Thursday, 18 August 2022

Bills

Justice Legislation Amendment (Sexual Offences and Other Matters) Bill 2022

Second reading

Debate resumed on motion of Ms KILKENNY:

That this bill be now read a second time.

Mr M O’BRIEN (Malvern) (10:05): I rise to speak on the Justice Legislation Amendment (Sexual Offences and Other Matters) Bill 2022. The purpose of this bill is to implement 13 recommendations from the Victorian Law Reform Commission’s report Improving the Justice System Response to Sexual Offences especially in relation to consent and sexual offences. The bill also seeks to elevate image-based sexual offences into the Crimes Act 1958 from the Summary Offences Act 1966. That has the effect of meaning they become indictable rather than summary offences, with consequent impacts on maximum penalties. The purpose of the bill is also to introduce or temporarily continue measures to enhance court efficiency.

There is no question that sexual offending is a scourge in our society. In just 2021, Victoria saw 4431 reported instances of rape, 5919 instances of indecent assault, 512 instances of incest, 3274 instances of sexual offences against children and 926 other sexual offences. That is just what has been reported. That is just what we know about, and of course we do know, sadly, that sexual offending is under-reported. Those statistics—those tragic figures, tragic as they are in themselves—do not even begin to capture the full scope of sexual offending in our community, so we do have an obligation, all of us as a Parliament, to do more and do better to try and end sexual violence. And there is no doubt that sexual violence is often gendered. It disproportionately affects women, and it disproportionately affects children. We need to be very conscious of that, and we need to ensure that the law is amended to keep up with the nature of what is actually happening in our society.

There is no question that this bill contains some measures that are worthy of support. There is no question that this bill contains some measures that are well intentioned. In the course of this debate I will refer to some concerns that have been raised by stakeholders that indicate that the government may not quite get the outcomes that it seeks from some of the measures in this bill because of the way in which it is drafted. I will state at the outset the opposition will not be opposing this bill, but we will put those concerns on the record and we will encourage the government to seriously consider them.

When I quote the Victorian Aboriginal Legal Service, when I quote the Criminal Bar Association, when I quote Liberty Victoria—the old Victorian Council for Civil Liberties—and when I quote the Law Institute of Victoria (LIV), I am not talking about organisations that are known for being alarmist and I am not talking about organisations that do not bring a respected view to the table in terms of legal matters. Each of those organisations has expressed some very serious concerns about aspects of this bill. I think it is incumbent on the government to consider those concerns that have been raised and to respond to them—respond to them in the course of debate in this place but also, I would suggest, respond to them in terms of considering amending the bill in the other place, because this Parliament agrees on the need to better reflect the reality of what is happening in our community to better protect the people who are victims or potential victims of sexual violence. But if the way the bill is drafted will not have that effect, if the way the bill is drafted could actually be counterproductive in some instances, it is not good enough for the government to just assume that they have got it right. So I will raise some of those concerns during the course of this debate, because we are talking about very respected voices in legal policy in this state who have all expressed some concerns.

Let me talk about some of the issues where I think there is general agreement, because as I said, there are many measures in this bill which are worthy of support from right across the Parliament. In relation to part 2 of the bill, clauses 3 to 19 deal with what is now known as stealthing. Now, the term ‘stealthing’ is not actually used in the bill, but it is what is commonly used to describe conduct where one party in a sexual encounter surreptitiously removes a condom or fails to wear one when they had agreed that they would. As a consequence of that the other partner is put at some risk—potentially risk of pregnancy or risk of sexually transmitted disease.

What this bill does is insert new section 36AA into the Crimes Act 1958, and it provides that circumstances in which a person does not consent to an act include where the person engages in the act on the basis that a condom is used and, before or during the act, the condom is removed or tampered with or the person who was to use the condom intentionally does not use it. Effectively the surreptitious removal of a condom or a failure to wear one when that had been agreed vitiates consent. Effectively it is a very serious proposition, because a lack of consent then has other consequences for the actions of that person. I do think this is something that the Parliament should agree on. I think it is an appalling breach of trust, but it is beyond a breach of trust; it is actually a breach of the law. It should be a breach of the law, and we support making these changes to provide that stealthing will be an offence, because it vitiates consent.

Let me take you to one of the issues where I think I understand what the government is trying to do. The government comes from a good place in this particular amendment, but there is real concern that it is going to be counterproductive. The government changes the definition of ‘consent’ in section 36 from meaning ‘free agreement’ to ‘free and voluntary agreement’. Legislation is not a press release. Legislation is not improved by throwing in more adjectives. It is not about ‘Free and voluntary sounds better than free, so let’s go with that’. When you change the definition of something in a statute, courts are going to assume you mean something by it. What is gained by adding the words ‘and voluntary’ to the definition of ‘consent’? You cannot have free agreement that is involuntary. That does not make any sense. Free agreement must be voluntary. So why do you actually put the words ‘and voluntary’ into it? Just throwing in adjectives, throwing in synonyms, does not actually aid the definition. I will quote this at length because this is a very important issue. The Law Institute of Victoria (LIV) have provided me with their feedback on this matter, and I will quote them verbatim:

The LIV considers that the addition of the word ‘voluntary’ is wholly unnecessary as it adds nothing to the definition of consent from a legal perspective. Involuntary acts do not constitute free agreement under existing law.

Even so, the amendment carries significant risks. One grave yet real risk is that it will create a new legal meaning of the term ‘consent’ that is different to, and more onerous than, the existing definition. This is because the act of creating a new legal definition of the term to replace the existing definition clearly signals that the prior legal meaning of the term is defunct. Thus, when called upon to interpret the meaning of ‘consent’ under the new provisions, courts will be drawn to conclude, in accordance with the principle of statutory interpretation against superfluidity, that it has taken on a new meaning, distinguishable from the existing meaning because of the addition of ‘voluntary’. As the existing meaning encompasses voluntariness, courts may be required to conclude that ‘consent’ under the new section 36 imports a higher standard of voluntariness than it previously did.

This could create several deleterious consequences for the administration of justice.

I could go on, but what the LIV is saying is that the courts are going to assume that we as a Parliament are meaning to change the definition of consent by throwing in the words ‘and voluntary’. What is the purpose of it? It is really not clear, even when you look at the explanatory memorandum. The government said:

New section 36(1) clarifies that consent means free and voluntary agreement.

Clarifies? It does not actually clarify it, because ‘free’ has always meant ‘voluntary’. It cannot be free and involuntary. It goes on to say:

The word ‘voluntary’ makes clear that agreement cannot be obtained through coercion, threats or other inappropriate means, and will reinforce that involuntary bodily reactions are not an indication of consent.

Coercion, threats, duress—all of these things vitiate ‘free’. If something is obtained under coercion or under duress, it is not free. That is what the law currently is. For the purposes of courts who might have to look at this in the future and look at these debates in the future, the onus is on the government to make it really clear: are they changing the meaning of consent, are they changing the definition of consent, and why are they doing it? Because courts will look to this debate in the future to try and understand what this government had in mind when it changed the definition of consent and put in the words ‘and voluntary’. Personally I think it is entirely redundant. ‘Free’ means voluntary. ‘Voluntary’ means free. There is absolutely no benefit in this other than throwing confusion into the law, and what we know is that when the law is unclear it tends to be victims of crime who are the ones who pay the price, because a lack of clarity in criminal law tends to lead to miscarriages of justice. Either innocent people get convicted or victims do not get justice. The government needs to think very carefully about this. I understand the tendency to want to throw in adjectives to things to make them appear stronger, but we are talking about legislation that is going to be used to determine whether the victims get justice, whether innocent people are convicted unfairly, and the government has an obligation to get the technical details right on this.

There are further changes to consent. New section 36 sets out a number of circumstances in which a person does not consent to an act that include:

… just because they do not resist the act verbally or physically.

I have no problem there.

… just because they consented to—

a different act with the same person …

the same act with the same person at a different time or place …

the same act with a different person; or

a different act with a different person.

Again, all perfectly reasonable. New section 36AA sets out further circumstances in which a person does not consent. These include but are not limited to where:

the person does not say or do anything to indicate consent to the act …

That is effectively already in the legislation. If you look at section 36 of the Crimes Act 1958, subsection (2)(l) provides that circumstances in which a person does not consent to an act include but are not limited to where:

the person does not say or do anything to indicate consent to the act …

For all the talk about affirmative consent models, I would say it is already there. I think there has been a lot of progress in the law and law reform over many years, and very welcome progress in the law and law reform over many years. I would say we have already got an affirmative consent model to some extent, so I do not think that element changes things all that much. The bill also says that somebody does not consent where:

… the person submits to the act because of force … harm …

or fear of force or harm. Again, you cannot freely consent to something if it is under threat of force or fear or harm, so I think that is probably just repeating what is already encompassed by the definition of consent in the first place. A person does not consent where:

the person submits to the act because of coercion or intimidation …

Unlawful detention is mentioned.

… the person is overborne by the abuse of a relationship of authority or trust;

the person is asleep or unconscious …

et cetera. So again, it probably sets it out in more detail, but I do not know that those aspects of the bill lead to a major change from what the current definitions of consent particularly are.

Where I think we have seen a significant change, and this has brought about some commentary by some respected legal agencies, and I will put those into the record as well, is new section 36A regarding a reasonable belief in consent. It says:

Whether or not a person (A) reasonably believes that another person (B) is consenting to an act depends on the circumstances.

I think there is no problem there. Everyone would understand that consent is obviously dependent on the circumstances at the time. It goes on to say new section 36A(2) provides:

A’s belief that B consents to an act is not reasonable if, within a reasonable time before or at the time the act takes place, A does not say or do anything to find out whether B consents to the act.

The consequence of this change is to put an onus on a person to say or do something to find out if the other person consents to the act. Currently, before any change to the law, the law provides that a person does not consent to an act where a person does not say or do anything to indicate consent to the act. So this is taking it, if you like, a step further, and it requires the person, who is presumably the person who will be complained about, to be able to demonstrate that they have said or done something to find out that the other person consents to the act. This has led to some concern from a number of organisations. The Victorian Aboriginal Legal Service say in their briefing paper:

VALS does not support the proposed amendments to the definition of consent, because they do not strike an appropriate balance between the rights of victim-survivors and the rights of the accused.

Additionally, the proposed framework for consent is overly complex and confusing, meaning that there is a high risk that juries may become confused, and a high risk of judicial error and miscarriage of justice.

David Hallowes SC is the chair of the Criminal Bar Association of Victoria, and he had an op-ed in the Age newspaper of 11 August 2022. He posed the question: have you ever woken a partner with a kiss? In the context of this new requirement for a person to say or do something to determine consent, he went on to say:

Either no steps were taken to ensure consent in the example of a waking kiss, or the accused and/or complainant cannot recall the steps taken. Yet, the proposed changes to the definition of consent seeks to make a blanket rule to cover all possible situations.

That might seem to be an example of which you would say, ‘Well, in the real world nobody is going to make a complaint to the police about being woken up by a kiss by their partner next to them’, and that may well be true. But we need to frame the law to take consideration of a range of possible future events. I do not know that it is the government’s intention in circumstances such as the one outlined by Mr Hallowes SC in the Age that that would be regarded as a sexual offence. If that is not the intention, then I think the government needs to explain what actions that person who seeks to wake their partner up with a kiss would need to do. Do they need to wake them up first? Does observing what a person does count as saying or doing something? There is a lack of clarity in this. I do not raise these issues to be difficult; I raise them because they have been raised by very reputable legal organisations. They want to get it right, and we all want to get it right. I raise these questions because they have been put on the public record by, as I say, very reputable people. When we do change the law, the last thing we want to do is have it lead to uncertainty, which then makes it even harder for victims.

Ms Ward: It’s quite simple: don’t do it if you don’t know. It’s that simple.

Mr M O’BRIEN: I take up the interjection—‘Don’t do it if you don’t know’—and I accept that. As a principle, that is a very sound one. So the question is, in the example put by Mr Hallowes: if you wake your partner with a kiss, do you have to wake them up first before you kiss them every morning?

Ms Ward: That’s ridiculous.

Mr M O’BRIEN: The interjection is ‘That’s ridiculous’. That is the example that the chair of the Criminal Bar Association of Victoria has put in the newspaper, and if the government believes that there is a perfectly logical response to that example, then I would invite the government to put that on the record in the debate. Do not shoot the messenger, member—do not shoot the messenger. This is what the chair of the Criminal Bar Association has put, and it deserves to be answered. We do not want to see an important law relating to sexual offences turned into a joke because the government has got the drafting wrong. Nobody wants that.

Members interjecting.

Mr M O’BRIEN: Well, because the Law Institute of Victoria say they do not support aspects of this. The Criminal Bar Association of Victoria say they do not support aspects of this. The Victorian Aboriginal Legal Service say they do not support aspects of this. Liberty Victoria say they do not support aspects of this.

Ms Ward: What do the women say who have been subjected to these experiences? What do those women say?

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order! Through the Chair, member.

