Brittany Higgins has delivered a powerful keynote, telling an audience of over 300 people that it’s time to reimagine the criminal justice system as a space that better supports survivors.
“I stand before you today not just as Brittany Higgins — not just as someone whose name became a headline — but as a woman who, like far too many others, was failed by the very system that’s supposed to protect us,” Higgins told the Conversations That Matter event, hosted on Thursday by the Give Where You Live Foundation.
“Like so many people, until I actually was forced to engage in the criminal justice system, I didn’t realise how brutalising it is to report a rape and how hard it is to navigate the legal system,” she said.
“We must reimagine the criminal justice system as a space where survivors are supported, heard and treated with dignity.”
“I am not standing here today to tear down the legal system. I’m standing here to say: it wasn’t built for us. And it hasn’t evolved fast enough to meet the needs of a society that now demands better.”
The Give Where You Live Foundation’s Conversations That Matter event also featured a panel discussion on gendered violence, facilitated by Mary Gearin, featuring panellists Kerriann Campbell-Jones, CEO, The Sexual Assault & Family Violence Centre and Reuben Williams, Founder of SportsGrad.
In her keynote, Higgins spoke about the drivers of sexual violence and warned about the rise of online misogyny, saying “rape culture has digitised”.
“Spend just 30 minutes on TikTok as a teenage boy with a fresh account, and you are likely to be served misogynistic, violent, or anti-feminist content. This isn’t anecdotal – it’s algorithmic,” Higgins said.
“Rape culture has digitised. It has professionalised. And it’s targeting the next generation of boys at a rate we are unprepared for.”
Higgins continued, saying we must demand transparency and better laws on sexual and gender-based violence, and make silence impossible.
“This work will be difficult. It will be uncomfortable. It will involve letting go of centuries of inherited legal thinking. But it will be worth it—because the next generation deserve to live in a country where justice doesn’t come at the cost of survival,” Higgins said.
“We must demand transparency, publish the statistics, measure what matters and make silence impossible.”
“We must defend affirmative consent laws—and ensure they’re reflected in police training, prosecutorial decision-making, and judicial practice. We must fund the frontlines—not just with grants, but with structural, long-term investment. We must resist the cultural retreat from #MeToo and call out the rehabilitation of predators as the gaslighting that it is.”
“And most of all, we must remember that the standard you walk past is the standard you accept.”
The keynote followed news this week that Higgins has been appointed as the Director of Public Affairs at the female-founded, boutique public relations agency, Third Hemisphere.
Feature image: Brittany Higgins at the Give Where You Live Foundation event. Credit: Jane Fitzgerald Photography.
If you or someone you know is experiencing, or at risk of experiencing, domestic, family or sexual violence, call 1800RESPECT on 1800 737 732, text 0458 737 732 or visit 1800RESPECT.org.au for online chat and video call services.
If you are concerned about your behaviour or use of violence, you can contact the Men’s Referral Service on 1300 766 491 or visit http://www.ntv.org.au.