Q&A: Allison Henry talks Action Plan on sexual violence

Recent surveys and reports show that sexual assault and harassment on university campuses is rife, accelerated by broken and confusing reporting processes.

Student surveys found an average of 275 students experience sexual assault on campus every week, and don't report it because they don't know how.

Sexual violence on campus researcher Dr Allison Henry spoke to Campus Review to discuss how universities got to this point, and shared the findings of her recent PhD thesis, which investigated regulatory responses to sexual violence on campus.

Her studies revealed the lack of action from regulatory bodies like the Tertiary Education Quality and Standards Agency (TEQSA), the effect of fluctuating political interest from different education ministers and federal governments, an absence of independent investigation into reporting processes, and the "performative" nature of anti-sexual violence university's campaigns.

The draft Action Plan addressing gender-based violence in higher education, along with the Universities Accord Final Report, is due this month.

Campus Review spoke to Dr Allison Henry, who wrote her PhD on regulatory responses to sexual assault and sexual harassment in Australian University settings and was a member of the Department of Education's gender-based violence stakeholder reference group, about what we can expect to see in them.

Q: Talk to me a little bit about the draft action plan. It was developed to change the situation through recommendations such as a student ombudsman and a national code to improve transparency and accountability. Are these going to deliver the change that we need to see?

A: Part of the draft action plan is a national higher education code to prevent and respond to gender-based violence.

What this will do is build on what we call the 'threshold standards' now, which are wellbeing and safety standards that TEQSA administers, but it will provide much greater detail and be specifically focused on gender-based violence.

The new code will effectively provide a blueprint for universities about what the expectations are, how they talk about sexual violence, [and] how they respond to sexual violence.

It'll provide a standard set of expectations so students, no matter which university they go to or which campus they're at, will have a standard consistent set of expectations around how an incident of sexual violence will be dealt with.

The new [national] code is proposed as part of the action plan, and the current plan is that oversight will be by a new unit in the Department of Education.

That will also mean that this issue's being taken away from TEQSA.

TEQSA will continue to exist doing its other work, but effectively the Department of Education's unit will oversight the implementation of the new code – that's a really important new page for students and student activists, who have really lost confidence in TEQSA.

What the student ombudsman would do, the national student ombudsman that's been proposed in the action plan, [is] provide a streamlined complaints process for students.

Once they've exhausted their processes at their institution, at their university – and if they're unhappy with the outcome at their university – they've got another body to go to and say, "Hey look, I really didn't like the way this happened," or "it "this took so long", or "they were really inappropriate about the questions they were asking". All of those sorts of things are the issues that come up.

The student ombudsman will provide a national student complaints process that will mean that all the students know where to go. Because at the moment, students don't know where to go to get help.

Q: So, it was really focused on, 'what can we do on the ground to help the students who are actually experiencing this'?

A: Yes, I think it's really looking at how can we protect and support students who have experienced gender-based violence, but it's also looking at how we can prevent it in the future.

There's a bunch of different mechanisms underneath the action plan. I think there's seven or eight action items, and there's different elements of the action plan that speak to different parts of the problem.

According to TEQSA, no university has ever had a problem in any of the investigations that they've looked at.

When I was doing my thesis, there was probably more than 60 of those sorts of investigations over the period I was looking at it. And not once did they find there was a problem.

And that included five occasions when universities themselves had reported to TEQSA and said, "We think there's a problem." And TEQSA said, "No, we think you're fine," so there's been a real problem there in terms of an external complaints mechanism.

Q: What key things are you looking for in the Accord report that will make a real difference? What would you like to see come out of that?

A: Well, I think the Accord report really, in the space of sexual violence, the interim report was really fantastic.

The Accord panel, when we first met with them, had all read the submissions – all were completely across the issue, and all really keen to try and make a difference in this space. And that was fantastic.

What came out in the interim report has actually given the impetus for what became the working group and what has become the draft action plan.

We are not really sure whether there'll be anything else that will come out that will be in the sexual violence space. My understanding is the Department of Education and the government are moving forward with a draft action plan as a separate process, but there may be other things that come out for the Accord. We don't really know. Everyone's waiting for the report to arrive.

This Q&A is a an edited excerpt from a Campus Podcast episode. Listen to the full podcast here.

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