A Labor government would set up a task force to crack down on sexual harassment and assault on university campuses.
Under a plan announced by the party’s deputy leader and minister for women Tanya Plibersek, all universities would have to publish data on sexual harassment and assault to improve transparency and better track progress.
“I guess I’m really troubled by the fact that we were talking about this 30 years ago, when I was at university, and my daughter starts university next year, and we’re still talking about it,” Plibersek told ABC radio on Friday.
“The task force is to bring some transparency to what’s going on in our universities, to make sure that when universities sign up to recommendations to change culture on campus and to change the way they respond to allegations of assault on campus, that the pressure is constant, it’s not just in the glare of the moment when a new report has been released.”
A national report by the Australian Human Rights Commission last year found 2.3% of female uni students were assaulted in a university environment in 2015–16, and although less than 10% of students live in a university residence, of those who were sexually assaulted in a university setting that year, 34% were living in a university residence at the time.
Under Labor’s plan, penalties could be imposed on universities that fail to take serious action to protect their students, and, in extreme cases, the education minister could even withhold government funding.
The independent task force, to be chaired by an “eminent Australian”, would be made up of experts in sexual assault prevention and response, and supported by the university standards body, TEQSA (Tertiary Education Quality and Standards Agency), which will have its operations “beefed up” with a $1.8 million funding boost.
Last week, a coalition of advocates on campus sexual violence said education minister Dan Tehan had abandoned a task force to tackle the issue.
“Fifteen months after the Australian Human Rights Commission identified the horrifying rate of sexual violence being perpetrated at our universities, [Tehan] appears to have abandoned the desperately needed safety measure that was about to be announced under his predecessor,” community campaign group Fair Agenda’s executive director Renee Carr said at the time.
According to correspondence seen by Fairfax Media, Tehan’s predecessor, Simon Birmingham, was “so close” to announcing the task force before the government’s leadership crisis that saw former prime minister Malcolm Turnbull replaced and a subsequent cabinet reshuffle.
“TEQSA is reviewing higher education provider responses to incidents of sexual assault and sexual harassment," Tehan said in a statement provided to BuzzFeed News.
"I will make a decision about a taskforce once I have received TEQSA’s review.”