Latest / Dr Justin Coulson's Happy Families / #1126 - Why Consent Can't Wait with Chanel Contos
Transcript
- 0:04Speaker 1: It's the Happy Families Podcast. It's the podcast for the
- 0:08Speaker 1: time poor parent who just wants answers.
- 0:11Speaker 2: Now, Hello and welcome the Happy Families Podcast.
- 0:16Speaker 3: So good to have you along today.
- 0:18Speaker 2: I am extremely delighted, so pleased to welcome Chanelle Coontos
- 0:24Speaker 2: to the Happy Families Podcast today. Chanelle Contos is a
- 0:28Speaker 2: leading advocate for sexual consent education in Australia and the
- 0:31Speaker 2: founder of the Teach Us Consent movement. We're going to
- 0:34Speaker 2: talk more about that movement shortly just before we kick
- 0:38Speaker 2: on with the podcast, though a quick heads up, some
- 0:40Speaker 2: of the discussions that we're going to be having in
- 0:43Speaker 2: this podcast will probably not be for small is that
- 0:47Speaker 2: the content is not explicit by any stretch. But we
- 0:50Speaker 2: are going to be talking about consent sexual issues and
- 0:54Speaker 2: making sure that we can reduce the amount of abuse
- 0:57Speaker 2: and increase the amount of respect that we see in
- 1:00Speaker 2: the way that kids are being raised, especially around this topic.
- 1:03Speaker 2: So if you've got young kids who are listening to
- 1:05Speaker 2: the podcast with you, may be in the car on
- 1:06Speaker 2: the way to school, this one might be one to
- 1:08Speaker 2: have listened to on your own first before you decide
- 1:10Speaker 2: whether to bring the kids in important discussion. Nevertheless, please
- 1:14Speaker 2: use your parental discretion Wisely, Chanel Contos has been a
- 1:18Speaker 2: powerful voice for the urgent need for comprehensive consent education
- 1:22Speaker 2: in schools and a result of her work, we pretty
- 1:24Speaker 2: much have that across the nation now. She's also an
- 1:26Speaker 2: ambassador as am I for the Australian Government's Consent Can't
- 1:30Speaker 2: Wait campaign. Go to Consent dot gov dot au for
- 1:34Speaker 2: more on that, and she Noel continues to work towards
- 1:36Speaker 2: the future where young people grow up understanding the importance
- 1:38Speaker 2: of respect for relationships and the boundaries of consent. So
- 1:41Speaker 2: good to have you on the podcast this morning. Where
- 1:43Speaker 2: does this conversation find you?
- 1:45Speaker 1: I'm actually an Oxford at the moment, I just started
- 1:47Speaker 1: to studying again.
- 1:48Speaker 2: Wow okay, And it's early for you and it's late
- 1:51Speaker 2: for me because time zones are really hard. So delighted. Yeah,
- 1:56Speaker 2: de love to be able to talk with you about
- 1:57Speaker 2: this conversation. There will be some people, even in twenty
- 2:00Speaker 2: twenty four who didn't quite catch the whole teachers consent thing,
- 2:04Speaker 2: the thing where you probably unintentionally, I guess, became a
- 2:09Speaker 2: national spokesperson for consent. For those who are unfamiliar with
- 2:14Speaker 2: the story, can you please give us a sort of
- 2:17Speaker 2: a reader's digest feeling of what teachers consent is and
- 2:21Speaker 2: how you came to be doing what you're doing.
- 2:23Speaker 1: Yeah. So, Teachers Consent started as a campaign, and it
- 2:29Speaker 1: started as a petition for consent education to be mandated
- 2:32Speaker 1: in the Australian national curriculum. It actually started as a
- 2:34Speaker 1: petition the concer education to be mandated in my local community.
- 2:38Speaker 1: And then because it got traction from all around Australia,
- 2:41Speaker 1: we pretty quickly expanded it to you know, make it
- 2:45Speaker 1: inclusive of everyone in all schools. And in that process
- 2:49Speaker 1: we collected and published testimonies of sexual assault or rape
- 2:55Speaker 1: that occurred while people were of school age they think
- 3:01Speaker 1: could have been preventable or at least handled it in
- 3:05Speaker 1: a better way if they had a better understanding of consent.