Mr M O’BRIEN: My job as Shadow Attorney-General is to tease out the concerns that have been put on the record about this government’s bill, and if the government is more interested in yelling at me than actually responding to what reputable legal organisations have raised as serious concerns, that gives me more cause for concern. This should be something that this Parliament is willing to work on together to get right. But if we are going to devolve into tribalism, where anybody who dares to question a government piece of legislation or a piece of drafting is suddenly going to be seen as being anti-women—I am raising these concerns because I am interested in getting the law right, and if the members opposite were interested in getting the law right, they would be answering the questions rather than yelling at me.

Ms Ward interjected.

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: Member for Eltham, can I request that you do not interject at this point, please. Member for Malvern, through the Chair.

Mr M O’BRIEN: Yes, Deputy Speaker. The Victorian Aboriginal Legal Service also noted in their briefing paper:

An affirmative consent model that requires the accused person to do or say something to obtain consent may reverse the burden of proof. VALS does not support reverse onus provisions, as they have the potential to undermine the presumption of innocence and the right to a fair trial, as set out under the Victorian Charter of Rights and Responsibilities.

That is a serious issue that VALS raises, because we have always had the presumption that an accused has no obligation to give evidence. An accused person is entitled to remain silent, and the onus is on the prosecution to demonstrate the elements of the offence. In this, the legislation would seem to be removing that right that an accused has—that historic and traditional right—to remain completely silent, because under this bill there does appear to be an onus on the accused to explain what they said or what they did to determine consent. If it is the government’s intention that that right to silence is to be removed to some extent, again I think it is important that the government be very clear on that in its contribution, because courts will certainly be looking to these debates in the future to try and determine what the legislature’s intention was. I would be concerned if we were to be removing the ancient right of an accused to silence, but that does seem to be the outcome from the way in which this new section is drafted. So I have read onto the record the Victorian Aboriginal Legal Service’s concerns, and I look forward to the government’s response on those matters.

On to perhaps less controversial changes—hopefully less controversial changes—the changes to image-based sexual offences: the government has taken these out of the Summary Offences Act and put them into the Crimes Act, which makes them indictable offences. What does that mean? It means that you are looking at more serious penalties, so from two to three years maximum in terms of a number of offences. It also means that police would arguably have greater investigative powers, because when they are investigating indictable offences they generally have more powers than they do if they are investigating summary offences. I understand from the bill briefing—and I am very grateful to the Attorney’s office for the bill briefing—that it was the primary motivation behind the decision to move image-based sexual offences from the Summary Offences Act to the Crimes Act. It is not so much about increasing the penalties, even if it does that; it is more about providing police with greater investigatory powers.

It also deals with what is known as ‘deepfake porn’, which is I think where people’s faces are digitally manipulated and put onto the images of other people engaged in pornographic acts to give the impression that it is that person who is engaging in those acts. Of course this all turns on the question of: is something contrary to community standards of acceptable conduct? That is always an issue. It is probably easy in some ways for the Parliament to put in a catch-all term like that and leave it to the courts to actually determine what community standards of acceptable conduct are at a particular point in time. There has been some feedback from Liberty Victoria, the Law Institute of Victoria and others. The LIV says, and I should quote them so I am not misquoting them:

While the LIV supports efforts to tackle IBSA—

image-based sexual abuse offences—

… it cautions against pursuing a strategy that primarily relies on criminalisation to reduce its incidence. The LIV does not consider criminalisation to be an effective strategy to what is a complex, gendered phenomenon that is being increasingly perpetrated by children and young people—many of whom are ignorant of the gravity of their actions and the fact that those actions may be criminal. The LIV submits that criminal justice responses should be weighted in favour of rehabilitation and education, rather than on deterrence—a position supported by sentencing principles.

This is a vexed issue. You can see that the LIV is saying that often it is young people who might engage in this sort of conduct, but it is a criminal offence—it should be a crime—and I do support ensuring there are proper criminal sanctions in place. What I would say is that I would hope that police and other prosecuting authorities would reserve prosecution for the sorts of cases where there is malicious intent involved, because where there is ignorance involved—and the feedback, whether it is from the LIV or Liberty Victoria or the Victorian Aboriginal Legal Service, is that often there is no malice involved in some of this conduct, it is stupidity, it is ignorance and it is young people who do not realise the gravity of what they are doing—this is one of those areas of law where I think we do rely on prosecuting authorities to bring an element of sense. There will be some actions which by their nature—the malicious motivations or the harm that is done—do deserve to be pursued criminally. There will be other opportunities perhaps where diversion, education and rehabilitation might be the better outcome for everyone.

To those who say that these perhaps should not be crimes, I disagree. I think the sort of harm that can be put onto individuals through image-based sexual offences can be heinous, and it is appropriate that these be elevated into the Crimes Act, but the way in which individual cases are dealt with does obviously need a good dose of common sense along the way.

There are a number of changes to jury directions in part 4 of the bill. There has been some concern that the changes to jury directions complicate what is already a very complicated area of the law. Having read through some recent Court of Appeal and even High Court decisions, so many of the appeals there are based on the adequacy or otherwise of jury directions given by judges in criminal trials. I understand what the government is seeking to do with these measures. I would just ask the government to be very, very careful that the government does not make so complicated what is already a very complicated area of law, which might just simply lead to more confusion, more appeals and more delays in finalisation of matters, which is in the interests of nobody—not the system, not complainants and not defendants either.

The opposition will not be opposing this bill. We will be potentially looking at amendments in the other place in line with some of the concerns that have been raised by reputable legal organisations, because I do think that there is a unanimous view that our sexual offences laws can be better and should be better. We just need to make sure we get the detail right so that we do not inadvertently make life even harder for those who are most deserving of our protection—victims of sexual offences.

Ms HUTCHINS (Sydenham—Minister for Education, Minister for Women) (10:35): I am proud to be speaking on this bill today, because ensuring women have the right to sexual and reproductive justice is a really important step in our state’s continued effort to achieve gender equality. In response to key findings from the Victorian Law Reform Commission’s (VLRC) report Improving the Justice System Response to Sexual Offences, this bill adopts an affirmative consent model, which means a person must confirm they have received consent, shifting scrutiny from the actions of the victim-survivor to those of the accused. Consent must be communicated; it cannot be assumed.

This bill also amends laws to make it explicit that stealthing—that is, removing a condom without the other person’s consent—is also a crime. An underlying factor that plays a critical role in the occurrence of stealthing is gender and power. Stealthing breaches trust. It jeopardises people’s sexual and reproductive health. It can cause significant harm and trauma, including sexually transmitted diseases, unplanned pregnancies and psychological distress.

The opposition have critiqued some of the definitions that are here in this bill, particularly around the general amendments regarding the definition of ‘consent’ and new section 36AA(1). I will just put on the record that our wording around this is absolutely consistent with other jurisdictions, and that is why it is reflected in this way in the bill. There are other states that have forged ahead in this space and done a tremendous amount of work that has been in place for some time, and those laws have been tested. We are basically falling into line and being consistent with other jurisdictions on that definition.

In my previous portfolio as Minister for Victim Support I was constantly amazed by the passion, the expertise and the dedication of victim representatives of the Victims of Crime Consultative Committee. Members of the committee continued to be so generous in sharing their time and their very, very personal lived experiences, which have been absolutely instrumental in developing these laws. I thank them for their very, very committed time and their passion. The committee has been with us on this journey to reform since the VLRC released its report Improving the Justice System Response to Sexual Offences, and from my experience developing, introducing and passing the Victims of Crime (Financial Assistance Scheme) Bill 2022, I know how powerful their voices are. So a big shout-out to all of the members of the committee, in particular Cathy, Melinda, Sandra, Thomas, Jaylee and Russell, for their work.

The VLRC’s Improving the Justice System Response to Sexual Offences report also highlights the need for wideranging reform. It found that sexual offences are widespread and are significantly under-reported. Many of us as MPs have heard firsthand accounts from women who have come to us to report in the confines of our offices but were too afraid to make a claim with the police. Even when reports are made, many cases do not make it to court, and even fewer result in a conviction.

This bill is just the beginning of a long reform journey, and we know education is central to the conversation. As announced in the 2022–23 state budget, the government will work with local organisations and specialist services to deliver community-based consent education. We are very proud of this commitment. This will complement existing education initiatives like the Respectful Relationships program, which runs in schools. The Royal Commission into Family Violence identified the critical role that schools and early childhood have in creating a culture of respect to change the story of family violence for future generations, and in 2016 Respectful Relationships education became a core component of the Victorian curriculum from foundation to year 12. It is being taught at all government and Catholic schools and many independent schools. We know that changes in attitude and behaviours can be achieved when positive attitudes, behaviours and equality are embedded in our education settings.

Just as with other major social and health issues such as smoking and reform in road tolls, evidence shows us that gender-based violence can be prevented by working with the whole of our community. All secondary school students learn about and explore the relationship between gender and power, consent, the way gender stereotypes and behaviours can lead to unhealthy relationships, or coping strategies for people in situations where they need them. This consequential education means that we can make lasting change and create a more equal and respectful community and prevent this sort of sexual abuse from happening.

I also would like to acknowledge the work of Respect Victoria. They have been undertaking efforts to stop violence before it starts by changing the culture that allows it to happen. It is a mammoth task which they are taking on with a vengeance. I also acknowledge the work that has been done by so many women’s health organisations out there that have been working in this space for so many years.

In addition to legislating affirmative consent there is an unequivocal enshrining of stealthing as a crime, which this bill includes. There are stronger laws to target image-based sexual abuse, which includes taking intimate videos of someone without their consent and distributing or threatening to distribute intimate images, including deepfake porn—it is absolutely astounding how widespread this is amongst particularly teenagers across our state at the moment.

As the VLRC recommended, the bill will take the existing offences from the Summary Offences Act 1966 and elevate them to the Crimes Act 1958, where they can be tried at higher courts and with higher potential penalties where appropriate. It includes a new provision for prosecution for historical sexual offences, including the new jury directions to address common misconceptions about sexual violence and proof beyond reasonable doubt. It requires respectful questioning of complainants in sexual offence trials and strengthens pre-trial cross-examination protections for complainants. This is something that I heard time and time again as Minister for Victim Support—it was strongly, strongly needed. It empowers complainants to participate in applications for disclosure of their confidential communications, and it protects health information in sexual offence cases.

We know that this is hard work. Keeping perpetrators accountable and ensuring victim-survivors have justice does not happen in a vacuum. I would like to acknowledge the hard work of our women’s family violence, sexual assault and feminist organisations, who have educated so many on affirmative consent and continue to fight for the protection of women’s sexual and reproductive rights and for the protection and safety of women. I would also like to acknowledge and thank the continued work of the Victim Survivors’ Advisory Council, led by Jennifer and Geraldine. VSAC represents the lived experiences of people of different ages, genders and demographics all across Victoria. For over five years this council has played a crucial role in our government’s reform agenda in family violence and gender-based violence. As they advised me in my previous role as Minister for Prevention of Family Violence, I am very thankful for their openness and honesty and fearless advice as well. I recommend support for the Justice Legislation Amendment (Sexual Offences and Other Matters) Bill 2022.

Ms KEALY (Lowan) (10:44): I rise today to speak on the Justice Legislation Amendment (Sexual Offences and Other Matters) Bill 2022. This bill has three main elements to it, although there are other aspects of amendment included in the legislation. Those three purposes are firstly, to implement the 13 recommendations of the Victorian Law Reform Commission’s report, Improving the Justice System Response to Sexual Offences, especially in relation to consent and sexual offences; secondly, to elevate image-based sexual offences into the Crimes Act 1958 from the Summary Offences Act 1966—then they become indictable rather than summary offences; and thirdly, to introduce or temporarily continue measures to enhance court efficiency.

The past two years of the pandemic have had a dreadful impact on the sexual safety of women and children right across Victoria. We saw a record number of sexual offences in Victoria in 2021, the very most recent data that is available, with 9620 offences recorded against mostly women and children but also men as well. It is just an indictment on this state that we would allow loopholes in legislation and that we would allow decisions around lockdowns and restrictions which were known would have such an incredible impact on the mental health of Victorians and on the opportunities for family violence to be dreadfully exacerbated and on the opportunities for sexual assault to be exacerbated—and that this was never taken into consideration. I am very angry that these impacts of lockdowns and restrictions were not taken into account when the lockdowns and restrictions were put in place, because there is more than just the spread of a virus. There is actually the spread of an epidemic of sexual violence against women and children that arose from those mandates.

There was also in 2021 a spike in incest and a spike in sexual offences against children. There was a record total number of sexual offences in Victoria, which includes rape, indecent assault, incest, sexual offences against children and other sex offences. So while we are seeing legislation come through today, what I call for, for any future government, is that when you are making critical decisions which you know are having a secondary impact on sexual assault and sexual violence and you know are having an impact on the mental health of Victorians, that is immediately taken into consideration to make sure that that harm is minimised, because the result of this is not something that is just a number. These are thousands of Victorians who have been sexually assaulted in the past year, many of whom need not have been sexually assaulted—it was just they were in a scenario that was put upon them by the Andrews Labor government.

