The national university body Universities Australia (UA) scrapped a $1.5 million university campaign, funded by taxpayers, to end sexual harassment and sexual assault on campuses in late 2022, a Senate inquiry has heard.
Journalist Kristine Ziwica first broke the news in an article last week in The Saturday Paper before members of UA and the Australian government’s Department of Social Services (DSS) faced the Senate hearing, which began on July 25.
Ziwica investigated why the student-facing “respectful relationships” campaign, an effort to reduce the high reportage of sexual harassment and sexual assault on university campuses around the country, was axed, despite receiving funding to the tune of $1.5 million from the Morrison government in 2021.
She discovered a minority of vice-chancellors from the 39 universities represented by UA found the campaign to be too “risqué” and “explicit”, cancelling the campaign in late 2022.
This was later confirmed during the Senate’s inquiry into national consent laws and sexual assault in Australia, when Greta Doherty, the DSS’ group manager of women’s safety, faced the hearing on Wednesday July 26.
Doherty said the roll-out of the campaign came to a halt because there was not “full support” from UA members.
After declining twice, UA “reluctantly” faced the hearing on Thursday July 27, the final day of the inquiry. When asked why the campaign was scrapped, UA chief executive Catriona Jackson cited “research” showing the campaign would not have “cut through” to make any changes. She said she was proud of UA’s efforts.
“It doesn’t mean we’ve done everything right, it does mean we’re determined to continue our efforts,” she said.
When Ziwica asked UA to see their “research” showing the campaign’s inability to “cut through”, they declined to share it with her. The DSS told Ziwica they also did not have access to the research.
An open letter headed by End Rape on Campus and Fair Agenda called for the Albanese government to urgently intervene and address “university failures” in responding to high reportage of sexual violence at universities in Australia. The letter was signed by 40 groups and individuals.
Recommendations to tackle sexual assault on university campuses first surfaced in 2017, following a report from the Australian Human Rights Commission titled Change the Course.
All 39 universities party to UA accepted and committed to the recommendations. However, a recent study from UNSW Australian Human Rights Institute research associate Allison Henry found three-quarters of UA universities were failing to meet their commitments.
Sexual harassment and sexual violence at Australian universities is a massive problem. The 2021 National Student Safety Survey (NSSS) found one in six students have experienced sexual harassment since starting university and one in 12 have experienced it in the past 12 months.
What’s more, half of the respondents know nothing or very little about the formal reporting process for sexual harassment and sexual assault.
The NSSS reported, on average, 275 students are sexually assaulted every week. That totals to 14,300 sexual assaults every year.The Senate referred an inquiry into Australia’s consent laws in November 2022. Consent advocates are calling for “nationally harmonised” affirmative consent laws in Australia to address several inconsistencies that exist among states’ and territories’ laws.