large network of prominent professionals with paedophile tendencies and a criminal bargain with senior officers of the police service to protect them from prosecution.

[citation needed] The sensational revelations coming out of the Commission hearings, and his emphatic assertion that corruption was a non-issue, made Tony Lauer's position as Commissioner untenable.

[7] While stating there was "no doubt" the Commission purged the police of many corrupt officers, journalist Malcolm Brown also commented that some critics believed this particular action "did no serious harm and only required a word of caution".

Partly because of unsupported but widespread conflation of homosexuality with pederasty at that time,[9] and in the context of lawyer John Marsden's ongoing defamation case against the Seven Network, this recommendation was initially rejected by the New South Wales Government,[10] and it was not until May 2003 that the Age of Consent was equalised at 16 under the Crimes Act 1900.