Members interjecting.

Ms KEALY: I note the interjections from Labor MPs, who seemed to be defending the fact that you can make mandates for lockdowns and restrictions and turn a blind eye to the impact they have on sexual violence in the home. That is absolutely disgusting because the statistics actually show that there was a massive increase. It has been on the record—there are many, many research papers around it. It had a direct impact on the rate of family violence, it had a direct impact on the rate of incest and it had a direct impact on sexual violence against children, and that is wrong; that is very, very wrong.

A member interjected.

Ms KEALY: I agree—it is totally offensive, because it should never, ever have happened.

I strongly support the changes in this bill in regard to stealthing. I note that Labor’s Sex Work Decriminalisation Bill 2021 amended elements around stealthing so that stealthing for sex workers was no longer an offence. Therefore I welcome the fact that stealthing will again be seen as an offence not just for sex workers but also for women and men across the state. I have spoken to women who have been the victims of stealthing. They were in an environment where they had consented to a sexual activity and then found out that the man had removed his condom and were then left feeling complete and utter guilt and the weight of uncertainty around whether they had a risk of pregnancy or whether they had a risk of getting a sexually transmitted disease. There is the guilt around just having sex in the first place because they feel like it was an enormous violation of not just their sexual safety but their emotional safety. And that the respect from someone who you enter an intimate relationship with would be abused in that time when you should be most respectful of each other’s company—it is disgraceful that that happens. Absolutely there should be many, many more efforts made to stop these issues from occurring in the first place, but we also need to make sure we have got the legislative framework to back them up. So I am pleased to see that Labor have seen the error of their ways in removing stealthing from the Sex Work Decriminalisation Act 2022—the bill was debated in this chamber in October of last year. It is welcomed that stealthing will again be an offence and has been broadened beyond sex workers to also include all Victorians.

The second main element of this legislation is around consent. This is very, very important. There are issues which have been raised by the Shadow Attorney-General in his lead speech, and I back those up. There are significant concerns that have been raised around the legislation by highly respected institutions, including the Law Institute of Victoria. Their concerns and the issue I have around it is that it may actually inadvertently create a heavier threshold for women to prove consent—as opposed to what the intention is—because:

… the amendment carries significant risks. One grave yet real risk is that it will create a new legal meaning of the term ‘consent’ that is different to, and more onerous than, the existing definition. This is because the act of creating a new legal definition of the term to replace the existing definition clearly signals that the prior legal meaning of the term is defunct. Thus, when called upon to interpret the meaning of ‘consent’ under the new provisions, courts will be drawn to conclude, in accordance with the principle of statutory interpretation against superfluidity, that it has taken on a new meaning, distinguishable from the existing meaning because of the addition of ‘voluntary’.

We need to make sure that in this legislation we are not inadvertently enhancing the threshold, making a higher threshold and making it more onerous for women to seek justice when they have been sexually assaulted.

I would also like to refer to the image-based offences. This is being used as a tool to circulate porn or images—it might be the deepfake porn of putting somebody’s head on existing pornographic images or videos. It is circulated with usually the one intention of humiliating and demoralising and making a woman feel like they have less power in a relationship, whether that relationship actually exists or not in an intimate sense. That is something that is absolutely unacceptable, because it is not just about that instantaneous breach of a woman’s right to control where her images are retained and where they are circulated and what she consents to around that. It also has enormous long-term impacts of guilt and shame, particularly for younger teen women who feel so much guilt about knowing their parents might see an image, that somebody they actually like or have a relationship with at school might see an image, that somebody in their workplace, for example, might see that image or a sibling might see the image. This just causes so much mental harm—and a weight of guilt—to that individual that they are too often led down a terrible path of mental ill health. Not often but sometimes this leads to suicidal behaviour, self-harm and sometimes completion of suicide. We cannot have that happen. We cannot have a situation where there is risk of women harming themselves and men harming themselves because somebody has circulated an image without their consent.

In the short time I have available I want to reiterate the Liberals’ and Nationals’ commitment to rolling out a program in Victoria based around the New South Wales sexual assault reporting option program. It is about online reporting immediately after an event has happened. It is an informal approach. I note the member for Brighton is in the chamber. He was a big supporter of this campaign and I congratulate him for bringing this to the party, and we have been able to support that.

Women deserve to have every opportunity to make sure they are safe. We need to make sure, whether it is in legislation, whether it is around providing new electronic devices for informal reporting, whether it is around changes to legislation or making sure that we sign up to the work plan to strengthen criminal justice responses to sexual assault, the Liberals and Nationals will be behind it.

Ms D’AMBROSIO (Mill Park—Minister for Energy, Minister for Environment and Climate Action, Minister for Solar Homes) (10:54): I rise to speak on the Justice Legislation Amendment (Sexual Offences and Other Matters) Bill 2022. This bill is a crucial step in stopping all forms of violence against women. Sexual violence still remains disturbingly prevalent in our state, impacting the safety of women in our communities. For too long the scrutiny in sexual assault matters has rested on the victim.

The onus and the burden of sexual assault matters have rested on the victim. Sexual violence is gendered. Victims are overwhelmingly female, and the perpetrators are overwhelmingly male. The judgement and stigma towards victim-survivors is powerful, both in the courtroom and outside in society. Whether it be from the trivialisation of sexual violence or the belittling of victim-survivors who do speak up, victim-survivors are left questioning ‘Was it just a misunderstanding? Was I not clear enough? Was I giving mixed messages?’ Strong power imbalances are stopping victim-survivors from coming forward.

We know that this leads to significant under-reporting of sexual violence, and we know that even when they are reported, conviction rates for sexual offences remain unacceptably low. Only one in 23 rape cases that are reported results in a conviction. This bill draws a very clear line in the sand, strengthening our sexual assault laws, providing additional protections for victim-survivors and ensuring that we are holding perpetrators to account for their actions. This bill shifts the scrutiny from victim-survivors onto the perpetrators. Unfortunately we have already seen detractors attacking the bill with simple, reactive and hyperbolic statements, claiming that it will send people to jail for kissing or that now the presumption of innocence is dead—defective statements that highlight exactly the culture and the old ways of thinking that we need to change, and of course the time for change is now. While this bill is just the beginning of a long reform journey, this bill is also an important step in addressing sexual violence and harm across the state.

This bill implements an affirmative consent model, making it clear that everyone has a responsibility to get consent before engaging in sexual activity. Right now under the existing law the prosecution must be able to prove that the accused perpetrator did not have a reasonable belief that the complainant was consenting. The onus is on the victim-survivor to have clearly shown that consent was not given. The focus and the scrutiny in sexual assault cases should not be on what the victim-survivor did to show non-consent. We know from the Victorian Law Reform Commission (VLRC) report that complaints continue to be questioned on outdated notions about whether they fought back or said no. In a trial it should not be a matter of just, ‘What did the victim-survivor do to say no?’, but more importantly, ‘What did the accused person do to make sure that the other party was consenting both before and during the sexual act?’. This bill ensures that there is a very clear requirement for active consent to be given. The bill will require that for a person’s belief in consent to be reasonable that person must have taken steps by saying or doing something to find out if the other person consents. Simply, it must be clear.

The bill adds two new provisions that strengthen the definition of ‘consent’, making it clear that consent can never be assumed. Firstly, the bill provides that a person does not consent to an act just because they do not resist the act verbally or physically. This is an outdated, ancient definition of ‘consent’ that will no longer apply. Secondly, the bill makes it explicit that consent is not assumed just because of previous sexual behaviour. Consent is required for each individual act and cannot be assumed just because a person has previously consented. We know that many victim-survivors feel obliged to continue with an act simply because they said yes before. The new provisions will help to overcome pervasive rape myths and stereotypes that the research has shown still impact assessments of consent. Given their significance the government will review the operations of the consent reforms. It is important to allow the new provisions to be applied in practice before review of their effectiveness can be undertaken. This review will also be able to draw upon experiences and learnings in other jurisdictions that have recently undertaken affirmative consent reform.

The bill will add five new circumstances where there is no consent. These will address cases where a person submits to or engages in a sexual act due to force, harm or a fear of force or harm of any kind; coercion or intimidation; abuse of a relationship of authority or trust; false or misleading representations about payment for commercial sexual services; and agreement that a condom will be used when in fact it is not used, removed or tampered with. This of course is widely known as stealthing. These new circumstances recognise the real and often significant power imbalances that exist in relationships. They recognise that harm can be more than just physical. They recognise that the causes of coercion and intimidation in relationships are complex and nuanced. Our consent laws must move beyond outdated stereotypes and outdated understandings of relationships. These new circumstances better reflect reality and the barriers preventing reporting of and conviction of sexual assault. Harm is not just physical. It can include physiological and economic or financial harm and even subtle emotional manipulation which can continue to stigmatise and affect victim-survivors for many, many years.

We know this is especially the case in situations of family violence, where we know perpetrators use coercive and controlling behaviours. They are, however, not just unique to family violence and are features of sexual violence that occur in other settings. One of the new provisions captures situations where a person abuses their position of power in such a way as to cause the other person to feel that they have no choice but to submit. We recognise that consensual relationships can exist where there is some power imbalance, but this provision targets circumstances where that power is abused. The bill makes it clear that if force, harm or any conduct causing fear occurs, consent cannot be given.

I want to make a particular note of the new provision that outlaws stealthing. The bill will make it clear that a person does not consent to an act if they are engaged in the act on the basis that a condom is used and either it is intentionally not used or, before or during the act, it is intentionally removed or tampered with. Stakeholders and those in the community more broadly have made it clear how important this change is. This conduct can cause significant harm and trauma, including sexually transmitted diseases, unplanned pregnancy and psychological distress or fear. Fundamentally the removal of or tampering with a condom without consent is a violation of bodily and sexual autonomy.

Ultimately the goal is to stop sexual violence before it happens in the first place. The changes outlined in this bill are significant, and we do need to ensure that Victorians, especially young adults and teenagers, are aware of the importance of consent. These reforms, when understood, have the potential to change people’s behaviours and attitudes, profoundly supporting our efforts to prevent sexual violence in the first place. We have already announced in the past budget that the government will work with local organisations and specialist services to deliver community-based consent education. This will ensure affirmative consent is understood, supported and adopted by Victorians, helping to create real societal shifts and change in the perceptions of consent. This, alongside programs such as Respectful Relationships in schools, will help embed a culture of consent and respect in young people across the state. This bill is an important opportunity to formally redefine the meaning of consent and by extension shift community attitudes towards sexual offences.

These reforms are long overdue. This bill fulfils one of the recommendations from the VLRC’s Improving the Justice System Response to Sexual Offences report, but more than that, it fills a gap in our justice system that victim-survivors, advocates and activists have been fighting against for a long, long time—and I thank them for their advocacy and contribution in the consultation process for this bill. The legislative gap has meant that many instances of sexual violence have gone unreported and unconvicted. This has perpetuated the stigma, the trauma and the suffering of survivors.

In the last few seconds that I have, I do want to thank the so many wonderful women in this government who have gone such a long way in getting this legislation here for us to debate and hopefully pass. This is the strength of the voice of women in government, and we should never forget that. With that carries the experiences of friends and families and relationships that we all have across the board, but ultimately it is this government as a whole that has brought forward this legislation. I commend the bill to the house, and I hope that it passes without any amendments.

Mr NEWBURY (Brighton) (11:04): Today is a watershed moment in Victoria. Today this Parliament is seeing legislation that will set a new community standard—a new community standard that will change cultural norms in the ways we can act to stop and prevent sexual violence, not just the things that we can do to assist with reporting but to change cultural standards in a meaningful way at law, and that is what counts. That will make the difference.

During one of the early lockdowns two young girls were raped in one of the local parks in my community, and, without going into details of the crimes, consent was a significant issue. I spoke to one of the victims’ family at the time, and her story broke my heart. It was when I first met Chanel Contos, who has been described as—and I think it is probably even an understatement to describe her as—‘a young trailblazer who sparked a national reckoning with sexual consent’. We talked about these laws, about these issues and the need to change cultural norms in this space. I spoke to her last night after the journey since, and she is more than happy for me to put her words into Hansard: ‘Switching the narrative from “no means no” to “only yes means yes” will have a significant effect on reducing sexual violence. The concept of no means no isn’t good enough when we don’t teach girls and women how to say no. These proposed laws are an important step towards reducing violence in our community, and I hope we see them replicated across Australia’. I think it is important to take a moment to acknowledge Chanel and her work on consent, and the way that she as a young person posted on Instagram about consent. Some of her friends at the time shared her post about issues that they had experienced in terms of sexual violence. She then started a petition amongst young girls—schoolgirls—that today has 45 000 signatures and almost 7000 girls sharing stories of sexual violence. Children are sharing personal stories like that of the girl who was raped in my park.

