Good evening, everyone.
Before I begin, I would like to acknowledge the Wurundjeri peoples of the Kulin Nation as Traditional Custodians of the land on which we meet, and pay my respects to Elders past and present.
Thank you for inviting me to speak at the International Freedom from Sexual Violence Summit.
And to those of you who have come from afar – welcome to beautiful Melbourne.
There are more than 400 of you here today, some of whom have travelled a great distance! Your presence here is welcomed and appreciated, signifying the importance of our global efforts to prevent sexual violence.
There are also many people in the room whose advice I rely on enormously, and regularly.
I could spend my entire speech thanking each of you individually, but I suspect we’d be here all day!
So, let me simply say thank you.
And a special thank you to Kathleen Maltzahn, CEO of Sexual Assault Services Victoria, and the entire SASVic team for bringing us together.
Kathleen, like other CEOs in the sexual violence sector, is an outstanding leader. Thoughtful, intelligent, deeply committed to victim-survivors.
And to host an international conference here in Melbourne, all the while running the peak body for sexual violence services in Victoria isn’t just impressive, it’s a powerful demonstration of what leadership in this sector looks like.
How lucky am I to have someone of Kathleen’s calibre right here in my hometown of Melbourne.
And thank you to all of our frontline sexual violence workers who are here today, you are the backbone of our efforts to prevent and respond to sexual violence.
I also meet quarterly with the executive of the National Association of Services Against Sexual Violence, NASASV, because ongoing engagement with the sector matters.
I am incredibly grateful for the partnership and advice that NASASV continues to provide.
I know many of you are here this evening.
I also pass on the regards of the Minister for Social Services, the Hon Tanya Plibersek, who I still pinch myself that I get to work with every day.
There isn’t a member of this government with a better understanding of the systemic issues you face, or a more ambitious and progressive force to drive us all towards a world free from sexual violence.
As a lifelong feminist, and someone who’s been around for… a while, I’ve witnessed extraordinary changes in how Australia understands and responds to sexual violence.
I remember the feminist movement establishing Australia’s first rape crisis centres in the 1970s.
I remember the long fight to abolish the legal immunity for rape within marriage, finally eliminated nationwide in the 1990s.
And more recently, we’ve seen the introduction of affirmative consent laws in several states.
Some of these changes we look at today and find hard to imagine that they ever had to be fought for.
But, none of these changes were handed to women freely.
They were fought for, relentlessly, by generations of feminists who refused to accept the status quo.
Who refused to accept misogyny and male entitlement as an excuse for deplorable behaviour.
And as we continue that work today, I am deeply conscious that we stand on the shoulders of giants.
I like to think we’re having a global reckoning with sexual violence, but even if that is the case, it’s not happening fast enough, or keeping pace with evolving threats.
So, I wonder whether those women could ever have imagined the challenges we would be confronting in 2026.
Artificial intelligence being used to create sexually explicit deepfakes.
Technology enabling perpetrators to stalk, intimidate and sexually exploit women on an unprecedented scale.
Violent pornography becoming increasingly accessible and normalised.
Young men being fed a steady stream of misogyny before they are old enough to understand what they’re watching.
And deeply troubling increases in sexual violence involving children.
Today, research has found that half of Australian adults have experienced technology-facilitated abuse. Half.
And research published by the University of Sydney has revealed deeply disturbing trends in sexual and family violence involving children.
With rates of sexual violence against girls aged under 18 rising steadily, and rates for boys increasing by more than 50 per cent across just three years.
These are children.
And we must confront what is shaping the attitudes and behaviours of the next generation.
Research has found that social media algorithms can push misogynistic manosphere content to boys in as little as two minutes, even when they haven’t gone looking for it.
Think about what that does at scale to a whole generation of young men.
Meanwhile, violent pornography is shaping how too many young people understand sex.
One study found that one in three pornography users surveyed had encountered violent or abusive pornography in the previous three months.
And other research has linked viewing pornography depicting physical violence with greater acceptance of violence against women.
But behind all of these stats are story after story of lifelong trauma inflicted upon women.
And I have heard many stories in this job, and I can tell you, every single story is harrowing – they all stay with me.
No matter if it’s a story of sexual violence from a partner, to an assault, to rape.
And I recently spoke with a woman who told me about a former boyfriend who had secretly filmed them having sex.
She discovered multiple videos on his phone entirely by accident.
She described the betrayal of that moment.
The shock that someone she loved and trusted could violate her so profoundly.
He told her he’d deleted the videos.
But how could she ever really know?
She wondered who else might have seen them.
Whether they had been shared.
Whether they might resurface years later.
She worried about what her partner would think. Whether he would feel differently about her. Whether he would love her a little less if he knew that those videos might still exist somewhere with another man.
And perhaps most heartbreaking of all, she questioned herself.
Because she’d consented to sex, she wondered whether somehow she’d been responsible for what happened.
She hadn’t, of course. She had done absolutely nothing wrong.
And she never went to the police.
She feared her former partner’s reaction. She feared not being believed. She feared that reporting it might make everything worse.
And this is the cruelty of sexual violence.
The abuse itself may end, but the fear, uncertainty and violation can haunt someone for a lifetime.
And technology has given perpetrators new ways to extend that harm long after the original abuse.
I think about this woman often.
And I think about the countless women and girls carrying experiences like hers, many of whom have never told anyone.
That’s why victim-survivors must remain at the centre of everything we do.
Not at the margins. Not as an afterthought. At the centre.
Because no one understands the strengths and failures of our systems better than the people who have had to navigate them.
Addressing the scale of the problem requires an understanding of its dimensions.
Services use all of the resources available to them, but need more.
I want you to know I have heard you when you’ve told me about funding challenges compared to the scale of need you encounter every day.
