Queensland sexual consent laws in overhaul

The laws will require proactive and continuing consent, after the state’s ­Attorney-General publicly backed similar laws in NSW.

Affirmative consent advocate Saxon Mullins says new laws in NSW set a high standard for other jurisdictions. Picture NCA Newswire/ Gaye Gerard

Sexual consent laws are set to be overhauled in Queensland, ­requiring proactive and continuing consent, after the state’s ­Attorney-General publicly backed similar laws in NSW.

Former Court of Appeal president Margaret McMurdo is leading a review into Queensland’s consent laws that will make recommendations to government at the end of the month.

Queensland is expected to follow other states and require consent to be conveyed by words or actions rather than assumed.

Attorney-General Shannon Fentiman will wait for Ms McMurdo’s recommendations before committing to legislating affirmative consent, but said she was “very supportive of that kind of model”.

“I think things have moved along,” Ms Fentimann said in an address to the Queensland Media Club on Tuesday. “I think the community now are a lot more comfortable with the idea of affirmative consent.”

Author and consent-reform advocate Bri Lee said she was relieved Queensland had signalled a move to affirmative consent.

“It’s what we have been fighting for since 2018 basically, and it would represent another wonderful domino falling in terms of us moving towards a nationwide affirmative consent standard,” she said. “Queensland could be ahead of the pack instead of historically, consistently, being well behind the pack.”

NSW became the second state in Australia to legislate ­affirmative consent, after Tasmania, when new laws came into effect on June 1.

Victoria and the ACT have also passed laws that will soon come into effect, while a review is under way in Western ­Australia.

Ms Fentiman said she would support nationally consistent consent laws, but that could be difficult because some states had a criminal code and others common law system.

Queensland’s criminal code was tweaked last year following a consent review by the Law ­Reform Commission, but survivors and advocates said the changes did not go far enough.

Jonathan Crowe, professor of law at Bond University, said ­affirmative consent means there should be an ongoing conversation during sex.

“It is not a matter of one person being the initiator and the other person remaining silent,” he said. “That is not good enough, but that is a position that has been relied upon in the past.

“Affirmative consent makes clear that just because someone is not fighting back or resisting, it does not mean they are ­consenting.”

The push to reform Australia’s consent laws came after Luke Lazarus was acquitted of raping Saxon Mullins, then 18 and a virgin, in an alleyway ­behind his ­father’s Kings Cross nightclub. The court found Mr Lazarus had a genuine and honest belief that Ms Mullins was ­consenting to anal sex even though “in her own mind” she was not.

Ms Mullins, an advocate for affirmative consent, said new laws in NSW set a high standard for other jurisdictions.

“For Queensland to now have an Attorney-General who is willing to listen to survivors and advocates and be leaning towards affirmative consent is massive,” said Ms Mullins, a director at Rape and Sexual Assault Research and Advocacy. “In the past, votes were not won or lost in the area of sexual violence, but I think that has changed.”