There are so many strong women who have been behind what we are seeing today who have said we need a new cultural standard, and we need to move from thinking that the concept of no means no is good enough and at law to say that only yes means yes. This bill will have a profound impact on our community, on women and on young girls. It will also have a profound impact on what we teach boys. So I am so proud to stand here today having spoken with Chanel when that horrible incident happened in my park. Being able to bring her into the Parliament and inviting all of you to be briefed by her on these issues, to then help her meet with the executive in New South Wales after the briefing here and then to do the same in the federal government was important. Her comments calling for laws of this nature to be rolled out across Australia are such important calls, because what we are doing today is going to make a difference in Victoria. But we need to make that same difference across Australia, and I would say to every member in this place it is now not just good enough to help the girls and teach the boys in Victoria. We now need to use our collective voices to continue these reforms in whatever way we can across Australia.

Ms SPENCE (Yuroke—Minister for Multicultural Affairs, Minister for Prevention of Family Violence, Minister for Community Sport, Minister for Youth) (11:11): I rise in support of this very important bill, which will strengthen our approach to consent and provide better protections for victim-survivors of sexual offences. Can I at the outset acknowledge the member for Brighton’s contribution, Chanel’s work and his acknowledgement of the profound impact that this legislation will have. They were very, very insightful words that he shared with us. This bill is particularly important to me as Minister for Prevention of Family Violence, as Minister for Multicultural Affairs and as Minister for Youth because all of these portfolios have intersections with this legislation—from prevention and education to response and of course recognition of the gaps in the existing legislation.

The sad and alarming fact is that sexual violence, abuse and harm are pervasive in Victoria. One in four Australian women over the age of 15 has experienced sexual assault in their lifetime. For some in our community the statistics are even more alarming. Experiences of sexual assault are higher for young women. In 2016 young women aged 15 to 34 accounted for more than half of all police-recorded sexual assault victims. Women with disabilities are two times more likely than women without disabilities to have experienced sexual violence. These rates of sexual violence in our community are completely unacceptable.

At the outset I want to acknowledge the incredible courage of all victim-survivors of sexual violence. Some have shared their stories with us, but many are simply unable to. Every one of these victim-survivors demonstrates bravery that they should never have had to do. We know that victim-survivors of sexual assault delay reporting or may never disclose their experiences. In fact 83 per cent of Australian women did not report their most recent incident of sexual assault to the police. For those sexual assault cases that are reported, only one in 23 results in a conviction. Misconceptions and stigma about sexual violence can result in victim-survivors fearing that they will not be believed, and it is a key factor in women identifying that their experience was sexual assault in the first place. Stigma, shame and discrimination often lead women to not seek appropriate support services when they are victims of sexual assault.

The Royal Commission into Family Violence told us that sexual violence and harm is a common form of family violence and often an indicator of heightened family violence risk and that one in three women has experienced physical and/or sexual violence perpetrated by a man that they know. That is why it is so important that this bill recognises the experience of victim-survivors, making it clear that there can be no consent in circumstances of family violence where a person submits to a sexual act due to force, harm or the fear of force or harm of any kind.

Importantly, this bill introduces the new affirmative consent model. The Victorian Law Reform Commission’s report told us that previous reforms to sexual offences law, although significant and important, did not go far enough. The bill addresses those concerns by making clear what consent is, what it is not and the circumstances in which there is no consent. The current law requires the prosecution to prove that an accused person did not have a reasonable belief that the complainant was consenting. Our reforms mean the accused must show active steps were taken to gain consent in every case. This makes clear that consent must be communicated; it cannot be assumed. It represents a fundamental shift away from outdated perceptions. It means questions such as ‘What was she wearing?’ change to ‘What did he or she say?’.

Despite previous reform efforts, there has remained a focus on the complainant’s actions or behaviours rather than the accused’s actions, and this bill changes that. The amendments introduce new circumstances in which consent cannot be given. We heard from victim-survivors that their capacity to consent was often worn down over time through previous acts of family violence, including an ongoing pattern of coercion and control, and this bill makes it clear that a person cannot consent to a sexual act because of force, harm or fear of such harm or of coercion or intimidation. The reforms also provide protections for those who have been exploited by people who have power over them, such as in relation to their care, protection or access to health or other services. The amendments also go some way to protecting sex workers, who until now have had limited protections against sexual violence when perpetrators have sought to exploit them by not paying for their services. Importantly, the bill makes the non-consensual removal, non-use or disruption of a condom a crime.

As I mentioned earlier, experiences of sexual assault are higher for young women aged 15 to 34. While legislation is important, we also recognise that the law can sometimes be a blunt instrument, so to change attitudes and behaviours that give rise to sexual violence and harm we need to invest in prevention and education early on, which is why I am pleased as Minister for Prevention of Family Violence we have committed $4 million to delivering community-based consent education. This will complement our legislative reforms on the ground to make sure that young people better understand consent and better understand sexual violence, how to seek support and their responsibilities under the new law. Programs will be created and piloted by specialist sexual assault family violence and youth services, and they will be tailored to young people from diverse backgrounds who are confronted with unique barriers, experiences and stigmas. Sexual Assault Services Victoria, Youth Affairs Council Victoria and Safe and Equal will provide advice to funded organisations on program implementation and develop resources to make sure that communication of the new legislation is clear and consistent.

Engaging with young people is the key to cultural change in the long term and to breaking the cycle of sexual violence once and for all. Seven years ago we held the first ever Royal Commission into Family Violence. Since then we have been unwavering in our commitment to end family and sexual violence in Victoria. These reforms build on our nation-leading work and over $3.7 billion of investment to end all forms of family violence. The bill has been informed by the lived experience of victim-survivors and by the expertise of sexual assault and family violence organisations and justice and legal stakeholders. I want to thank all victim-survivors of family and sexual violence who have shared their stories with us with the greatest of bravery. Their contributions have made a real difference in the building of a justice and support system which is accessible and safe for all.

We are committed to preventing and responding to sexual assault and to keeping victim-survivor voices at the heart of everything that we do. We know that there is still plenty of work left to do, and the Andrews Labor government is committed to doing it. For too long victim-survivors have lived, too often silently, with the weight and trauma of sexual violence. Today we deliver reform to assist them in getting the justice they deserve. I commend the bill to the house.

Mr SOUTHWICK (Caulfield) (11:19): It is a pleasure to rise and speak on the Justice Legislation Amendment (Sexual Offences and Other Matters) Bill 2022, and at the outset I want to commend my colleague and friend the member for Brighton for bravely speaking up about something that I know he feels very personally about and that he and I have both worked very closely on: to change the laws to protect women and to ensure that women have a voice and women feel supported and that women are supported at every single stage through the process of sexual assault. On 18 April 2021, a few weeks after a conversation that the member for Brighton organised for members of Parliament with Chanel Contos to talk about sexual reporting and ensuring that informal reporting of sexual assault was something that could be changed in Victoria, where we listened and we asked questions, we went to Dendy Park to say that the Liberals would support a policy that provided informal reporting for women. At that press conference just coincidentally a woman by the name of Nadine came past and she said, ‘What are you doing? What’s with all the cameras?’. I explained it to her, and she said that she was a rape victim 20-plus years ago, was not supported and did not feel comfortable to come forward and shared how important these laws would be. After that discussion she not only gave her story to us but shared with ABC and everybody else why it was important to be able to have such laws to ensure, when women finally had that opportunity to come forward, they could do it on their terms. That is what informal reporting has always been about, women’s terms—not to do it on police’s, the law’s or the justice system’s terms but to do it on their terms. For many it might not even lead to prosecution, but it is about being able to have a conversation, put the information on record, get the support and then allow that victim to have that opportunity of being able to be heard and to run the process in their way on their terms.

I am very, very pleased. This is a great day. There are times when we do argue and fight, and this is not one of them. This is one for which we are absolutely on a unity ticket, when it comes to these things. We really, absolutely are, despite individuals that may interject in terms of what they might think of me. I can tell you about this stuff from having a young daughter and having seen people who experienced rape and certainly talked to me. Having a young son, we talk about this stuff all the time. We had a conversation on the legislation about stealthing, which quite frankly I did not understand. When Chanel Contos invited me to go onto a Zoom with a number of attorneys, I asked him about it as a young 20-year-old boy, and he explained it all to me. It then gave me the opportunity to contribute and listen to the discussion about what is happening around the state, and that is why this is so important. The figures are alarming: one in three women and one in five men in Australia have been victims of stealthing, but it is not a criminal offence everywhere in Australia—one in three women and one in five men. That has got to change. That has to change.

Despite one’s politics and despite one’s views on this stuff, we need to be on an absolute unity ticket. As the member for Brighton said before, there have been campaigns around ‘no means no’. What Chanel Contos quite rightly said is it is about ‘yes’. It is about giving permission, not having somebody feel that there is peer group pressure about what is going to happen or that they are in a vulnerable, difficult situation at the time and then live a life of fear, uncertainty and regret. Women quite frankly need to be supported, and as I say, there are men that have also experienced that stealthing situation who also should be supported. This is important. It is an important change. It is about education, but it is also about consequences. We need to educate more. I commend Chanel Contos and her crusade to educate, to inform and to change the law—to ensure that we do these things that support everybody, that educate everybody and that make changes not for today or tomorrow but for a lifetime. That is why I support these changes today. It is a big day. It is an important day. It is legislation like this that certainly gets me up every day, because I think in here sometimes we talk about trivial things, but today this is not one of them.

Ms WILLIAMS (Dandenong—Minister for Mental Health, Minister for Treaty and First Peoples) (11:26): Today it is my great pleasure to rise in support of the Justice Legislation Amendment (Sexual Offences and Other Matters) Bill 2022, which as we have heard from a number of speakers now will deliver critical improvements to the way our justice system operates to support victim-survivors of sexual violence. As we have heard from others’ contributions from both sides of the house, sexual violence is an insidious issue. It is still far too prevalent in our community, and moving through the justice system—we have all learned from our constituencies, I think—is still far too traumatic for victim-survivors. At the outset I want to make one point really clear: this bill is not just about the sterile machinations of our legal system, it is about people. It is about people who have been unnecessarily traumatised by something that should never have been able to happen to them in the first place.

I want to get out of the way a bit of negativity to start with, I guess, and that is to reflect on some comments made by the member for Malvern, who was very quick to tell victim-survivors, predominantly women, what they should and should not regard as assault. But here is what I think the member for Malvern needs to remember, and that is that victim-survivors and in actual fact most women know exactly what sexual assault is and how it makes them feel. For too long victims have been silenced by the kind of attitude that was demonstrated by the member for Malvern. It is not good enough in this day and age—it is just not. And the reality is it never was good enough. It was never good enough, which is why we are still talking about the rates of sexual violence being perpetrated in our community that we are today. It is why we still in our constituency offices come across these stories, why we still see that trauma every day and why that trauma is still being lived out in our communities each and every day, often silently. In contrast though, I want to commend the contributions in particular of the member for Brighton and also of the member for Caulfield—people, I know, who spoke very earnestly and genuinely in their commitment on this issue.

One in five women, as we have heard, have experienced sexual violence since the age of 15. We know that for some women those statistics are even worse. If she is Aboriginal, a woman with a disability or from a culturally and linguistically diverse background, those statistics are even more alarming than what I think as a baseline is an alarming statistic. Victim-survivors of sexual violence are sadly a very significant proportion of our community. They are our family members and our friends and they are in this place, and we should never forget that. They have always been out there, and they have always been in this place. Today and every day they have been out there and in this place, and we should never forget that. So thank you to those in this place who have been so respectful in their contributions, because that makes a world of difference when we know we are having these discussions among those who have lived through the very issue that we are talking about. Thank you.

As we have heard, 85 per cent of victims of sexual violence will not report their experiences to police. Half of victims will never report it to anyone. I want to acknowledge each and every victim-survivor of sexual violence in our community—as I have outlined, many who live silently with this trauma every day without us ever knowing, without anybody ever knowing. This reform is wholeheartedly for you. I also want to thank all of those victim-survivors who participated in the consultation on this bill. I know that this advocacy, the sharing of personal trauma, comes at an enormous personal cost. It is not easy to reach out and convey to a virtual stranger something that has been so damaging to you and to share an experience that has fundamentally changed you, especially to a minister or an MP, let alone the public at large, through these processes.

I want to thank those who made that effort and acknowledge that each of those conversations take some time to recover from. We should never be flippant about the courage of sharing one’s story and the personal cost of sharing one’s story. Reliving your own personal trauma to ensure that others never have to experience that trauma is one of the greatest acts of public service that I can imagine and one of the greatest acts of generosity. For anyone watching today—and I know some will be who have been tracking this legislation and advocating for it for a very long time—I know listening to these debates in itself can be traumatic and triggering. I hope that you know support is available, and I hope that you have some pride in the fact that the Victorian Parliament is now seeking to take such an important step forward.

We cannot talk about this bill without talking about the context within which it arises. Eighty-seven per cent of victims of sexual violence experience that violence from someone known to them. Forty-six per cent of women who experience sexual assault do so from an intimate partner. This is rarely an issue perpetrated by a stranger lurking in the shadows. It is so often perpetrated by people we know: our friends, our colleagues, indeed sometimes even our family—people we trust. In these debates we often hear much discussion around justice and rights and freedoms. But women’s rights are human rights, and that is what we are talking about today: the rights to live safely, to bodily autonomy, to respect. Man or woman, any victim, any member of our community, need to know that they have the right to determine what can and cannot be done to them, and consent is a key part of that.

