Monash University statement on release of Federal Government Action Plan Addressing Gendered Violence in Higher Education
Monash University’s Vice-Chancellor and President Professor Sharon Pickering has been a leading voice on making Australia’s universities safe places to learn and work.
The following remarks can be attributed to Professor Pickering:
“I congratulate the Federal Government on the release of the Action Plan, following the agreement with state and territory Education Ministers today.
“The Action Plan is the culmination of over a year of hard work, involving the Department of Education, the higher education sector, community organisations, peak bodies, and student groups.
“It is a key component of the Federal Government’s National Plan to End Violence Against Women and Children over the next 10 years.
“Monash University is proud to have contributed, including through convening and working collaboratively with a roundtable of Victorian universities last December and through our engagement with students.
“For our University, making our campuses safe, inclusive and welcoming places is embedded in everything we do – as they should be.
“We understand the power and importance of working together, and the ongoing opportunity to work collaboratively with the sector and students, to eliminate sexual harm and gender-based violence from our communities.
“Our robust strategies, policies and procedures support a thriving, inclusive and safe community for our staff and students now and for the future, through a range of sector-leading initiatives designed in collaboration with students, academic experts and victim-survivors.
“As someone who has worked in this area for more than two decades, I know there is more to do.
“Tertiary education is one of the places where young people become adults – they develop and refine their personal values and beliefs.
“Universities like ours have an opportunity to shape the values and actions of students to drive social change at scale. We have a responsibility to ensure the campus is a safe space and when it’s not, that there are clear, fair and accessible procedures and pathways that are transparent and trauma-informed.
“The Action Plan makes the responsibilities of all stakeholders very clear – for education institutions, accommodation providers, students, staff, government and community – and sets in place an approach where we all work together to prevent gender-based violence and ensure safer communities.
“Monash University looks forward to continuing to work with the Government and the sector to develop the National Code, and we encourage the greater facilitation of student voices in leading this work.”
Background
Monash University has a responsibility to prevent sexual harm in our communities. We support victims-survivors, respond justly and empathetically to all disclosures and reports, and implement evidence-based prevention programming for staff and students. We remain committed to building a thriving, inclusive and safe community for our staff and students, now and for the future.
We remain committed to fulfilling our National Student Safety Survey Action Plan, which was developed in close consultation with our community.
Ensuring student safety across our campuses and locations, in Australia and internationally, is our top priority. This includes exploring the benefits of conducting our own student safety survey to ensure our student voices are heard and appropriate prevention and response measures are developed.
Monash will continue to participate in future student safety surveys developed by peak bodies for the university sector.
Monash published the University’s Sexual Harm Prevention and Response 2022 Annual Report on 19 June 2023.
This document includes detail of both prevention and response activities across the year, including sexual harm reports received, captures the measures the University has put in place since the release of the Change the Course Report, and provides an oversight of plans to continue to change on- and off-campus culture through primary prevention.