James Stevens (Sturt, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I appreciate the opportunity to make a contribution on this sensitive and delicate topic. It's important that we talk about difficult issues, and this is absolutely one of them. I want to add to the debate a South Australian perspective that I think is important. But, first, I want to endorse the contributions of all others to this debate so far.

I want to highlight an awful, terrible chapter in South Australian history, which was the murder of Dr George Duncan in 1972. He had been employed at the University of Adelaide only six weeks earlier. He was a very distinguished law graduate and law lecturer. He was thrown into the River Torrens, adjacent to the Adelaide university campus, in what is suspected to have been be a gay hate crime probably perpetrated by South Australian police. That is an unsolved crime. Regrettably, it happened in an era where the culture in the police force, in particular, was one of cover-ups and protection.

Also, shamefully, at that time homosexuality was in the criminal code, so the South Australian police engaged in the victimisation, persecution and intimidation of homosexual South Australians, of whom Dr Duncan was one. It's relevant to this because the crime was committed upon him leaving the University of Adelaide campus. It was part of a culture of seeking to identify homosexual people studying at the university and intimidate them. In Dr Duncan's case, the worst circumstance, he was brutally bashed and thrown into the River Torrens, and he ultimately died. The silver lining was that it led to South Australia becoming the first jurisdiction to decriminalise homosexuality. I pay tribute to Murray Hill, whose son, Robert Hill, served in this parliament, in the Senate. It was Murray Hill, a Liberal member of parliament, that took the opportunity of that awful crime to take the lead on the decriminalisation of homosexuality in South Australia, and we became the first jurisdiction to undertake reform in that area.

I make this contribution on the basis that, thankfully, the culture at our universities is dramatically and drastically different from what it was back in the 1970s and earlier. I think those awful chapters in our history are important to reflect on, firstly to give us some comfort that we have made progress, but secondly to re-energise us on the need for continuous reform and to remind us that the job of ending sexual harassment and sexual violence is far from over. We shouldn't be overly depressed that we haven't made progress, but we need to balance that with the reality that a lot more work needs to happen. I think reflecting on people like Dr Duncan and the crime committed against him can be helpful to give us some inspiration on how important it is to keep necessary reform in this space going.

I conclude by pointing out that the other really important thing about this topic is that, in the community, there are sometimes stereotypes about where sexual harassment, sexual assault and sexual violence are and aren't occurring. I think sometimes there's a view that universities and university campuses are the more enlightened places in our society—that they have higher standards of behaviour and conduct on this topic and others compared with the average building site or mine, or other elements of our society and our economy, where people might think that bad behaviour on this topic is more prevalent than at others. What the 2021 survey indicates, and what us debating this topic indicates, is that at universities, very regrettably, the experience people are having around sexual harassment and sexual violence is seemingly in line with, if not in some cases worse than, the general experience of that in our society. So universities have got a real burden on them to take this seriously and do a lot more work than they are doing right now. I hope that they see the outcome of some of this data as an appropriate call for them to deepen their action in this area.

Addressing sexual assault, sexual harassment, sexual violence and sexual discrimination more generally, particularly gender and sexuality based discrimination, are something that as a society we all have to do together—and no-one can pretend or say that it's not their responsibility—because, unless we're all on a unity ticket about seriously addressing this, we're not going to achieve what we want, which is, of course, the complete eradication of this appalling behaviour.

I appreciate the opportunity to contribute on this. I thank the minister for bringing this topic to the parliament. It's important for us to talk about it and think about how we can do more, and I hope that in my time here we continue to see dramatic improvement on this topic. It's very important for us as a parliament to take national leadership on it to achieve the results we want in this regard.

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