While it is absolutely a gendered issue most of the time, we also in that frame should acknowledge that the leading law and order issue in our state at the moment and the leading contributor to death, disability and illness for women is violence against women. It is the leading cause of death, disability and illness for woman aged between 15 and 45. This kind of violence—often we are talking about it as family violence, but often inherent within that is a fair component of sexual violence—occupies the overwhelming majority of our police time, and from that there is an entire service system that needs to then step in and deal with that trauma as well. I was recently in Phillip Island speaking to an officer there who was telling me that family violence or gendered violence call-outs are about 85 per cent of his work. That is alarming. Sadly it not unusual that that is the case for Victoria Police across our state.

Often within those stories—and I reflect on this as a former Minister for Prevention of Family Violence—the sexual violence elements do not really get much of a mention. The emphasis is on so many other acts of coercion and violence that often the sexual violence that can be inherent within those relationships is overlooked. But it is there a lot of the time, and so it pays to remember that as well. It is obviously why six years ago we held a Royal Commission into Family Violence and it is why we have invested over $3.5 billion to implement every single one of its recommendations. We knew it would not be easy work and we knew it would not be quick, but it had to be done.

One really important outcome of the royal commission is the shift in the conversation that it has led to—the shift in the conversation around a great many things but in particular around gender equality. The royal commission took gender equality and gendered violence out of an academic frame and made it a mainstream conversation, and I think that has been absolutely for the better. It has linked attitudes to outcomes. It has told us that attitudes towards women count for outcomes for women—that those two things are directly linked. That conversation has enabled the Gender Equality Act 2020 and a gender equality commissioner. It has enabled Respectful Relationships and mandatory consent education to be rolled out in every Victorian government school. And now it has enabled a bigger conversation about sexual violence, something that in many respects was slower to emerge. It was still stigmatised. People still found it uncomfortable and difficult to grapple with, but over the last 18 months we have heard loud and clear that the community are ready to have this conversation and they want to have it now. We have heard about wonderful people like Chanel Contos and others who have brought this conversation to our doorsteps and made sure that we are having it in this place, in these corridors, and that, most importantly, we are having it in this chamber, where we can make meaningful changes.

On the back of great personal tragedy, injustice and heartache victim-survivors have brought this issue to us and with great bravery. They showed us that gender inequality is still deeply entrenched in all aspects of our communities—in our homes, our workplaces, our university campuses, our courts and also our parliaments. As many of us marched across the country in recent times we said ‘Enough’. Now, though, most importantly, we are acting. We are making the change that so many have called on us to make. As we know—I have only got a few seconds left, and I am not going to waste them going through the details of the bill—this is an affirmative consent model that, as the member for Brighton said, makes it clear that ‘no means no’ is not enough. This is about affirmative consent, and this will make real and meaningful change for many across our community. I commend the bill to the house.

Dr READ (Brunswick) (11:36): I am pleased to be able to speak on behalf of the Greens on this important bill, and from the outset I would like to acknowledge and thank the many survivors and advocates who have campaigned for change, particularly Saxon Mullins, who was a driving force for the introduction of these laws around Australia through sharing her story on Four Corners. Her bravery in speaking out is inspiring.

The reforms in this bill respond to the Victorian Law Reform Commission’s 2021 report Improving the Justice System Response to Sexual Offences. That in turn followed similar reviews and legislative reforms that had already occurred in New South Wales, Tasmania and the ACT and that are underway in Queensland and WA, so there is some national uniformity on updating and improving the law’s response to sexual violence. Most of us would agree that criminal law continues to fail victim-survivors of sexual violence and that disproportionately affects women and children. One in five women in Australia reports that they have experienced sexual violence. It is estimated that over a quarter of girls may have experienced some form of sexual abuse, and of all sexual offence victims recorded by the Victorian police for the most recent 12-month data available, 86 per cent were women.

These statistics may be sobering, but they are still an understatement of the prevalence of sexual violence in our community. Consider that the Victorian Law Reform Commission noted that about 87 per cent of people who experienced sexual violence do not report it to the police, and part of the reason for the under-reporting is that too many victim-survivors have been completely let down by the justice system. For example, where establishing an offence is focused on whether the accused had a reasonable belief in the other person’s consent, this too often shifts the focus onto the victim-survivor’s behaviours and what they did or did not do to indicate consent. While examining this question may be currently necessary in a legal sense, I completely understand why a victim-survivor of a horrendous crime may feel being questioned about their own actions would simply be too traumatic. On the other hand, the law reform commission found that establishing whether the accused had actually done anything to find out whether the other person consented was rarely considered in sexual offence trials, so there is an obvious inequality here. The Victorian Greens support the shift in this bill to a model of affirmative consent to require a person to take active steps to confirm that they have received consent for sexual activity.

Others today have well summarised how the definition of consent will be extended and applied, so I will not repeat this in my contribution. One aspect that I will focus on, however, is the listing of stealthing as a specific circumstance where a person does not consent. Stealthing defined as ‘the act of tampering, removing or not using a condom where there was a belief a condom would be used’ is a relatively new concept, and until recently there were no data on the frequency of this behaviour. Dr Rosie Latimer during her PhD studies at Melbourne Sexual Health Centre published the first study of this sort in the scientific journal PLOS One four years ago, and I am proud to say I worked on the study with her. More than 2000 women and gay or bisexual men attending the centre over a two-month period completed a questionnaire asking about their experience of stealthing. Four per cent of women and 3 per cent of gay men were attending the clinic on that day as a result of a stealthing episode, but almost a third of women and one in five gay men had experienced it at some time in their past. So even bearing in mind that this survey was conducted in the waiting room of the Melbourne Sexual Health Centre, stealthing is clearly a common practice, and with this legislation it is about to become a crime. Three-quarters of women in this study felt that their partner was intoxicated at the time, raising the importance of alcohol and other drugs in impairing judgement. Also there is the propensity for alcohol to contribute to stealthing via erectile dysfunction, which is associated with increased unprotected sex. For more details on this please read this study in the open-access journal PLOS One. None of these points, however, make it any less important to obtain consent and to communicate about these issues before and if necessary during sex. They do emphasise the need, though, for considerable communication and community education about this change to the law. The Greens are also pleased to see stealthing is explicitly included rather than referred to somehow indirectly.

The bill also amends Victoria’s existing image-based sexual offences—those related to the production, distribution and threat to distribute an intimate image. Like many sexual offences, these disproportionately impact younger people, people with disability, First Nations people and LGBTQI people. We are further pleased that the bill addresses the impact of the offence on the latter group by specifying that intimate images will include an image that depicts the breasts of a transgender or intersex person identifying as female. I would note, however, that as I and my Greens colleagues have heard from Equality Australia and from the Victorian Pride Lobby, the language of ‘transgender or intersex person identifying as female’ is not inclusive. This language was adopted as it is consistent with laws in the ACT, New South Wales, Northern Territory, Queensland and WA. However, not all of these jurisdictions allow people to identify as non-binary or use self-defined gender markers like in Victoria, meaning that these provisions are not a great example for our state to adopt. A more inclusive provision should include ‘all people with breasts as well as the chest area of transgender men and non-binary people’. The Greens will look to amend this language in the upper house.

While the Greens support this bill, we want to acknowledge that this is a challenging area of law reform and there are a number of legitimate concerns from legal experts and others. The Victorian Greens recognise that the law is an imprecise and imperfect instrument. Unfortunately, rarely does it alone influence behavioural change, and rarer still does it ever eliminate a problem. Too frequently it contributes to the creation of new or unforeseen problems. As the Minister for Victim Support noted in her second-reading speech, our goal should ultimately be the eradication of sexual violence. While the reforms in this bill are important, the criminal justice system will not achieve this. This was recognised both by the Victorian Law Reform Commission and Liberty Victoria, whose submission states:

Often the criminal justice system is ill-equipped, even with the best endeavours of legislators, judicial officers and legal practitioners, to provide just outcomes that are fair to complainants and accused persons. Sexual offences cases are often fraught, regularly considering events having occurred a long time ago, in circumstances where there is often limited if any corroborative evidence, and where there is often a clear conflict in the evidence of the complainant and the accused person in circumstances where the fact-finder needs to be satisfied beyond reasonable doubt of the elements of the offence. In part, that is why other avenues such as restorative justice may provide the best outcome for both complainants and accused persons in some cases.

Liberty Victoria has also contacted my office with some concerns about how the changes to sexual offences in this bill will work in practice. They noted that:

It is our view that attempting to use the criminal justice system to drive changes in sexual behaviour is fraught, especially given the potentially punitive penalties for being found to have committed sexual offences.

They have flagged that the amendments may disproportionately affect teenagers and young adults who are in the often messy process of exploring their sexuality and relationships. They have also raised concerns that these amendments risk undermining the presumption of innocence, which is a fundamental principle in our justice system, by placing such a focus on the actions of the accused.

I have also heard from LGBTQI groups that such changes may inadvertently criminalise some of the specific sexual circumstances encountered by these groups where at the same time there is no question of issues with consent. While we support the bill, we do acknowledge that these are legitimate questions that should be raised and discussed when undertaking major criminal law reform, and we think it is appropriate that all MPs work with the Attorney-General in the other place in clarifying specific issues and clauses in the bill.

We also understand that the reforms in this bill are the first stage in the government’s response to the VLRC report and that they have recognised that there is much more to do to address sexual violence and empower victim-survivors. So we look forward to seeing further consultation with victim-survivors, victim-survivor advocates and key stakeholders to ensure there is a full response, because in many ways changing a law is easy compared to the broader work that needs to be done. Unfortunately this bill is just a first step—it does not represent the end of sexual offending and sexual assaults—there will be more reforms needed, and the road to cultural and behavioural change will be a long one. We support this bill, but we further support all of us in politics continuing to work together towards the eradication of sexual violence.

Ms RICHARDS (Cranbourne) (11:46): I am pleased to have the opportunity to rise today to make a contribution on the Justice Legislation Amendment (Sexual Offences and Other Matters) Bill 2022 and recognise that this bill makes changes to the Crimes Act 1958 to introduce a suite of reforms that are important to deliver justice for victim-survivors of sexual violence. Before I continue, I am going to flag with those in the house and those potentially listening at home that there are, as part of these contributions, inevitably mentions of sexual violence, assault, stealthing and family violence. These are really incredibly difficult subject matters, and I implore people to just be cautious about how they listen to the material that is being debated and also pay credit to the victim-survivors and victim-survivors’ family members and know that this legislation, this bill, and our contributions—and I say ‘our contributions’ meaning all of our contributions—do very much have concern with victim-survivors at the heart of the way we speak about important reforms.

This bill is a significant step towards justice and protection for the community against sexual violence. This government’s law reform agenda has put nuance, sensitivity and the reality of sexual violence front and centre, and it shows in this bill. I do think this is probably one of the days when we see the best of us, when contributions are cautious and considered and do very much take account of the pain that so many people have endured as well as our evolution as a community. I reflect on my own evolution, and I think of the evolution of many of us as we understand much more about what was not just complex but what was unacceptable behaviour and what we now know to have been unacceptable behaviour all along. But perhaps many are having to keep our minds open, and I know in my own case, with the young people in my life, the way that they have challenged us, challenged me and challenged many of the people in their lives about some of the long-held preconceptions we have around what is acceptable and what is not. So this legislation and the debate are a credit to, for many of us, the young people who are in our community, take leadership and challenge us all the time, reminding us that we can do better.

I think that the contributions from the Minister for Mental Health, who was the speaker just before me, and the member for Brunswick were really important, but I do want to also highlight the current Minister for Prevention of Family Violence and the important work that she is doing not just in her current portfolio but in the portfolio she has had for a long time in considering how to make sure that our culturally diverse communities are also listened to and empowered to make decisions that are appropriate. That was a really important contribution as well. We heard from the Minister for Energy. The way she spoke about having women at the decision-making table is one of the most powerful reasons for change. We see that in this Parliament all the time. We certainly see it here. Having women in the Parliament, having women at the cabinet table makes a difference. I am going to pay credit just for a moment to the many people who have brought this bill to us. I thank the Attorney-General but also the Minister for Women for the contribution she made earlier and the work that has gone into this; also the Minister for Corrections—I will be a little bit smoother with her title in the future, I promise.

This bill implements an affirmative consent model and ensures the definition of consent is to a free and voluntary agreement. It criminalises the despicable and, frankly, disgusting practice of stealthing. I was interested to hear the contribution from the member for Brunswick. I am appreciative of the opportunity to be able to explore that a little bit more, and I pay credit to his professional experience and the work that he has done in a previous life. It is important to consider some of the research, and I think that that was compelling as well. The bill includes a new interpretive provision to facilitate prosecutions for historical sexual offending and introduces a range of reforms to address jury directions, questioning of complainants and disclosure and pre-trial protections for complainants in sexual offence trials. Importantly, this bill will also assist the courts to address backlogs by extending COVID-19-related measures to open courts and court security.

