Monique Ryan (Kooyong, Independent) Share this | Hansard source

For too long, our universities and our governments have failed to adequately address sexual harassment and sexual violence on our university campuses. The 2021 National Student Safety Survey found that one in 20 Australian students was sexually assaulted after starting university, one in six had been sexually harassed and one in two had felt that they weren't being heard when they made a complaint. Fourteen thousand three hundred students are sexually assaulted in university settings in this country every year. That's 275 every week. This is overwhelmingly a problem experienced by women and inflicted by men.

Addressing sexual assault and sexual harassment in universities was a first-order recommendation of both the Australian Universities Accord interim report and the Australian Universities Accord final report. Those reports found that the nominal regulator, the Tertiary Education Quality and Standards Agency, or TEQSA, had failed to protect students. Further, the Senate Legal and Constitutional Affairs References Committee inquiry into current and proposed sexual consent laws in Australia found in 2023 that TEQSA 'has continually failed to exercise the full breadth of its powers to hold universities accountable for their woeful responses' to sexual harassment and violence on campus. That Senate committee also found that universities commonly actively exacerbate the trauma of those subjected to sexual harassment under their remit by failing to provide them with readily accessible, timely and appropriate support.

This legislation now before the House, the Treasury Laws Amendment (2024 Tax and Other Measures No. 1) Bill 2024, will create an independent National Student Ombudsman to investigate student complaints and resolve disputes with universities as a new statutory function of the Commonwealth Ombudsman. The ombudsman will have strong investigative and dispute resolution powers to ensure that both domestic and international students can access an alternative, effective, trauma informed complaints mechanism when they are not satisfied with their higher education provider's response. The ombudsman's remit will also include students undertaking enabling, micro-credentialing and professional development courses, but not VET students. It's hoped that the National Student Ombudsman could start to receive complaints from as soon as 1 February 2025.

This ombudsman will allow higher education students to escalate complaints about the actions of their provider. This will include not only complaints about sexual assault and sexual harassment but also concerns regarding providers' handling of other matters such as homophobia, antisemitism or Islamophobia and other forms of racism and discrimination on campus. The ombudsman may consider a complaint about any action, other than excluded actions, taken by higher education providers. Those excluded actions, which will not be the subject of the ombudsman review, include areas relating to staff employment and appointments and their exercise of academic judgements.

The ombudsman's remit is therefore quite wide. It includes issues relating to students' safety and welfare; course administration; teaching quality; facilities; disciplinary processes; and reasonable adjustments for disability and student accommodation where they are owned or operated by the higher education provider. The ombudsman can require other students and third parties, as well as higher education provider officers, to provide information and records. People can be required to appear in front of the ombudsman to answer questions, but, if the ombudsman decides to investigate a complaint, the investigation does have to be conducted in private. Students will be kept informed at all times about handling of their complaints.

Importantly, the ombudsman does have the option to elect not to deal with a complaint where the complaint is being dealt with by other authorities; if the complainant has not first raised the complaint with the provider; if the complaint is deemed to be frivolous or vexatious; or if the ombudsman decides that the complaint is not in good faith.

The ombudsman can also elect to try to settle complaints using alternative dispute resolution or restorative engagement processes, and this might well be appropriate in cases involving serious historical complaints or complaints about gender based violence. The ombudsman can investigate the action of a single or multiple higher education providers on its own initiative where it chooses to do so and that might occur, for example, in response to concerns raised in the media or where several complainants have raised a similar issue.

At the conclusion of investigations, the ombudsman must report to the higher education provider if they form an opinion that the action taken by the provider seems to have been contrary to the law, if it was unreasonable, unjust, oppressive or improperly discriminatory or was otherwise just wrong. In that case, the ombudsman might consider a particular action could be or should be undertaken to rectify, mitigate or alter the effects of that action taken by the higher education provider. The ombudsman can give a copy of their report and any feedback on it from the high education provider to any or all of the higher education minister, the secretary for the higher education department or the chief executive officer of TEQSA. The ombudsman will report to parliament annually on the extent and breadth of their activities, any trends or broader issues arising or any improvements that could be made to handling complaints. Where providers' responses are considered inadequate by the ombudsman, it is open to them to give the report to the higher education minister and request them to table copies of that report and the accompanying comments in both houses of parliament.

A higher education code to prevent and respond to gender based violence will also be established down the track as separate legislation. This code will require all providers registered with TEQSA and student accommodation providers to embed a whole-of-organisation approach to prevent and respond to gender based violence. That approach has to include regular and transparent data collection and reporting. According to experts in the area, Dr Allison Henry, only 15 of Australia's universities are currently publishing any consolidated information about the reports or disclosures of sexual violence they receive and, of those 15, only six are transparently reporting on how they respond.

This bill has been broadly welcomed by students, universities, peak bodies and other interested groups. I note that there are concerns from the university sector about the scope for subjectivity in the ombudsman's operations, the potential for wider coverage of university employers and the potential for ombudsman to interfere with academic judgement. I hope those concerns are appropriately covered by the stipulation in the legislation's explanatory memorandum that the bill does exclude decisions about the academic merit of grades awarded, about the content of curricula and about teaching and assessment methods. It is possible that students could try to use the ombudsman to pressure academics for special consideration or to avoid discipline for misconduct. Systemic cheating is, unfortunately, an expensive and difficult challenge for our universities. It is important that the ombudsman not get caught up in this issue.

Much of the basis for this legislation is the findings of the 2021 national student safety survey. The numbers in that survey, which I already quoted, were horrifying, particularly considering the survey was undertaken during COVID and it likely actively significantly underestimated the problem. That study was undertaken by Universities Australia, the peak body that represents Australia's tertiary institutions. Three yearly national student safety surveys were a central recommendation of the landmark Change the Course report into sexual violence on campus which was published in 2017. But, despite the Australian Human Rights Commission recommending that it do so, Universities Australia has not yet committed to a follow-up study. As recently as February 2024, researchers from the University of New South Wales Australian Human Rights Institute found that a third of Australian universities do not have task forces or committees set up to address sexual violence and many are not meeting the mark when it comes to transparency. On at least 14 instances since 2011, reports, reviews, charters and good practice guides have been published by regulators, advocates, researchers and the sector's own peak body with detailed recommendations for change and reform—to no end, until this time. So I am very pleased to see this legislation before the parliament now.

Women's safety on campus was first raised with me and with other crossbenchers in the first 18 months of this parliamentary term. We spoke then with a brave and fierce group of women from End Rape on Campus. I also want to acknowledge the hard work and dedication of the team from the STOP Campaign, Dr Allison Henry and all those who have fought for this important issue to be recognised and appropriately addressed by the Australian government.

Universities aren't just a place where people work and study. They're also a place where people live. Sexual assault on university campuses is not a new issue. Sadly, universities have abdicated their responsibility in this space for too long. It's time for women to be able to assert their right to be safe on campuses. It's time for universities and other education providers to respect and acknowledge that right. The government has had to take action on this occasion because the universities have not. So I thank the minister for introducing this legislation, and I'm pleased to give it the very full support of the universities, students and graduates of Kooyong.

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