South Australia’s Attorney-General Kyam Maher has slammed comments from James Howe, the husband of prominent anti-abortion activist Dr Joanna Howe, who said he doesn’t “do” consent.
On a podcast episode titled The RADICAL Feminist Behind Albanese’s Social Media Crackdown, James Howe and Joanna Howe discussed the push to introduce consent education reforms, championed by advocate Chanel Contos.
The conversation prompted James Howe to declare: “Consent is not even a freaking thing for me.”
“Like, I just don’t do consent,” he repeated, adding “we don’t do consent. I do marriage, man”.
The comments received swift backlash online and in political circles. Kym Maher, the South Australian Attorney-General and deputy premier, responded by making clear that laws across the country state that consent is always needed, regardless of relationship status.
“Of course you always need consent for sexual activity. To suggest otherwise I think is irresponsible and downright dangerous,” Maher said.
In the podcast episode, the Howes’ criticised the consent education reform that had been introduced by the Albanese government in the wake of Contos’ advocacy. The couple said they were not comfortable with the idea of a teacher “role-playing” a situation that would explain the concept of consent to children.
“Like she was saying we need to teach children, do you consent for me to take your top off little girl?” James said.
“Gosh it’s so creepy,” Joanna said.
In response to the media coverage and backlash to the podcast comments, Joanna Howe said the criticism being directed at them “fundamentally misses the point”.
“This hit piece on my husband and I has been doing the rounds and it fundamentally misses the point. The reason my husband and I reject the modern philosophical framework of “Consent,” is because it’s meaningless nonsense, and it leads to more sexual assault, not less,” she wrote.
CEO and Co-Founder of Consent Labs, Angelique Wan, said the comments from James Howe unfortunately highlight just how deeply ingrained, multi-faceted and normalised the issue of sexual violence is in Australia.
“Consent education is one of the proven preventative measures against harmful attitudes and behaviours that contribute to sexual violence, supported by a continuously expanding mountain of research, evidence and data,” Wan told Women’s Agenda.
“These comments are damaging for so many reasons, including that they contribute to the misinformation about sexual violence, consent education, and the link between them. At its core, consent applies in all relationships, including marriage. Being married or in a long-term relationship does not mean consent is automatically given or that it cannot be withdrawn.”
The latest figures from the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare indicate that intimate-partner violence is a major issue in Australia. One in four women and one in 14 men have experienced physical and/or sexual violence from an intimate partner since the age of 15.
“Positive progress is being made in the nationwide effort to combat sexual violence, but it can often feel like we’re taking one step forward and two steps back when people in positions of influence use their platform to spread misleading statements like these,” Wan said.
“This is why it’s not enough to just have consent education in our curriculum, despite that being necessary and an important first step. We also need positive role modelling offline, further support for teachers in delivering CRRE, training for parents and carers on creating safe spaces for conversations at home, and more. We need a multi-pronged, whole-of-society approach, to ensure we’re cutting through in a world of algorithm-fuelled rage-bait and misinformation.”
Lawyer and advocate Kon Karapanagiotidis noted that South Australia became the first Australian state to codify marital rape as a crime.
“The days that marriage implied irrevocable consent for women was outlawed 50 years ago in South Australia,” Karapanagiotidis said.
“It took a century of women’s activism and fighting for their human rights to finally see rape in marriage criminalised and we are not going back.
“From the groundwork laid by the earlier suffrage and women’s property-rights movements that was then carried forward by second-wave feminist campaigns in the 1970s, which directly pushed the SA reform.”
It comes after Joanna Howe hosted an anti-abortion rally outside New South Wales parliament this week, featuring a speech from One Nation’s NSW leader, Mike Newman. Newman told the crowd One Nation wanted to “stop” abortion.