Of course our government held a Royal Commission into Family Violence and has adopted every recommendation. It is just one of the most extraordinary and progressive decisions. I know jurisdictions around the country and around the world have looked to the way that Victoria has responded to what we know to be the greatest law and order challenge of our time. This year’s budget committed $46.9 million to support victims of sexual violence and harm.

I have spoken often about the role my mother played, who is 90 now and a bit crook but still continuing to learn a lot about the world—to learn the ukulele in fact. She was one of the really early family violence workers and was at the coalface for the City of Monash over many years as I was growing up. Again, she was challenging us and our understanding of what family violence means and what sexual violence means—a woman well ahead of her time. I do pay credit to the many women who have had to take us through our understandings and challenge us. I really cannot emphasise enough the importance of the young people in our lives and in my life and some of the really difficult conversations I have had and have had to be party to, where we have discussed what is normalised and what behaviour is acceptable. This legislation is something that we can leave as a really important legacy to our future generations, a legacy where we do recognise change is really important.

The bill is a recognition that there is no place for sexual violence of any kind in Victoria—again, that understanding from the Minister for Mental Health about what family violence is. When I was growing up there was this idea of stranger danger, of a person that we did not know being the one that was most likely to be a perpetrator, or there was this dramatic event—that sort of understanding, like what we would see in a movie or read about in some sort of salacious report. But actually it is so much more important—so much more implicit than that, so much more dangerous and so much more prevalent. The data is extraordinary. One in 23 rape cases that are reported result in conviction. Sexual violence continues to be prevalent. It is unacceptable. It is an imposition on our safety, and as we heard before, it is an imposition on our health and it is an imposition on women’s futures because it is most likely women and children who are at risk.

This bill is the beginning of a long journey, and it does acquit several critical Victorian Law Reform Commission recommendations. I can see the work that the Attorney, the minister’s office and departments have put into this response is something that we can be very proud of, because it is looking at how we can recognise the reality that family violence and intimidation manifest in many forms and can involve psychological abuse, economic or financial abuse, reputational harm, harm to families and harm to community relationships.

It touches the lives of too many people in the community that I represent, and I do pay credit to Relationships Australia, who I know have done a power of work in Cranbourne, and also to the Orange Door in Cranbourne. Also I would like to recognise the Sikh Australian Support for Family Violence group. The SASFV defines itself with the goal of creating healthier, happier families. Jasbir Singh Suropada is somebody well known to so many in our community, and he is doing really important work that has a good, sound foundation in science, in fact and in best practice. I would like to thank not just those victim-survivors but the stakeholders. We have moved on so much further than being able to refer to somebody as a sister or a daughter; we actually are people. We do not need to be referred to by our relationships to men. We are people, and we have the right to be safe.

Ms WARD (Eltham) (11:56): It is terrific to follow on from the member for Cranbourne and her great contribution, and she is absolutely right: women do deserve to be seen as their own entities, not in terms of their relationships with others. It is true that those with power rarely understand what it is like to be without power. Those who have grown up unconscious of power vested to them solely through the chance of their gender do find it difficult to understand powerlessness. I would urge those opposite to understand what powerlessness looks and feels like.

I am going to talk about an experience I had as a young teenager that I know will be reflected in probably any woman in this place, sadly. At 13 I am at the MCG and I am queuing up to get a hot bucket of chips. There is a bloke behind me, and he decides to rub his groin against my backside. I move. He continues. He persists. I am stuck in a crowd of people. I am 13 years old. I have no voice. I do not know how to say stop. I do not know how to say I do not want this. I do not know how to alert people around me to what I am experiencing. I feel powerlessness. I feel shame. I feel embarrassment. It is an unpleasant experience. We are not taught as young girls how to articulate our feelings ourselves. We are not taught power as young girls. We are not taught assertiveness. We are taught obedience and we are taught to put the feelings, the rights and the needs of others ahead of ourselves. It takes years for women to be able to find our voice, and many women never find that voice, because they are never given that opportunity to empower themselves or feel empowered by people around them. The experience I mentioned was not my first sexual assault and it was not my last, and I know that this is the same as pretty much every woman in this place. We will have experienced a form of sexual assault throughout our lives through men exploiting their own sense of power and their knowledge of women’s powerlessness.

I want to go to the member for Malvern and the example that he gave of a partner not knowing whether to kiss a sleeping partner when they woke up the next morning, which I said to him was ridiculous and he continued to go with. In the example given when one person is asleep, a person cannot give consent when they are asleep. This is current law. We are not changing that. It is a ridiculous example, and you know what it is? It is what we call gaslighting. It is when we say, ‘No, no, no. You’re not right. This isn’t what you think. No, no, no. That’s not right’. Stop gaslighting women. Stop telling women that their experiences are not right. The member for Malvern took on board my comment ‘If you don’t know, don’t do’. Well, that is it. This is it in a nutshell: if you do not know, do not do. If you are in a relationship with someone where you think they are going to go to a police officer and accuse you of assault because you have kissed them while they were asleep, maybe it is a relationship you should not be in. Maybe that is not a relationship of trust. I would ask those opposite to actually be more guided. I take on board the comments of the member opposite around the bar association. Let us talk about blokes talking about the rights of other blokes. We are talking about the rights of women to be safe.

I will come back to this example, but I want to talk about the bar association. Let me talk about recent commentary by one of our judges in this state. Let us talk about ‘Intoxication is not an excuse for the purposes of the tribunal’ and that the victim ‘put herself in that position’ and that ‘There’s an old adage that you can’t profit from your own malfeasance’. This judge suggested that when this victim called a sexual assault crisis line the next day she had ‘buyer’s remorse’. A member of our judiciary has these views. So if you want to talk to me about the bar association’s views, I am going to say: ask the women who are the victims. Ask them their views. Ask them how they feel. Ask them what happens to them day after day after day. Consent needs to be clear. If you do not know that consent is given, stop. If you have got any doubt, stop.

I will go back to the member for Malvern’s example. In this hypothetical person B—the person who has been kissed while asleep—needs to make a complaint about person A’s conduct. Examples such as the one given are rarely raised as complaints, and this is why it has not been an issue. Disputes about consent and sleep most often arise when the complainant wakes up thinking that the person penetrating them is their partner when it is someone else and the accused says they thought the complainant had already woken up and was consenting. Often in these cases the alleged act involves penetration rather than sexual touching or even in fact kissing.

Can we just not rely on these gaslighting examples to undermine the need for women to be safe, because women do need to be safe and it is clear that they are not. On both sides of this chamber we have had conversations around the fact that women remain unsafe in our communities. Here in this state, here in this country and around the world there are still men who are abusing their positions of power and taking custody of women’s bodies in any way they see fit. We know this is wrong, we accept this is wrong. It is terrific work that has been done by this government and the ministers responsible and their staff and the department—the extensive consultation that they have done to work through how we can make our laws clearer and how we can give victims a pathway to be heard.

I will go back to the example I gave of me at the MCG. How under the current law could I have shown that I did not give consent when I did not say anything? When I moved away, the only person who would have known I was moving was the perpetrator. How do I prove that I did not give consent? There is no way under the current laws that I could do this. We have to create a structure that makes sure that women’s voices can be heard, can be believed, and that people—perpetrators—are held accountable for the crimes that they commit.

I know that those in this room who talk to young people know that they have had enough. We know that young women have said ‘Stop’. We know that they are standing up to assaults that are happening on our university campuses. We know that they are standing up to the assaults that have happened in Parliament House in Canberra. We know that they are standing up to assaults that happen at work, that happen on trains, that happen on trams, that happen in bars—that happen everywhere. They are saying, ‘Enough’. They are saying, ‘Give us the tools, give us the power to hold people accountable who are perpetrators of sexual violence against us’. That is what this government is doing. We are absolutely putting in place the tools that will help us to hold these people to account—and if you do not like it, if you do not agree with the law, do not do it. Do not do it. Make sure that you know that consent is given. Do not come up with ridiculous reasons as to why consent is grey. We are trying to take out the grey. We are trying to make it really clear cut. You need to be in a relationship or a position where both parties know what is going on and both parties know that consent is given. It is as clear as that.

For those opposite to go down this path of ‘Oh, you are only making things worse’—we are not. We are not, because things are actually bad now. Things are bad now and they need to be improved, and this government has stepped up and done the work, done the consultation, to get us to this point where we can make things better, where we can make our laws stronger and where we can protect the rights of women and in fact everybody in this community.

I am glad that those opposite have agreed with us on the position of stealthing because it is wrong. It is absolutely wrong. It is completely a form of assault, and it needs to be illegal because it is wrong. The unintended consequences—or even sometimes the intended consequences—of what can happen to women and indeed male partners in these circumstances are quite profound. So I congratulate the government for this work. I congratulate the ministers involved because it is terrific legislation that deserves to be supported, and I plead with those opposite to stop gaslighting.

Ms HALL (Footscray) (12:06): I am very pleased and proud to make a contribution to this bill, particularly following my friend the member for Eltham, who I think perfectly articulated the issues of power and powerlessness and gaslighting that diminish the experiences of victims. I am going to begin my contribution by noting the context of my contribution. My contribution to this debate and to these important reforms comes from my perspective—my generation, my gender, my understanding of the impact these reforms will have. So if I speak predominantly about the impact on women—of course I note from the outset that these reforms will protect all genders, including gender-diverse Victorians—it is simply because I identify as a woman, and my understanding of the issues and my response is informed by that. In saying this, we know that sexual assault is predominantly a gendered crime and that women are overwhelmingly the victims and men are overwhelmingly the perpetrators. These reforms are fundamentally about driving cultural change and shifting the impact and legal burdens from victims to create clarity and to acknowledge that for too long consent has been an issue that has been subject to gaslighting and issues around gendered power in our community.

When I reflect on my teenage and university years, I think that culturally we have come a long way. The clarion call for my generation was ‘No means no’. Now we are saying ‘Only yes means yes’. My generation was the first to experience the scary emergence of date rape drugs and the horrifying entitlement that came with that. I recently watched a documentary on Netflix about the Woodstock ’99 music festival. I was absolutely shocked to be reminded of the victim blaming that framed issues around sex and consent and the validation of sexual assaults that took place, often by older men who influenced younger generations of men to say that if a woman was dressed in a particular way or had had too much to drink or was impacted by drugs that somehow she was to blame for the assaults that occurred.

The Me Too movement exposed the epidemic proportion of sexual assaults that have gone undealt with because the legal process is inherently so challenging to victim-survivors. Now is the time that in law we shift from ‘no means no’ to ‘yes and only yes means yes’. I am particularly proud as the Parliamentary Secretary for Youth of the current wave of feminists who have helped to shift the focus squarely to the cultural problems we have with consent in Australia. I was proud to join my Labor colleagues in last year’s March 4 Justice where collectively women and their allies said enough was enough when it came to sexual violence in Australia and sexual violence being tolerated and swept under the carpet. Sexual violence continues to be an unacceptably prevalent social, criminal and human rights issue.

These reforms will shift scrutiny from victim-survivors onto their perpetrators and make it clear that there is no place for this behaviour in Victoria. They include amendments that will adopt an affirmative consent model and provide better protections for victim-survivors of sexual offences. Conviction rates for sexual offences remain unacceptably low. Only one in 23 rape cases that are reported result in a conviction, plus we know that under-reporting is a serious problem because many victims would rightfully think, ‘Why would I put myself through this horrible ordeal?’. Certainly the anecdotal experience is that others who have spoken to me about assault have made decisions not to pursue a retraumatising legal avenue.

This bill makes a number of changes to the Crimes Act 1958 and other acts. Of course, and we have spoken about this at length, it implements an affirmative consent model, including amending the definition of consent to be ‘free and voluntary agreement’, something that the member for Malvern delved into in a particularly unfortunate way, as the member for Eltham has spoken about. It makes it clear that stealthing—condom non-use or tampering—is a crime. It amends image-based sexual offences to better recognise the seriousness and broaden their application to gender-diverse victims. It includes a new interpretive provision to facilitate prosecutions for historical sexual offending. It introduces new jury directions to address common misconceptions about sexual violence and proof beyond reasonable doubt. It requires respectful questioning of complainants in sexual offence trials, strengthens pre-trial cross-examination protections for complainants, empowers complainants to participate in applications for disclosure of their confidential communications and protects health information in sexual offence cases.

We have already seen detractors publicly attacking and trivialising this bill. They have claimed that people will go to jail for kissing their partner, that it will kill romance, that teenagers will be inhibited from discovering their sexuality or that the bill will end the presumption of innocence. This is creating unnecessary panic, and some of the comments and articles actually reflect the old ways of thinking that we need to change—that women are demanding need to change. However, many people, and especially the younger generation, have made it clear that they will not stand for this anymore and that archaic attitudes and victim blaming are done. We have listened to them, and we are driving these reforms for them.

