Clearing up any lingering confusion about exactly what constitutes consent is at the heart of the 12-month ad and information push announced by the Albanese Government on Sunday.
It starts with the line ‘If we don’t know the answers, how will our kids?’
Social Services Minister Amanda Rishworth said research shows both adults and young people understand the importance of the matter and that sex without consent is wrong.
“However, for many there is confusion around what consent means in a practical sense,” she said at the campaign’s launch in Adelaide.
Indeed, three in four Australians agree consent is a very important topic, and one in two adults are conflicted in their understanding of consent.
People are often unsure about whether consent could be withdrawn, for example, or whether the absence of a “yes” indicates a lack of consent.
Building on the work of the Stop it at the Start campaign to promote positive attitudes and behaviours on respectful relationships and gender equality among young people, by targeting their key adult influencers, the $40 million campaign will incorporate TV, online videos, social media and cinemas and encourage adults to check their understanding of consent, before discussing it with each other and young people.
In 2021, a widely-derided video of a young woman smearing a milkshake on a man’s face in a bid to convey consent was removed as part of the then coalition government’s Respect Matters campaign.
In what is clearly a dramatic improvement, one of the new ads features various people hugging and asking questions such as “what if we’ve been drinking and we go back to their place?”, “is a kiss consent to more?” and “what if I said yes earlier ... can I still change my mind?”.
In April 2021, the Morrison Government removed its controversial milkshake consent video following widespread criticism. Then Victorian acting education minister James Merlino described the ad as ‘confusing and cringeworthy’, while NSW Education Minister at the time, Sarah Mitchell, called it ‘woeful’ and ‘a missed opportunity’.
The campaign is a key part of the Government’s commitment to ending gender-based violence within a generation, and a response to the alarming rate at which Australians experience sexual violence.
Stats on the website reveal that one-in-five women and one-in-16 men have experienced sexual violence since the age of 15, while one-in-two women and one-in-four men have experienced sexual harassment during their lifetime.
Appallingly, a third of teenagers aged 18-19 had experienced at least one form of intimate partner violence in the last 12 months, and almost 10 per cent had experienced sexual abuse by someone they were dating.
“Learning about consent isn’t just about reducing harm, it is about providing the next generation with skills to have safe, healthy relationships for life,” Rishworth said.
The campaign uses research involving more than 2600 Australians and is based on consultation with a panel of sexual violence and consent experts, including Teach Us Consent campaigner Chanel Contos and Lizette Twisleton, head of engagement at No To Violence, an organisation that specialises in effective evidence-informed engagement with men.
“I think the impact of normalising public conversations about consent will be a significant step,” Contos, who’s also a campaign ambassador, said.
Twisleton agreed and said compared to every other consent campaign in history, “this really nails it”.
“It is invitational and appealing in a really great way,” she said.
Youth advocate, educator and campaign ambassador Daniel Principe says the difference with this ad campaign is ‘it's an invitation for us to be honest and real’. “I love that it allows us all to say ‘hey, I may not have all the answers but I'm gonna find out’,” he says.
Assistant Minister for the Prevention of Family Violence Justine Elliot said getting clear messages through to young people was critical to achieving a cultural shift.
“There’s a lot of contradictory messages and myths around consent, so it’s vital that we provide clarity and consistency on the messaging,” Elliot said.
“In fact, in Australia, one-in-five women and one-in-16 men has experienced sexual violence since the age of 15, with women most likely to experience this at the hands of an intimate partner.
“This campaign will ensure everyone in the community has a better understanding around consent and help us to come together in preventing this violence.”
Youth advocate and educator Daniel Principe is an ambassador for the campaign, and says it finally addresses the elephant in the room – the global porn industry and its impact on young men.
“This is the first campaign that has engaged faithfully with what is a default sex educator for young people and giving them the tools to actually dissect the messages that they receive about consent, respect, violence, shared pleasure, mutuality and actually inviting them to consider is this healthy for them?
“Is this equipping them to form the kinds of relationships that are going to be mutually satisfying, safe and consensual?”
Professor Lisa Featherstone is head of a 16-person expert panel of University of Queensland researchers who’ve been trying to work out exactly what young people need to know about affirmative consent and the best way to get the message across.
“Affirmative consent is an enthusiastic ‘yes’ to sex,” Featherstone said.
“But what we find is that people who are in vulnerable situations are not able to say ‘yes’ or ‘no’, they don’t really have those options.
“In some relationships people might be vulnerable to pressure or outright coercion or even actual physical violence when they attempt to say no to sexual encounters.
“We want to see how consent operates in the real world and also prevent affirmative consent being used in courts to say that someone has consented, when in actual fact, they haven’t.”
The new website has an interactive question generator and “misconception cards” to debunk common myths about consent, as well as conversation guides.
The Labor Government said research shows about 25 per cent of teenage boys in Australia look up to social media personalities who perpetuate harmful gender stereotypes.
Giving clear messages to young people was critical to achieving a cultural shift, Prevention of Family Violence Assistant Minister Justine Elliot said.
“There’s a lot of contradictory messages and myths around consent, so it’s vital that we provide clarity and consistency on the messaging,” she said.
Earlier this month national cabinet held an emergency meeting on domestic violence prevention, after a number of high-profile cases involving women who were killed by men they knew.
According to the Counting Dead Women Australia site on Facebook, 29 have died from violence this year.
In response, the Federal Government has pledged more than $900 million to make permanent a program to provide a one-off $5000 payment to women fleeing violence.
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