2017-02-07
I rise today to talk about a trip that I made the weekend before last up to an area just out of Lexton for the Rainbow Serpent Festival to view and be shown around the festival and its new safe space for women, including women who have been victims of sexual assault. The festival itself is growing, and it is internationally renowned. It hosts up to 20 000 people every time it is run, and as has happened at numerous musical festivals around the country, there have been incidents of sexual assault reported over the last few years, so they have, to their credit, responded appropriately. They have set up a system of supporting victims based on the Victorian Centre Against Sexual Assault's work, which is obviously very well known and very well respected. We were very impressed with their new facilities and their new space.
However, I would like to comment that until we as a society start to take perpetrator accountability seriously in this space, all we will ever be doing is reacting to women's assaults and incidents of that sort. I encourage those people who are running these sorts of public events to look more thoroughly in that area.