Page 1222 - Week 05 - Tuesday, 11 May 2021
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This work also needs to have a gendered lens, as women make up 86.6 per cent of victims of sexual assault in the ACT.
The working groups, which will report to a steering committee, will be made up of representatives from non-government organisations, the service sector, unions, research bodies, our university sector, and government representatives. These working groups will identify key priorities for future work and action.
Our key objective, once we have listened, must be to coordinate our efforts across the community to develop an effective, systemic, evidence-based response to sexual assault in the ACT.
The working groups will each have a distinct focus. The prevention working group will focus on driving systemic cultural change, particularly targeted at schools, universities, CITs and workplaces. The response working group will focus on service provision and police responses and will be informed by victim survivor experience of accessing support, advocacy, counselling, and health and medical care. The law reform working group will focus on progressing the parliamentary agreement commitment to reform consent laws and related sexual assault law reform.
Each working group will undertake specific consultation with the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander community to ensure that the experience of these community members informs all aspects of the ACT’s sexual assault prevention and response work.
The time to start this work is now. Each of the working groups will have five fortnightly meetings, starting in May, to prepare a summary document for the steering committee’s consideration by 30 June 2021. The steering committee will provide support and independent oversight to the working groups as well as draw on this work to formulate recommendations to government. I will hold a broader community roundtable discussion later in the year to explore the findings of the working groups and steering committee.
Cultural change to stop sexual assault is going to be a whole-of-community effort. I will be working closely with partners in the community and justice sectors and with my colleagues in the Assembly to coordinate this.
Madam Speaker, I want to finish with a message of hope, especially for victim survivors. It is a momentous time; government is demonstrating its commitment to putting survivors at the centre of how we respond to sexual assault and violence. I have hope that, with the right things in place, we can work with the community to make long-lasting change to cultures of behaviour. Everyone will be brought along on this journey for change.
I present the following paper:
Sexual assault—ACT’s prevention and response program—Ministerial statement, 11 May 2021.
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