Basing a lack of consent on the amount of resistance offered rather than a lack of positive communication is outdated and has long been replaced by communicative standards in other Victorian legislation. This bill will also make clear that a person does not consent just because of previous sexual behaviour. New objectives will reinforce that consent cannot be assumed and it must be communicated. I had the great misfortune of being in the chamber when the member for Lowan was making a contribution. She blamed the government for sexual assaults that occurred during the pandemic. What a disgraceful thing to do, to blame anyone other than a perpetrator for a sexual offence. We have had enough of excuses for perpetrators. We have had enough of victim blaming. We have had enough of blaming a woman for what she was wearing. We have had enough of hearing about how much she had had to drink. We have had enough of hearing about the choices she might have made in the past. It is offensive to hear that these important reforms are being diminished and trivialised by some. It is time for a cultural shift now.

I am very proud to support this bill, and I think the contributions today show that as a government across all realms of our culture in Victoria we want to move forward and make change. I am really proud to be part of a government that has 50 per cent women sitting on these benches and more than 50 per cent women sitting around the cabinet table. What does that mean in reality? Here, on actually a historic day, I am so proud that we have moved on beyond the kind of culture I grew up in, where women were routinely blamed. Women now have a government that is making changes that will benefit generations of women to come. I commend this bill to the house.

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: Before I call the next speaker, can I take this opportunity to welcome to the house Senior Venerable Thich Phước Tấn from the Quang Minh Temple. Thank you for being here.

Ms ADDISON (Wendouree) (12:16): I too am very proud to rise to speak in support of the Justice Legislation Amendment (Sexual Offences and Other Matters) Bill 2022, and I agree with the member for Footscray that this is a historic day for our Parliament. I am honoured to have the opportunity to speak on this, and I am honoured to follow so many incredible women who I admire so much. I want to thank the Minister for Women for leading our speakers today. I really welcomed her explanation of the changes to the definition of ‘consent’, and I really admire her commitment to making lasting change with regard to gender violence as the former Minister for Victim Support. I really want that to be noted, because I think it is so important. And then to follow on as well from the Minister for Energy, the Minister for Prevention of Family Violence, the Minister for Mental Health, the former Minister for Prevention of Family Violence, the member for Cranbourne, the member for Eltham and the member for Footscray—this is what happens when you elect strong, determined women to government. Today marks 100 days until the election, and I hope that we see more women elected to this place, not only our excellent Labor women candidates but women from across the political spectrum. Women’s voices matter, and women’s representation is vital to ensuring women’s experiences are heard. This cannot be underestimated.

This bill contains critically important amendments which will improve sexual offence laws, better support victim-survivors and shift scrutiny onto the perpetrators, where it actually belongs. I want to thank the Attorney-General, her ministerial office and the Department of Justice and Community Safety for the work they have done to bring this bill to the house. I wish to recognise the considerable effort that has gone into drafting this legislation and thank them for their work; it is appreciated.

This is significant legislation, important legislation and legislation that I strongly support. Extensive stakeholder consultation is an important part of drafting any bill, but I believe this is especially the case for this important bill. The reforms being considered in the chamber today are the result of consulting with broad-ranging stakeholders, including the courts, specialist services, policy and advocacy bodies and many, many more in our community. The reforms have also been informed by an extensive investigation by the Victorian Law Reform Commission in addition to other relevant research, and the reforms are fundamentally shaped by the lived experience of victim-survivors. I am incredibly thankful to them for their contributions. I too welcomed the opportunity to hear from the very brave and the very courageous Chanel Contos with the Labor women’s caucus, and I would really like to thank the Minister for Corrections for organising that meeting because it was incredibly powerful and very, very worthwhile.

This bill implements a number of key legislative recommendations from Improving the Justice System Response to Sexual Offences, the 2021 report of the Victorian Law Reform Commission. It additionally improves criminal procedure laws relating to the operation of courts and the experience of victim-survivors within the justice system. Firstly and crucially, it considers and amends the definition of consent within our laws. Let me be clear, consent means free and voluntary agreement. This agreement must not be assumed, and as such this bill introduces the affirmative model of consent which has been discussed, making it clear that active steps must be taken to ascertain consent before engaging in a sexual act. Such steps are inherently contextual and could be fulfilled verbally or nonverbally and a reasonable amount of time before an act, which could in most cases be immediately prior. The core principle here is that consent must be communicated. It must be affirmed not assumed. An affirmative model of consent will mitigate circumstances under existing law whereby prosecutions can be impeded on the grounds of reasonable belief that the complainant was consenting. Consent needs to be confirmed. It cannot be simply assumed. Reasonable belief should require saying something or doing something. This is not a novel concept, and it is vital that it is reflected in our laws.

The bill also presents several circumstances under which consent is not present. These amendments, with additions to existing circumstances within the Crimes Act 1958, are non-exhaustive but play a crucial role in reinforcing what consent is and what consent is not, because there is not consent when submission occurs as a result of force or harm or fear of force or harm, because there is not consent when it occurs as a result of coercion or intimidation, because there is not consent when a person is overborne by the abuse of a relationship of authority or trust, because there is not consent when the agreement comes from false or misleading representation about payment and because there is not consent when there is an understanding that a condom will be used but it is instead intentionally tampered with, removed or not used at all.

All of these circumstances are significant. However, I want to address the last in particular. The bill makes it clear that stealthing is a crime. If there is an agreement explicit or implicit about the use of a condom, then consent is contingent upon that. Stealthing is reprehensible, and it is already a crime. It poses a significant health risk through the potential for pregnancy or the transmission of infection, but it also violates a person’s autonomy over their own body and their choices. The seriousness of this offence deserves clear recognition in our laws, and this bill does this by making it explicit that the conduct can be prosecuted as rape or sexual assault.

Additionally, this bill makes critical amendments which target image-based sexual offences. Most will be moved into the Crimes Act in order to elevate them from summary to indictable offences, reflecting the seriousness of image-based sexual offences. This conduct involves taking and distributing or threatening to distribute intimate images without consent. It is a growing problem that is under-reported to police, yet abuse can cause significant harm. This bill will improve related laws in several additional ways, including amending the definition of an intimate image to better protect people of diverse genders, including digitally altered images as well as images taken with knowledge but without consent, enabling court-issued disposal orders for intimate images, increasing maximum penalties to three years imprisonment and extending protections offered to complainants such as provisions to suppress their identity.

Indeed, addressing the experiences of victim-survivors throughout the justice system is another critical aspect of this bill. Pre-trial cross-examination protections will be strengthened, magistrates will be required to make additional considerations before granting leave for cross-examination of victims of sexual or family violence and, if leave is still granted, they must provide their reasoning. Ground rule hearings will be mandated prior to questioning all complainants in sexual offence matters, so that the court can consider how to fairly and effectively meet the needs of the witness.

Protections for the confidential communications of victim-survivors will be strengthened, including by expanding these to cover health information and ensuring that their concerns are considered in applications for sensitive records. Additionally, improved jury directions will be required in sexual offence trials to address common misconceptions and these directions encouraged to be made as early as possible, while trial judges will also be required to explain the meaning of ‘proof beyond reasonable doubt’ in criminal trials.

This is a comprehensive and crucial bill. It contains further reforms around removing outdated language from legislation, including references to ‘chastity’, a term from the 13th century, and clarifies timing-related concerns in the prosecution of past offences. It will also extend provisions that combat court backlogs, supporting the use of remote access and digital technologies in effective justice.

In closing I wish to thank the women’s health organisations across our state but particularly in my community of Ballarat. I wish to thank Ballarat Centre Against Sexual Assault and Women’s Health Grampians for the important work they do within my community. These stronger laws will make Victoria better and fairer, not only for women and girls but for all Victorians. I welcome the introduction of the Justice Legislation Amendment (Sexual Offences and Other Matters) Bill 2022 and commend the bill to house.

Mr FOWLES (Burwood) (12:26): It is common practice in this place for people to say ‘It gives me pleasure to speak on bill X or bill Y’. I do not think anyone could really purport to genuinely take pleasure in having to address some of these matters, because the crimes we are seeking to legislate in relation to today are so heinous, so confronting, so enormously upsetting, that even speaking about them certainly fills me with some dread. I want to thank the member for Wendouree for her passionate contribution. I know these are really difficult matters to address in a public forum. I know that the subject matter of this bill is enormously confronting. Nonetheless we are tasked as legislators in this place to address the full gamut of human behaviour, no matter how bad it might be.

I want to spend a bit of time in my contribution today on one particular aspect of this bill which has not been particularly well traversed by other speakers. I offer absolutely no criticism of that. I merely say that it has not been the focus necessarily of some of the contributions. It goes to the new section we proposed to introduce: ‘36AA Circumstances in which a person does not consent’. The bill provides that:

Circumstances in which a person does not consent to an act include, but are not limited to, the following—

It lists a range of things, but I want to draw the house’s attention particularly to subclause (m), which says:

… the act occurs in the provision of commercial sexual services and the person engages in the act because of a false or misleading representation that the person will be paid …

Now, this government, under the leadership of the Minister for Education, who is at the table, has done extraordinary work in protecting sex workers because we agree that sex work is real work and we think sex workers ought to have safe workplaces as well. That very, very important work has been widely welcomed by those people employed in the sex work industry. I had the pleasure recently of meeting with an advocate from Sex Work Law Reform Victoria and spent a little bit of time discussing with him some of the challenges that professional sex workers face in Victoria and indeed perhaps right across the nation. He had a recent and difficult experience in debating the Sex Work Decriminalisation Bill 2021. I accept that that is not the bill before the chamber, but it is in fact on a related topic. He gave a submission to the Boroondara council about it and was drowned out by anti sex worker voices, including my prospective opponent in Ringwood, Cynthia Watson. That was a pretty unedifying display of sitting councillors seeking to tear down the person delivering the argument, not tear down the argument itself. Their stance on this very important legislation was shameful because it just did not accept any of the realities of sex work and did not accept what we know to be the reality—that through decriminalisation we have made sex work and sex workers safer.

Under this bill, as I have outlined, we criminalise false or misleading representations about payment for commercial sexual services because that is a condition precedent for consent if you are a sex worker—quite obviously it is. We replace what was the lesser offence of procuring a sexual act by fraud. We elevate it so that in some situations the conduct of asserting that you will pay for a sexual service and then not in fact making that payment could be considered rape or sexual assault. My discussion with this advocate, Matthew, was enlightening, because he said it is frequently reported by people who work as private escort type workers. They are not typically in a formal setting like a brothel or an establishment-type setting. They tend to work privately. They are call-out workers, if you like; they provide those services at different locations. He reported a significant pattern of behaviour whereby people ring their banks post transaction and seek to have the transaction nullified by dishonestly asserting to the bank that it has been made fraudulently. The behaviour of banks routinely on these matters is to automatically side with the procurer of those services, not the provider of those services. There is an operating presumption inside banking that in fact people providing sex work services are the ones to be disbelieved and their clients are to always be believed. It actually extends, terrifyingly, to even the provision of other banking services. I will have some more to say about this another day perhaps, but I will flag for the benefit of the chamber that there is some reprehensible conduct going on inside the financial services industry in Australia which means that people who are full-time sex workers or whose chosen profession is that of sex work cannot get home loans at particular banks and cannot even, astonishingly, open savings accounts with particular financial institutions. As I say, I will have more to say about that in future.

It astonishes me that there is still this stigmatisation of sex workers by the Boroondara council, by my prospective opponent in Ringwood and by others, which seeks to devalue them and devalue their work and provides this operating assumption that what they are doing is in some way immoral or unethical or allows people to validly assume that they are somehow dishonest in what they are going about doing. Nothing in fact could be further from the truth. It is an outrage that people are engaging in this sort of conduct to steal from sex workers, and it is an entirely appropriate response by the government that we are expanding the definition of when consent is not given to include false or misleading representations about payment for commercial sexual services. It is the case that most sex workers do not work on the street or in brothels—they engage in that private escort work—and that non-payment of service fees is an ongoing problem. That is not just an issue for female sex workers; it is an issue for male sex workers as well. By criminalising that conduct we take, once again, a very important step to making the workplaces of sex workers safe workplaces because sex work is real work and sex workers ought to have the benefit of the protection under law that other workers in other industries have as well. On this side of the chamber we do not moralise, we do not seek to pass judgement on those career choices. Others may, but we say that if you are a worker and you are being paid for your work, you ought to be able to do that work in a safe way.

I have spent perhaps a little bit more time on that matter than I intended, but I did want to just quickly go to a couple of other matters in this bill. One that has been the topic of discussion in this chamber today is what is known in common parlance as stealthing, namely the removal of a condom during sexual intercourse or purporting that a condom is there when in fact it is not. This is a form of sexual assault that is insidious and under-reported because it comes under the veil of consent, namely that the sex act itself is consented to. It is important to criminalise this conduct because it radically changes the relationship between the two people who are engaging in that act. Whilst the act prima facie might be consented to, it is consented to quite necessarily on a precondition, in many cases, that a prophylactic be worn. This bill seeks to eliminate this egregious behaviour that sees people seeking to take advantage of that conditional consent and distort it for their own purposes into broader consent. I commend this bill to the house.