- 3:09Speaker 1: That was supposed to emphasize the petition. So we ended
- 3:12Speaker 1: up getting almost fifty thousand signatures in that petition and
- 3:16Speaker 1: almost seven thousand people submitted these sorts of testimonies and
- 3:19Speaker 1: actually more did but we could only read and post
- 3:22Speaker 1: seven thousand because it got to a point where it
- 3:26Speaker 1: was a lot and we worked very closely across the
- 3:29Speaker 1: political spectrum for a year quite intensely, and then consent
- 3:35Speaker 1: education was mandated from kindergarten to year ten in all
- 3:39Speaker 1: Australian schools every single year in a nache appropriate way
- 3:43Speaker 1: as a consequence, which is really exciting.
- 3:45Speaker 2: Chanel, It's an incredible story. I don't want to glorify
- 3:49Speaker 2: or glamorize what occurred, because it's a sult, it's ripe.
- 3:53Speaker 3: It's just it's appalling.
- 3:56Speaker 2: And yet when you share the story that you've just shared,
- 4:00Speaker 2: sometimes it's easy to gloss over the reality that the pain,
- 4:04Speaker 2: the violence, the awfulness of what occurred. I wonder if
- 4:10Speaker 2: in a way that you feel comfortable if you can
- 4:12Speaker 2: help people who are listening to this and maybe going oh, yeah, okay,
- 4:16Speaker 2: that's great, well done.
- 4:17Speaker 3: Good on you for doing that.
- 4:19Speaker 2: Can you help can you help us to understand the
- 4:21Speaker 2: gravity or the impact of these seven thousand plus testimonials
- 4:26Speaker 2: of primarily school girls, although not exclusively, who have endured
- 4:33Speaker 2: these challenges. You can you give us a bit more
- 4:34Speaker 2: context around that, again without sort of turning into too
- 4:38Speaker 2: something that it's not meant to be.
- 4:41Speaker 1: I think the context that is important is that, and
- 4:47Speaker 1: I think this was also what teachers consent did quite
- 4:50Speaker 1: specifically was we looked at normalized sexual violence, and I
- 4:54Speaker 1: think a lot of the context of teachers consent was
- 4:57Speaker 1: that these are things that happened when people were young,
- 5:00Speaker 1: but because of their lack of understanding around consent or
- 5:03Speaker 1: respectful relationships, they you know, never seek help about it.
- 5:07Speaker 1: They didn't really think much else about it. They kind
- 5:09Speaker 1: of labeled it as like an uncomfortable or unwanted sexual experience.
- 5:13Speaker 1: They never thought about it as potentially a crime or
- 5:16Speaker 1: something that they should tell a parent or a teacher about,
- 5:18Speaker 1: or you know, an older sibling or something like that.
- 5:22Speaker 1: And I think that normalization is really key here as well,
- 5:25Speaker 1: because it explains why because you know, yeah, as you said,
- 5:28Speaker 1: almost seven thousand testimonies, almost all of them were young girls.
- 5:32Speaker 1: Almost all of the perpetrators were young boys. Even when
- 5:36Speaker 1: the victims were boys in those testimonies, almost all the
- 5:39Speaker 1: time the perpetrators were young boys as well. And I
- 5:42Speaker 1: think when we think about that, it also helps us
- 5:45Speaker 1: understand how it could be possible that that sort of
- 5:49Speaker 1: scale of violence is being perpetrated in our schools. There's, uh,
- 5:54Speaker 1: there's so much I want to go into right now.
- 5:56Speaker 1: I actually I've written a whole book on different types
- 5:58Speaker 1: of rapists and perpetration and how you can prevent those
- 6:02Speaker 1: different things. So if you want to check that out
- 6:04Speaker 1: for more information, it's called Concentale Bear. But in brief,
- 6:07Speaker 1: there are forms of sexual violence that are easy to
- 6:10Speaker 1: prevent with education, and this sort of normalized violence that
- 6:15Speaker 1: occurs in teen years perpetrated out of ignorance, out of entitlement,
- 6:19Speaker 1: out of the fact that the main form of sex
- 6:21Speaker 1: education for young people these days in Australia and beyond
- 6:24Speaker 1: is pornography. Those sorts of acts of sexual violence can
- 6:30Speaker 1: be counteracted with adequate conversations and educations, and that's why
- 6:35Speaker 1: there's such a focus on it, I think, because they
- 6:37Speaker 1: also make up the majority of this sort of Yeah,
- 6:40Speaker 1: this context.