I will continue to take that message to our state and territory counterparts, who are responsible for funding frontline service delivery.
Because if we want more victim-survivors to receive timely, specialist support, we need a sustainable sector.
And for too long, victim-survivors carried not only the burden of the violence committed against them, but the burden of proving that harm had occurred.
We know that fear of not being believed remains one of the greatest barriers to disclosure and reporting.
And I think about the enormous responsibility we have to change this.
As the Assistant Minister in this portfolio, that responsibility weighs incredibly heavily on me.
I’m not suggesting sexual violence is new – I grew up at a time many of you will know only too well, when a hospitality job meant a hand up my skirt at work was just a woman’s lot.
Sexual violence seems to have remained synonymous with being a woman.
I know we talk about an estimated 1 in 5 women have experienced sexual violence.
I don’t need to tell anyone in the room that there should be an ‘at least’ at the front of that.
At worst, I’m growing in my conviction that it feels like every woman has a story.
There’s an oppressive weight to that realisation.
But while sexual violence is all pervasive.
But it is not inevitable.
It is preventable.
That’s why our Prime Minister had a powerful and unequivocal message in Parliament after a horrendous spate of assaults in August – we have zero tolerance for sexual violence in Australia.
The Prime Minister then made it clear at our National Cabinet in September that addressing sexual violence must be a national priority.
For those who are from abroad, National Cabinet is the meeting of First Ministers from our state and territory jurisdictions and the Prime Minister. It is our primary intergovernmental decision-making forum.
The decision to elevate gender-based violence, including sexual violence, as a priority for National Cabinet sent an important message.
That this is not an issue confined to a single portfolio, a single jurisdiction, or a single service system.
It is a national challenge that requires national leadership.
And when National Cabinet treats sexual violence as a priority, it creates the opportunity for every level of government to pull in the same direction.
Because preventing sexual violence requires coordinated action across health, education, justice, social services, housing, technology and community sectors.
That is why we have embarked on a significant national consultation exercise to inform the development of the Second Action Plan under our National Plan to End Violence against Women and Children 2022-2032.
It will set our vision and plan for the next phase of our work over the remaining five years of the National Plan.
Many of you have contributed to that work.
And I want you to know how much I value your frank and fearless advice.
While there will be more to say about the Second Action Plan early next year, I can tell you that sexual violence was agreed at National Cabinet as one of the six priorities under this Action Plan.
It is an acknowledged national priority. Your voices are being heard.
I know you believe the sector hasn’t received all the recognition or resources it has sought.
I know what that means on the ground for all of you who work in the sector.
I know what that means for the victim survivors who desperately need support, and to heal and recover.
I know that governments across the board need to listen and act.
I want to tell you about some of the work we’ve already done, before sharing with you our vision.
Through our consent campaigns and Partners in Prevention of Sexual Violence programs, we’re investing in approaches to prevent harm before it occurs, including initiatives designed with LGBTQIA+ communities.
I recently launched Changing with Pride – a world first violence prevention framework for LGBTIA+ communities. Another place where rates of sexual violence are despairingly high, especially amongst GBTQ men.
Our approaches to ending sexual violence must be intersectional.
In education, we’re strengthening respectful relationships education and implementing the National Higher Education Code to Prevent and Respond to Gender-based Violence.
In health, we’re supporting healthcare professionals to recognise and respond to violence, and connect victim-survivors with specialist services.
And in justice, we’re progressing reforms informed by the Australian Law Reform Commission’s inquiry into justice responses to sexual violence, alongside initiatives such as justice system navigators.
I’ve spent a lot of time with you all over the last 18 months, and have heard you loud and clear when you say the justice system is not working for victim survivors.
Because we know most victim-survivors never report sexual violence, and too many who do are retraumatised by the very systems meant to protect them.
We’re also taking action to make the digital world safer.
From restricting social media access for children under 16, to our Digital Duty of Care legislation which will introduce stronger protections against harmful sexual content and technology-facilitated abuse, and providing Australians the option to opt out of the algorithm.
We’re making clear that technology companies and tech bros cannot put profits ahead of people’s safety.
And through Respect@Work reforms, employers now have a positive duty to prevent workplace sexual harassment and related unlawful conduct.
These are important reforms, and I’m proud Australia is helping lead international efforts to hold powerful institutions, including technology companies, accountable.
To our international guests, I hope we can learn from one another and share what works. Because the feminist movement has always been global.
We are listening to the calls for more action.
And I have to think we’re all here together, doing the work we do, as part of a global movement, because we have hope.
I want this country to develop a stronger, more coordinated and more ambitious national approach to preventing and responding to sexual violence, across portfolios and with our community partners.
One that seeks to systematically address and dismantles harmful attitudes before violence occurs.
One that supports victim-survivors.
One that reaches children and young people before harmful behaviours become entrenched.
One that responds to the challenges posed by technology and online harms.
One that empowers the frontline sector and its workers across integrated, multi-agency models.
One that recognises healing and recovery as essential parts of preventing cycles of violence.
One that pursues the causes and incidences of sexual violence.
And with all of this prevention must be a priority.
That is why, bringing together so many different perspectives and expertise from across the sector and across the globe is so important.
This global movement that you’re all a part of has contributed towards a shift in public discourse.
And a priority of mine today is about hearing all the advice and expertise you all share.
So, I look forward to hearing outcomes of your discussions over the coming days.
I began by reflecting on the extraordinary feminists whose shoulders we stand on.
And I want to finish by thinking about the generations who will come after us.
Our daughters and granddaughters will one day look back on this moment, just as we look back on the women who fought before us.
I hope they will be astonished by what we once endured.
And I would like to finish on one final note: believe victim-survivors.
Thank you.