Universities Australia (UA) has been grilled by senators over why a $1.5 million anti-sexual violence campaign funded by taxpayers never eventuated.
Key points:
- Universities Australia received a $1.5 million grant to roll out a consent campaign that never eventuated
- Senators questioned the organisation today at an inquiry into consent laws
- Two hundred and seventy-five students are sexually assaulted in a university setting every week
Instead, a 46-page good practice report was produced for “primary prevention practitioners”.
The body representing Australia’s 39 universities was questioned at the final hearing for the Senate inquiry into consent laws today, after twice declining to appear.
Over the weekend journalist, Kristine Ziwica revealed the original campaign was stymied by a small group of vice-chancellors who objected to the campaign as “too explicit”.
UA rejects that, insisting the campaign that was developed wouldn’t have had enough cut through.
Campaign replaced with ‘good practice’ report
In 2021 UA received $1.5 million from the then Coalition government to deliver an anti-sexual violence campaign targeting students, after pitching the idea to the Commonwealth.
The proposal and the campaign itself were co-designed with students and based on expert advice.
On Tuesday, a Department of Social Services official said UA approached them in 2022 to say they would not go ahead with the campaign.
“Universities Australia advised the department that the campaign as developed was not viable to be rolled out and so Universities Australia was not keen to proceed,” the department’s Lara Purdy said.
Loading Instagram content
Ms Purdy said the department did not think that was acceptable “given the prevalence of violence on campus”, and the two agreed to develop a 46-page good practice guide, launched earlier this month.
When asked why the department didn’t ask for its money back, Ms Purdy said UA had already spent some of the money on third parties to deliver the campaign which never happened.
This morning, UA chief executive Catriona Jackson said focus group testing showed the initially planned campaign would not have enough cut through.
She said the good practice report would be accompanied by communities of practice workshop, and she was proud of the work UA had done.
“It doesn’t mean we’ve done everything right, it does mean we’re determined to continue our efforts.”
Ms Jackson would not be drawn on the number of vice-chancellors who did not want the campaign to go ahead, saying the decision was reinforced by findings from later focus group testing.
What was the replacement?
Primary prevention is focused on stopping sexual harassment and assault before they occur and is an essential element of stopping sexual violence.
Included in the report are sections on “the importance of listening to the student’s voice” and examples of good practice in tackling sexual violence in tertiary education.
In that section, the first case study included as an example of good practice is of an ANU program that was criticised by students as not being fit for purpose.
The ANU sexual violence prevention toolkit was released in 2022, three years after the university’s sexual violence prevention strategy was described by students as a positive vision that lacked a practical action plan.
The good practice guide draws significantly on pre-existing resources from respected primary violence prevention organisation Our Watch, Rainbow Health Australia, the National Plan to End Violence Against Women and Children along with the Tertiary Education Quality and Standards Agency’s good practice note.
“Our guide is fundamentally different but needs to be underpinned with the best evidence we have,” Ms Jackson said.
“We’ve provided a very detailed, very practical hands-on guide.”
Alongside the sections on good practice, case studies and the importance of listening to students are one more section explaining the issue and what primary prevention is, along with a self-audit tool.
The tool is a two-page table of dot points for universities to consider when implementing primary prevention including seeking out student responses and leadership capacity development.
The good practice guide follows a number of significant reports and investigations over the last decade, canvassing the scale of the problem and how unis should respond including:
- The landmark 2017 Change the Course report from the Australian Human Rights Commission, measuring the experiences of over 30,000 students at all 39 universities
- The UNSW Australian Human Rights Centre’s 2017 On Safe Ground report, a good practice guide to help Australian Unis strengthen their responses to sexual violence
- End Rape on Campus’ 2018 report The Red Zone, detailing widespread assault and harassment in residential colleges during orientation weeks
- The Social Research Centre’s 2021 National Student Safety Survey
- Australian Human Rights Centre’s Dr Allison Henry’s 2023 examination of how regulators and government’s can respond to sexual violence at universities
UA told the inquiry they did not consult with the peak representative body of students, the National Union of Students, on the development of its guide though it did consult with 2000 other students as part of the overall development process.
Is anything else being done?
Six years ago, UA announced a 10-point plan in response to the Change the Course report and since then has frequently referenced “800 initiatives” established by various universities to tackle the problem.
It did not respond to the ABC’s requests for a list of what those initiatives actually are and how effective they’ve been.
Education Minister Jason Clare described the decision to drop the campaign in favour of a report as very concerning.
“Universities haven’t done enough over the course of the last decade or so to address this,” he said.
“I’ve written to all education ministers across the country about the next steps that we need to take… I would expect that ministers will focus their attention on it when we next meet.”
The plan to work with the states and territories was one of the recommendations of the interim report of the Australian Universities Accord, the biggest review of the sector in years.
Loading…
But advocates say while that’s a great start, there’s more the government can do in the meantime.
In an open letter sent in early July, advocacy organisations like End Rape on Campus, the National Union of Students and Fair Agenda among 40 others called on the Albanese government to establish an independent authority to hold universities accountable on sexual violence given there isn’t one currently.
In 2019, Labor promised to establish such a task force but have since gone quiet on whether they still plan to do so, the commitment followed the coalition government coming very close to establishing an authority, which was then dropped after the 2018 leadership spill.