- 6:41Speaker 3: Consent light Bear is the name of the book.
- 6:44Speaker 2: I really appreciate the way you describe I'm going to
- 6:46Speaker 2: use the term the casual brutality of this just accepting
- 6:50Speaker 2: that boys be boys, or it's just the way things are,
- 6:53Speaker 2: or I didn't know, or there was, like you said,
- 6:55Speaker 2: this fundamental misunderstanding of what consent is and how it's
- 6:58Speaker 2: supposed to work, which leads to who I mean, These
- 7:01Speaker 2: experiences cast long shadows through the remainder of many of
- 7:04Speaker 2: these people's lives. This is not a oh, whoops, we
- 7:07Speaker 2: made a mistake. Let's just get on with it and
- 7:09Speaker 2: fist pump, We're good. These are much more serious things, Chanel,
- 7:13Speaker 2: You've become an ambassador for consent. Can't why it's federal
- 7:16Speaker 2: government initiative you and I are both involved with, as
- 7:18Speaker 2: well as Dan Prince pay and some other really wonderful people.
- 7:22Speaker 2: What's your role there and what do you think the
- 7:25Speaker 2: federal government's really trying to do here to help parents
- 7:28Speaker 2: and to help kids, and to help educators to deal
- 7:31Speaker 2: with this increasingly challenging problem.
- 7:35Speaker 1: The whole idea behind it is to encourage parents or
- 7:40Speaker 1: guardians or really anyone who has young people in their
- 7:44Speaker 1: life to take a step back and think, am I
- 7:47Speaker 1: currently equipped to answer these questions? Is there anything else
- 7:50Speaker 1: I could learn myself about this topic so that I
- 7:52Speaker 1: can feel more comfortable delivering it or you know, initiating
- 7:55Speaker 1: it or responding to it when it inevitably will come
- 7:59Speaker 1: up when you're as a young person. And the whole
- 8:03Speaker 1: point is, you know, consent education and these sorts of
- 8:07Speaker 1: conversations in the mainstream are a relatively new thing for
- 8:11Speaker 1: the general population. Obviously, some people would have had quite
- 8:14Speaker 1: specific education on all this stuff throughout their whole lives.
- 8:17Speaker 1: But the whole idea is that there's a very good
- 8:20Speaker 1: chance that this education skipped you. You might intuitively understand
- 8:25Speaker 1: it and know it, but we just want to help
- 8:26Speaker 1: you with accessing the language and helping you know kind
- 8:31Speaker 1: of what's age appropriate for different children, or what should
- 8:34Speaker 1: be happening, or what conversations should I be having with
- 8:36Speaker 1: my kids friends' parents as well to understand what's going on,
- 8:41Speaker 1: and what are the ways that I can, you know,
- 8:46Speaker 1: educate myself before I attempt to educate others.
- 8:48Speaker 2: So many questions that we really need to unpack here.
- 8:52Speaker 2: I want to because we're in the middle of school
- 8:53Speaker 2: this week. It's the end of school year. Everyone's I
- 8:56Speaker 2: mean this. There were so many stories, so many testimonials,
- 8:58Speaker 2: so many painful experiences that came through your website that
- 9:03Speaker 2: highlighted that this is the time of the year when
- 9:05Speaker 2: so much harm can be done if parents have got
- 9:09Speaker 2: kids heading to schools or already there. I guess in
- 9:12Speaker 2: some ways some people might say it's a bit too late,
- 9:14Speaker 2: but I don't know if it's ever too late to
- 9:15Speaker 2: have a conversation about consent. How do you talk to
- 9:18Speaker 2: parents about the things that they can say to their
- 9:22Speaker 2: kids and actually get through Because a lot of teenagers,
- 9:24Speaker 2: I mean sixteen, seventeen, eighteen year olds, mum starts to
- 9:27Speaker 2: or dad starts to have a conversation about sex and consent,
- 9:30Speaker 2: a lot of them are going to roll their eyes
- 9:31Speaker 2: and be like, hello, you were born last century.
