Larissa Waters (Queensland, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Today the Western Australian parliament will introduce laws to remove significant barriers to accessing abortions. As the last remaining state jurisdiction with elements of criminality around abortion, this change is very welcome. It will remove outdated restrictions that require women to get mandatory counselling and consult two doctors before making a decision about their own body. The new laws will also ensure that doctors with a conscientious objection are required to refer people seeking an abortion to another doctor willing to help them with what is a straightforward legal procedure.

On the downside, this week it has been one year since the Supreme Court of the United States overturned the decision in Roe v Wade, the court ruling which had since the 1970s protected abortion access in America as a universal right. The overturning of Roe v Wade has sparked a significant regression in policies around abortion by state legislatures across America. I'm really pleased that in Australia we're heading in the opposite direction, with states strengthening the rights to access reproductive health care.

The recent Greens-initiated Senate inquiry into universal access to sexual, maternal and reproductive health care delivered a strong cross-party statement on the importance of access to abortion, but that inquiry also heard that much more needs to be done to remove the practical barriers faced by those experiencing an unintended pregnancy. We heard evidence about the postcode lottery for access to safe abortion that sees many women, particularly in regional Australia, travelling hundreds of kilometres and paying hundreds of dollars to get a termination. We heard about the shortage of surgeons trained to provide abortion services and restrictions preventing GPs from prescribing medical abortion drugs. Regional areas are often served by fly-in doctors rather than having a local provider, meaning that they might not be available when they're needed. We heard that conscientious objectors don't always refer to other providers. In regional areas if your only local doctor has a conscientious objection, a referral can mean travelling far from home. Limited access can mean patients are waiting up to six weeks for abortions—a critical delay for a time-sensitive procedure. It should not be this difficult to access health care.

Until barriers are removed, universal access on paper is not the reality for far too many women. The Greens believe that abortion care is basic health care that should be free and available through the public healthcare system. The Senate inquiry recommended public hospitals provide surgical terminations or a timely and affordable local pathway to an alternative provider. But unless those alternative pathways are fully funded, people who can't access a termination through their local hospital are at a significant disadvantage. Again this has the biggest impact on people in rural and regional Australia and those without a Medicare card. The federal government should commit to ensuring abortions are available through public hospitals or commit to fully funding the alternative local pathways.

The patchwork of different laws across the country also creates a barrier to access. The laws introduced in Western Australia today will bring that state much closer to best practice, but women really deserve harmonised, consistent, best-practice reproductive healthcare laws across Australia. The federal government could and should be driving that harmonisation push. The Australian community is strongly pro-choice and has been so for decades. Thanks to the tireless efforts of so many staunch advocates over many decades, much progress has been made, but much more needs to be done. Abortion is health care. It should be accessible, affordable, safe, legal, compassionate and free from stigma. The Greens will keep fighting until we get there.

Staying on women's rights over their bodies, in August 2017 the Australian Human Rights Commission released its landmark report Change the course: national report on sexual assault and sexual harassment at Australian universities (2017). The report found that 21 per cent of university students were sexually harassed, and 1.6 per cent were sexually assaulted in a university setting in 2016. It found that sexual assault survivors often struggled to access adequate support services and that university responses were failing to meet their students' needs.

This remains a shocking statistic. University can be an overwhelming time and it's often a young person's first experience living away from home. Universities have a clear responsibility to provide a safe environment for students to learn and to prevent sexual violence and to respond appropriately when it happens.

In the wake of the Change the course report, what did the universities do? The answer is, not nearly enough. Despite years of students speaking out, hoping that sharing their traumatic experiences would lead to action, and despite the tireless efforts of advocates like End Rape on Campus and Fair Agenda to hold universities accountable, the most recent national student survey revealed that little has changed. Far too many students, particularly female students, still feel unsafe and unsupported by their university. There are 275 students reporting assaults on campuses across the country every week. Without major changes and independent oversight of university responses, thousands of students are at risk.

End Rape on Campus says that most universities are failing students at every point of responsibility. They're failing to provide evidence based programs to prevent rape on campus. They're failing to provide timely trauma informed support to students who report rape on campus. They're failing to provide basic measures, like making sure survivors don't have to sit in the same classroom as the person who assaulted them. They're failing to ensure that tutors and staff don't have a history of sexual violence. They're failing to make adjustments to assist students at risk of falling out of their course while dealing with trauma. Some students are having to show multiple letters from doctors and counsellors just to get an extension.

Funding was allocated to Universities Australia 12 months ago to develop an on-campus prevention program to be rolled out in O-Week of this year. Peer-led resources were under development but they were delayed. I was very concerned to learn in estimates, a few weeks ago, that this program was scrapped and replaced with internal materials on responses to assault complaints. Universities Australia made that unilateral decision to change direction against the advice of experts on the advisory panel, including End Rape on Campus.

Whilst improving responses is clearly important, that change of focus leaves students at many universities without much needed consent and prevention education. After waiting for years and with repeated surveys confirming that work needs to be done, prevention work at universities is still woefully inadequate. There has been some welcome progress on consent education in schools, and this chamber passed laws to establish positive duties to provide safe workplaces, but there's a gaping hole in the response, in that period in between, when students are at uni and at significant risk of assault.

No student should ever have to drop out of uni because they feel unsafe, but unless students feel protected by their university they can be too scared to go to campus. They don't go to class or to the library or to academic support services. They drop out at higher rates and put their academic dreams on hold, sometimes with lifelong consequences.

Universities must take this matter seriously. They need genuine zero tolerance policies for sexual assault. They need transparent, timely complaints procedures and appropriate support to students from the moment they raise concerns. They must ensure that residential colleges have professional, trauma-informed staff and clear accountability for enforcing sexual harassment policies. They need expert-led prevention programs rolled out urgently, on all campuses, co-designed by peers and students so they land. Universities must also ensure that they address the distinct challenges faced by people of colour, migrants, First Nations people, LGBTIQ+ communities and other marginalised groups on this issue. The current review of the Universities Accord is a critical opportunity to reassess what universities are doing and, finally, get some change.