The ACT Legislative Assembly has just reformed its sexual consent laws, now defining consent as all people involved in the sexual activity expressing free and voluntary agreement.
The move to affirmative consent laws brings the territory into line with neighbouring state New South Wales, which passed laws to change its definition of consent in late 2021.
The bill passed on Thursday was first put to the ACT Legislative Assembly Labor MLA Marisa Paterson.
It seeks to outline that consent is not presumed, and there must be an ongoing and mutual conversation between participants of sexual activities.
The bill also recognises that people have a right to choose to not participate in sexual activities.
"This bill ... will bring ACT laws in-line with contemporary community attitudes around sexual consent," Attorney-General Shane Rattenbury said.
"By making it clear that consent needs to be sought and given, it changes the status quo when it to comes to engaging in sexual activity," he said.
Advocates 'really excited' about change to legislation
Carla Bennett is an advocate for The STOP Campaign and said the law reforms in the ACT signalled a step in the right direction for both victim-survivors and towards the prevention of sexual violence.
"I think it's going to make a really, really big difference for victim-survivors of sexual assault in Australia," she said.
Ms Bennett said she hoped the law reform would empower more people to report crimes committed against them and feel more supported by the justice system.
"I'm specifically really hopeful that this is going to place the onus off the victim-survivors and we're going to be focusing more on crimes and perpetrators than victim-blaming, which I think is a really big cultural problem in Australia."
She said she felt there was a mixed understanding of consent among young Australians and she hoped law reforms would lead to better education.
"I think that we need to place more focus on educating young people about what consent is, and what affirmative consent is in an intersectional and diverse way."
Defence barrister says new legislation conflicting
But defence barrister Stephen Whybrow said some of the language in the reforms was conflicting and might undermine the presumption of innocence.
"It's important when we're talking about criminal process that the word alleged — it's got a lot of work to do and it's important," he said.
"Somebody is an alleged victim, and [someone is] an alleged survivor.
"If somebody is convicted, absolutely they (the other person) is are a victim-survivor.
"But the increasing use of victim-survivor in circumstances where somebody has been accused, has denied their guilt, tends to undermine the presumption of innocence," he added.
Mr Whybrow also said the legislation changes could confuse the jury in court cases.
"As we'd all be aware, sexual relations between consenting adults take up all sorts of forms and activities, and this legislation seems to try to cover the field in a field that's very wide, so … is it that there has to be some form of words used? Some form of action? Some form of ongoing statement?"
"Obviously these things are all going to be matters for juries to consider in the circumstances."
