Second Reading - Universities Accord (National Higher Education Code to Prevent and Respond to Gender-Based Violence) Bill 2025

This week the new National Student Ombudsman opened its doors.

It has the powers of a Royal Commission to investigate complaints made against a university.

This is a national first.

And it has been a long time coming.

Too long.

For too long students have been let down by their universities and inaction by previous Governments.

Advocates have been ignored and they shouldn’t have been.

The evidence is overwhelming.

One in twenty university students report being sexually assaulted on campus.

One in six report being sexually harassed.

And one in two report that they felt they weren’t being heard when they made a complaint.

That’s why I acted.

That’s why this Government has acted.

Introducing legislation last year to create the first National Student Ombudsman.

But this is just the first step.

These bills that I introduce today are the next steps.

They provide for the establishment and enforcement of a National Higher Education Code to Prevent and Respond to Gender-based Violence.

The Code will be made by the Minister as a legislative instrument and it will set out best practice requirements that all higher education providers will be required to meet.

It will hold all higher education providers to consistently high standards to proactively prevent and respond to gender-based violence.    

These standards will be backed by monitoring and enforcement to ensure that we build a culture of compliance in this critical area.

Under the Code, higher education providers will be required to take evidence-based steps to prevent gender-based violence on their campuses. 

This includes requiring that Vice-Chancellors and CEOs to make a whole-of-organisation plan, and report to their Governing Bodies every six months on the actions they are taking to implement it. 

They will be required to provide evidence-based prevention education and training to staff and students and consider any history of gender-based violence in the recruitment and promotion of staff. 

They will be required to consult with students, staff and people with lived experience, and their approach must be informed by evidence of what works. 

The Code will also ensure that when the worst happens, students and staff have access to the best response possible. 

A response that’s trauma informed and puts people first. 

A response that ensures people are heard, have agency in what happens next, have access to the support that they need and are supported by their institution to achieve their educational outcomes.

Providers will be required to train staff and student leaders on how best to respond to disclosures. 

And non-disclosure agreements will be prohibited, unless requested by a victim-survivor.  

Providers will also be required to report de-identified data and measure the changes that their policies are securing, informing compliance, ensuring accountability and contributing to the national evidence base to help us build an understanding of what works best. 

The Code will also include an enforceable requirement that providers implement the recommendations of the National Student Ombudsman.

This gives the findings and recommendations of the Ombudsman real teeth and will make sure that they are put in place to improve our universities and other providers.

University is not just a place where people learn. For many students, it’s where they live.

That’s why the Code will also have specific requirements to help ensure that student accommodation is safe for students.

The Code will require that following a disclosure or formal report, measures are immediately put in place to prioritise residents’ safety and arrange urgent support services. 

And for accommodation which is affiliated with a university but not controlled by it, the university will be required to seek that accommodation provider’s agreement to meet the requirements of the Code or lose the benefits of their affiliation with the university.

And universities will have an obligation to investigate formal reports of gender-based violence even where they occur at student accommodation which is operated by a third party.

If you want to know why that’s important, you just have to look at the accounts of sexual assault and mistreatment at university colleges and other on-campus accommodation.

Universities will not have the option of saying “a disclosure of gender-based violence is a matter for a private college”. Where the discloser or respondent is a student or staff member of the university, the Code will require that the university take action, including to provide trauma-informed support and to investigate where necessary. 

The Code has been the subject of broad consultation over the past eight months, including with victim-survivor advocates, students, the higher education sector, gender-based violence experts, states and territories and relevant Australian Government agencies. 

Detailed consultation has taken place through an Expert Reference Group comprising 19 leaders from higher education, gender-based violence and the student accommodation sectors and victim-survivor advocates.

I table a copy of the draft Code for the information of colleagues.

The Code contains critically important standards and requirements which all higher education providers must follow.

That’s why these bills also establish a new regulatory framework with robust compliance monitoring backed by strong enforcement powers.

To monitor and enforce the Code, a new specialist gender-based violence unit will be established within the Department of Education.

The unit will provide guidance, education and advice to support universities and other providers in understanding their legal obligations under the Code.

The unit will also be able to exercise a significant range of powers to monitor, investigate and respond to non-compliance with the Code and the measures in this Bill.

These powers include issuing requests for information, compliance notices, infringement notices, and powers to require enforceable undertakings and to seek civil penalties and injunctions through a court.

As I mentioned earlier, Vice Chancellors and CEOs will be directly accountable for the compliance of their university with the Code, including requirements that they report every six months to their governing body.

The bills provide for significant civil penalties where a provider fails to comply with the National Code or a compliance notice from the Secretary, or fails to keep records or meet their reporting obligations.

Compliance with the National Code will also become a quality and accountability requirement for providers under the Higher Education Support Act 2003.

Transparency is important here too.

That’s why the bill provides for annual reporting on the gender-based violence unit’s operations and performance which will be tabled in both Houses of Parliament.

The introduction of the Code is part of the Action Plan Addressing Gender-Based Violence in Higher Education, agreed to by all Education Ministers in February last year.

That Action Plan was recommended by a working group of Commonwealth, State and Territory Governments which my Department convened as part of our response to the Australian Universities Accord Interim Report.

The Universities Accord Interim Report underlined the importance of moving immediately to address sexual assault and sexual harassment in our universities. 

That’s what I have done.

The Student Ombudsman is now up and running.

And these Bills are the next steps.

I want to thank everyone who has been involved in bringing them to the Parliament today.

From the Universities Accord Panel, to the Working Group, Expert Reference Group and Education Ministers across the country. To my colleagues and our respective Departments and offices who worked together to make today possible.

And most importantly to the advocates and the victim-survivors who have fought for this for so long.

Organisations like End Rape on Campus.

End Rape on Campus was founded in 2016 by Sharna Bremner; she ran it with a small group of committed volunteers.

Working for free.

Working to make the lives of students safer.

Incredibly important work.

When this Parliament passed legislation last year to set up the National Student Ombudsman, they put out this statement:

            “End Rape on Campus Australia has now permanently closed… Almost 9 years to the day since our founding, we’ve done the thing that organisations like ours should be aiming to do – we’ve advocated ourselves out of business. We’re incredibly thankful to everyone who has supported us over the years.”

End Rape on Campus didn’t close because the work to rid our campuses of sexual assault and harassment is complete. It is not.

It was because Government was finally listening – and we were bringing together the resources needed to make a real difference.

That’s what the National Student Ombudsman is.

And that’s what these bills and the draft National Code are.

I commend these bills to the House.