Ms CONNOLLY (Tarneit) (12:36): I too rise to speak on the Justice Legislation Amendment (Sexual Offences and Other Matters) Bill 2022. This bill certainly does deliver on our government’s commitment last year to introducing affirmative consent laws, in line with the Victorian Law Reform Commission’s report Improving the Justice System Response to Sexual Offences. The last year has shown us just how much more work we have to do in order to combat sexual violence in this country. Survivors like Grace Tame, Brittany Higgins and Saxon Mullins telling their stories has helped create what I think is a very powerful momentum for change. Indeed 2021 could be said to be the year that Australia had its Me Too movement. In this space we have made some really great progress in protecting survivors of sexual violence. In 2019 we moved to protect the victims of institutional child sex abuse by removing the protection of the confessional seal. In 2020 we sought to protect the privacy of victims of sexual assault by prohibiting the publishing of material that identifies them as a victim of sexual assault. And, yes, we rectified issues in the bill and empowered those survivors to go ahead and tell their stories themselves or have them told with their consent without court permission. It is important to get the balance right, but more importantly there is still so much more work to do.

Listening to some of the stories and experiences that have been shared here in this chamber has really made me reflect on my past when growing up. I remember there was clear advice—and it is not advice that we will be giving to our 11-year-old daughter—that came from my father, who thought he was trying to protect his two daughters. The advice in our family was: if you never intend to go ahead and have sex with a partner that you go home with, you should never go home with them in the first place. And that was drilled into us as young girls. I understand Dad was thinking he was doing the right thing, but that was the only advice—the only advice—we were ever given when it came to interactions with partners and men and being alone with them in a room or going home with them.

I think about the advice that I hope to give to my daughter. She recently had the experience as an 11-year-old of having words spoken to her at primary school by a young boy, who probably had no idea what he was saying. I will not repeat it here in the house as it is highly inappropriate, but that coming out of the mouth of an 11- or 12-year-old—as he continues to get older it can only be considered as sexual violence or sexual violence language spoken to young girls. Now, my daughter, Emily, was very, very frustrated when this was said to her. It was really highly offensive language. She did not really know what it meant. She was so frustrated she was crying. I said to her, ‘Are your feelings hurt?’, and she said, ‘No, they’re not hurt. It’s the injustice that he gets to say that and he gets to get away with it, and we all know it’s wrong’. I told her to go and talk to the school. Her immediate reaction was that the school would not do anything—he does this kind of thing all the time. This is a really young kid in year 6. He does this all the time. They never do anything about it. My husband’s reaction was to brush it off with, ‘Oh, you know, things are said; you just have to brush it off’. I sort of reflected on that, because my daughter, 11 years old, was saying, ‘But that doesn’t seem right, that I have to brush it off and he’s allowed to say that’.

We have since called the school, and I was pretty proud of my daughter. She went up to the principal and repeated the exact language that this kid had said to her, and I am hoping that the school will in fact take some action or explain to that young man that that sort of language is no longer appropriate and that continuing to say things like that can only be deemed as some kind of sexual violence or sexual violence language towards women. But what shocked me is that that happens at such an early age, and the reaction of someone like me, whose dad thought he was doing the right thing in saying, ‘If you don’t intend to sleep with a guy, don’t go home with him, because as soon as you go home with him you’ve actually given him consent’—which is so wrong. The whole thing about thinking that he was giving us the right advice on that was so wrong. But having grown up in that kind of environment and then with my daughter coming to me and saying, ‘Well, why isn’t anything done about this? Why isn’t the school taking action or why aren’t any parents taking action?’, I thought, ‘You know what? That is right’.

This bill is about taking the right action. For far too long we have heard survivors of sexual violence and rape telling us that things need to change, and it is really a good thing to see us taking another step in the right direction with legislative reform. This legislative reform is going to strengthen our sexual assault laws, and it is going to give Victorians greater control over their own sexual experiences.

It seems more than ever that this right is under threat, with the Supreme Court in United States overturning Roe v. Wade, stripping women right across the United States of a protected right to abortion access. In some of these states we are seeing attempts to ban the use of contraceptives and birth control pills; worse, they are even talking about banning pregnant women from divorcing and leaving their state. This is really quite extreme language. I have an 11-year-old girl who really does hear a lot of the news and a lot of the discussion that is across the media because it is constantly on in my household. She is hearing this and has even asked me why we are going back to the olden days when women were not allowed to access an abortion and died at home trying to do it themselves. It is really difficult to have those conversations with girls like Emily at that age. But today I can go home to her and say we did something really good in this place to change things for women right across this state.

The bill we are debating today is all about protecting Victorians—men and women—in sexual encounters. Affirmative consent is all about sexual partners having a very clear and very explicit understanding that they both want to engage in sexual conduct. I remember catching a bit of, I think it was, Q&A or Insight, and it was just a fleeting moment where a young schoolboy, who I thought would be old enough to know what consent was, asked, ‘What is consent? How can it be given?’. I was quite shocked at that because I thought it would be pretty obvious. I feel it is pretty obvious for a woman what that is, but in hearing the young man—my 9-year-old son will very soon grow up to be the age of that school student—I was quite shocked to hear that they needed to hear that explicit explanation of what consent is. I feel this bill is helping to do that.

We all know sexual offences in the Crimes Act 1958 all require proof of the element of consent and that an act was done without consent. There is a whole section of the act that contains a non-exhaustive list of instances where consent is not given, and this includes instances such as a person being affected by alcohol or by not understanding the sexual nature of the conduct. I grew up in an era where I think Rohypnol was being added to drinks to knock out young women—young university students like myself—to essentially rape them without them ever knowing or ever being able to raise it or identify the perpetrator.

In the time that I have got left—and I know I have talked a little bit about what is happening at home and the conversations we are having at home—I do want to say that I am really proud that this bill is coming through the house. I am very proud that all sides of this chamber will be supporting it. It is a very important step forward. It is a very important step forward for survivors of sexual violence, and it is a very important step forward in going ahead and prosecuting perpetrators of sexual violence and of rape. I commend the bill to the house.

Ms COUZENS (Geelong) (12:46): I am very pleased to rise to contribute to the Justice Legislation Amendment (Sexual Offences and Other Matters) Bill 2022. We have heard some fantastic contributions from our side of the house today, and it makes me very proud to listen to government members talk about this really important bill. I do want to thank all the ministers that have been involved in making sure that this has come to this place. The amount of work that has gone into this is fantastic. I think we have already heard—and I am going to say it again—that the government having so many women sitting on this side really does make a difference. I am very proud to be part of a government that listens to women but has so many women putting their thoughts forward as well.

We are implementing critical improvements to the way in which justice is delivered for victim-survivors of sexual violence. Sexual violence continues to be an unacceptably prevalent social, criminal and human rights issue. The reforms will shift scrutiny from victim-survivors on to their perpetrators and make it clear there is no way for this behaviour in Victoria. They include amendments that will adopt an affirmative consent model and provide better protections for victim-survivors of sexual offences.

In my electorate I know there is very strong interest. Women’s groups and different women who have contacted me over the period that I have been the local member have been asking about this bill and what is happening with it. Many of those women have been victims of sexual assault and have been advocating very strongly for change. The March 4 Justice rallies really brought home the amount of support there is for this issue amongst not just women and girls but the general community and how important it is. Obviously there were some very high profile situations with women that stepped forward—very bravely stepped forward—and told their stories, but we know there are thousands of other women who have not brought their stories forward publicly, who are very much reliant on government to introduce legislation like this. It obviously is too late for them, but it will be in place for women and girls in the future. So this is a really important bill for those in my community.

As I said, a lot of women have come to me and spoken about their experiences. We know that so many women have experienced sexual assault. For probably every third or fourth woman I speak to, their issues are around sexual assault, and often they have not reported that because they see what happens to other women. They see what magistrates say: they had had too much alcohol or they were wearing provocative clothing—ridiculous comments that actually make women feel like they have not got any hope of pursuing a court case through going to the police, having their story heard and having their experiences acknowledged. Yes, that often happens with the police who are involved, but then women hear about things that happen in the court and do not feel confident. I know I have heard lots of stories from the Sexual Assault and Family Violence Centre in Geelong, who do an incredible job. They provide wraparound support for women that have been sexually assaulted and do an enormous amount of work with those women. They are saying too that a lot of those women do not pursue any legal recourse for fear of what is going to happen. The perpetrator can be quite threatening to them and other family members can be quite threatening to them, but also having to stand up in court is very difficult for a lot of those women. We have made a lot of reforms in that space, but we still have a long way to go to give women some confidence that they can pursue these issues.

I do really want to acknowledge and thank the many victim-survivors who have contributed to where we are today by telling their stories and their experiences. I understand the difficulty in doing that, but the fact that they have stepped up and provided that evidence, I suppose, of what it means to them and how they have been impacted is just so important. To have a government that listens and then responds in putting this legislation, this bill, together is really, really important. We need to continue down this track, and I know that there is a lot more to be done.

This bill makes a number of changes to the Crimes Act 1958 and other acts. It implements an affirmative consent model, including by amending the definition of ‘consent’ to be a free and voluntary agreement. It clarifies circumstances in which consent cannot be given and makes clear that a person cannot have a reasonable belief in consent if they do not say or do anything to find out if there is consent. It makes clear that stealthing, condom misuse or tampering, is a crime. It amends image-based sexual offences to better recognise their seriousness and broaden the application to gender-diverse victims. It includes a new interpretive provision to facilitate prosecutions of historical sexual offending. It introduces new jury directions to address common misconceptions about sexual violence and about proof beyond reasonable doubt. It requires respectful questioning of complainants in sexual offence trials, strengthens pre-trial cross-examination protections for complainants, empowers complainants to participate in applications for disclosure of their confidential communications and protects health information in sexual offences.

In Victoria there is no place for sexual violence, and we do need to drive that cultural change. I think this is a great start to helping women and girls feel more confident that as a government we are taking action to deal with this important issue. We know sexual violence continues to be prevalent, and this is an unacceptable imposition on our community safety, particularly the safety of women. Sexual violence can cause long-term serious harm to victim-survivors, and we know that. I mentioned earlier having spoken to many, many women about their experiences, and the impact on them and their lives is so enormous. It affects their whole lives, for the rest of their lives. For many women it does not allow them to live what I suppose we would consider a life of being able to go to work and have a social life. Many of the women I speak to, particularly older women, say that it has just destroyed them and made their lives unbearable really. So we will be able to go back to those women and tell them that this government cares about what is going on, that it is very concerned about the issues that they have raised and that it will continue to work on this really important legal aspect of what it means for women when they are sexually assaulted and have to go through the processes with the police and through the court system.

We need to really push that cultural change, because cultural change is what will help as we move forward, where young children learn respectful behaviours and they learn what is acceptable and what is not. That is a really important issue in our communities, that we are sending the right messages to young children, particularly young boys, as they grow up and that women do have the right to say no and mean no. This legislation will go a long way to addressing that. I commend the bill to the house.

Ms GREEN (Yan Yean) (12:56): It is a great privilege to follow my friend the member for Geelong. As the number for Burwood said, we generally get up and say that it is a privilege to join a debate or it is a pleasure to join a debate. This is not a pleasurable debate. This covers really difficult subject matter, and I just want to offer my understanding and my support to victim-survivors and to those who listen to them every single day—the counsellors at the centres against sexual assault, the police officers that have to take statements, the prosecuting legal people and the DPP, parents and friends. It is not easy to live this, and it is not easy to hear it either.

I particularly want to give credit to my childhood friend Anne, who is actually on WorkCover because of the stress that she has experienced in not being treated well in a workplace where she has been dealing with young people and their experience and suicide prevention—and prior to that she worked as a school nurse talking to kids about their health. The stories that she has told me are absolutely harrowing—of young girls and their first sexual experiences, having no idea that they had been assaulted, and of the boys that they had been with having no idea that they were doing the assaulting.

I am glad this bill is being supported by all sides of the house, but it is disturbing to me that there have been so few speakers from the other side other than the government. The opposition say they are voting for this today, but the measure of their commitment to this will be—if they are ever on the government benches again—whether they do not cut police budgets, they do not cut victim support, they do not cut funding to women’s health services, they do not cut back resources in schools and they openly commit to Respectful Relationships being taught in schools, because this is not divisive. It is absolutely necessary, and the nonsense culture wars that have gone on around this debate from the opposition have been shameful. The opponent that they put up against me last time was a supporter of conversion therapy. Her mission was to get rid of Respectful Relationships. This has no place. When you vote for something like this, which is changing consent, you must actually show on the ground that you mean it—that you absolutely mean it.

I am really proud to be part of a government that puts gender equality first and foremost. It is deeply shameful that the World Economic Forum just released its 2022 global gender gap index—

Sitting suspended 1.00 pm until 2.02 pm.

Business interrupted under standing orders.

The SPEAKER: I would like to acknowledge the mayors from our interfaith councils who are in the gallery today, and I am sure members will be on their best behaviour.