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If the bill is successful, NSW will follow Tasmania and become the second state requiring one person to do or say something about whether the other person consents to sex.
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The long battle to achieve such reform has raised hope among victim-survivors such as Saxon Mullins who have advocated for a change in laws relating to sexual assault.
“It’s a really necessary change to our consent laws, but it’s also a very simple change and it brings the laws to the standard they already should be,” she told SBS News.
“It’s just a matter of making sure they match our current common sense. “
Ms Mullins endured two criminal trials and appealed for four years after her report of sexual assault in 2013, which triggered the consent of the state law reform commission.
Source: Stephanie Simcox
While Tasmania has been the most progressive state in the enforcement of consent laws since 2004, Ms Mullins believes the affirmative consent model in NSW will ‘open the discussion’ and could lead to sweeping changes to across the country.
“People are now asking ‘what is affirmative consent, what does it mean, is this what I do?’ She said.
The change is already sweeping the country, with South Australia introducing a bill to criminalize “theft” just a week after Australia’s Capital Territory became the first jurisdiction to ban the practice.
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The Victoria Law Reform Commission is currently under investigation into its definitions of consent after briefs submitted to the committee indicated frustration with the court’s low threshold in ordering the jury to review, rather than require the accused to take reasonable steps to secure consent.
In Queensland, state police this week announced the appointment of additional liaison officers to support victim-survivors throughout their investigative and legal processes.
It follows a 12-month trial in Logan and Townsville where police found an almost 20% increase in the number of reported incidents and a reduction in the number of victim-survivors retracting their complaints.
NSW is also leading the charge for earlier and more holistic consent education, with a petition signed by 20,000 people across the state to mandate consent education in state school curricula.
Chanel Contos, 23, was instrumental in this push, which encouraged survivors of sexual assault to share their experiences as part of an initiative called Teach Us Consent.
Source: Instagram
To her surprise, she received more than 6,500 responses which led to unanimous support in the New South Wales parliament on Thursday to teach students about consent in schools before they become sexually active.
“People around Australia, especially women, are stepping down and… asking for reforms that seem drastic because it’s all happening at the same time… but these issues affect us disproportionately,†Ms. Contos said. at SBS News.
“I think it’s really special that people with no power, who are literally teenage girls, have brought about this change… this power change is completely unprecedented and we have to keep the momentum going.
“I really hope that as a resident of NSW they lead by example with these kinds of reforms.”
Source: PAA
But the consent laws proposed by NSW are not without limits, said Bianca Fileborn, professor of criminology at the University of Melbourne.
Mr Speakman told the NSW Parliament on Wednesday that a person can consent by words or by providing a facial expression with a gesture.
With laws requiring a person to take reasonable steps to obtain affirmative consent, Dr Fileborn said it had not yet been clarified what was considered “reasonable.”
“It concerns me. This suggests that it gives an accused the opportunity to interpret the behavior of a victim-survivor rather than getting an explicit and affirmative ‘yes’, â€said Dr Fileborn.
Source: Provided
While the bill has been widely hailed as a milestone, Dr Fileborn would like to wait and see how the legislation is interpreted by the courts before feeling confident in its practical benefits in the legal arena.
“We have seen previous rounds of legislative reforms which seemed quite progressive and which in practice did not necessarily go as we would have liked,” she said.
“We have seen research in other Australian jurisdictions that the accused continues to rely on problematic stereotypes and myths about rape, they continue to defend the reasonable grounds of consent which is based on their reading of the behavior of survivors . ”
If you or someone you know is sexually assaulted, call 1800RESPECT at 1800 737 732 or visit 1800RESPECT.org.au. In case of emergency, call 000.
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