- 9:34Speaker 3: What do you know.
- 9:36Speaker 1: I think a few things are one the conversations can
- 9:39Speaker 1: be had from a really early early age. They just
- 9:42Speaker 1: don't necessarily have to be about sex or referring to
- 9:45Speaker 1: sexon anyway.
- 9:46Speaker 3: Yeah, of course.
- 9:46Speaker 1: Yeah, So you can normalize these conversations with young people.
- 9:49Speaker 1: You can teach and this is also what's in the
- 9:53Speaker 1: Australian curriculum from kindergarten. You can teach your kids to
- 9:58Speaker 1: ask permission, to hold someone's hand, to braid their hair,
- 10:02Speaker 1: to play with their toys. You can teach them how
- 10:05Speaker 1: to give permission or deny permission and show them that
- 10:09Speaker 1: will be respected when they exhibit that. So that by
- 10:12Speaker 1: the time you are talking about this in a sexual
- 10:13Speaker 1: way around high school, when it becomes very relevant for
- 10:16Speaker 1: young people, that it's just kind of like intuitive to them,
- 10:19Speaker 1: and they already understand these principles and they can just
- 10:21Speaker 1: apply it to this new lens of this new activity
- 10:23Speaker 1: that they may or may not be doing or will
- 10:25Speaker 1: be doing in the near future. And I also think
- 10:29Speaker 1: even though I can almost guarantee you if you have
- 10:32Speaker 1: these conversations with your kids, they will rotherize, but that
- 10:34Speaker 1: does not mean they are not listening. I think that
- 10:37Speaker 1: they will respond in a way that he is probably like, Okay, yeah,
- 10:41Speaker 1: I'm embarrassed to get it whatever again, unless you've had
- 10:45Speaker 1: this you built up over a long time and you've
- 10:48Speaker 1: normalized these sorts of conversations with them, But that doesn't
- 10:51Speaker 1: mean that it's not soaking in and that doesn't mean
- 10:52Speaker 1: that they're not appreciating that an adult is speaking to
- 10:55Speaker 1: them like an adult in this space. And I think
- 10:58Speaker 1: also a way to make sure that you're not just
- 11:00Speaker 1: like completely missing the market again to access the resources
- 11:04Speaker 1: that are provided to you by the Australian government or
- 11:06Speaker 1: other resources and figure out what are actually the challenges
- 11:11Speaker 1: that young people that your child is facing today and
- 11:13Speaker 1: then use your intuition as a parent or a caregiver
- 11:16Speaker 1: to know what maturity level they may be out in
- 11:18Speaker 1: that situation, and then how explicitly and what sort of
- 11:21Speaker 1: topics should be relevant to them. It really is a
- 11:24Speaker 1: conversation that needs to be had in various ways from
- 11:28Speaker 1: a really young age. But if you've gotten too schoolies
- 11:30Speaker 1: now and you're thinking, oh my god, they're off to
- 11:32Speaker 1: schoolies and I've never had this conversation with them before,
- 11:35Speaker 1: it's not too late to you know. You can text
- 11:37Speaker 1: them a resource, you can give them a call. You
- 11:39Speaker 1: can remind them that consent is the law. You can
- 11:43Speaker 1: remind them that consent is important in any happy relationship.
- 11:47Speaker 1: There's definitely ways. From a farce end, a little reminder
- 11:53Speaker 1: to our young people who are currently gathering in various
- 11:57Speaker 1: parts of Australia.
- 12:05Speaker 2: Three things that have come out of this conversation. The
- 12:08Speaker 2: first is just the reminder. I spoke with Ben Matthews, QT,
- 12:11Speaker 2: law professor. You're probably familiar with his work, Chanel. He
- 12:14Speaker 2: did the Australian Child my Treatment Study. Incredible guy. Research
- 12:20Speaker 2: that he conducted shows that Australian adolescents boys are the
- 12:24Speaker 2: most likely to commit child sexual abuse, that is sexual
- 12:28Speaker 2: abuse on anybody who was under the age of eighteen
- 12:30Speaker 2: and child on child sex abuses pretty much at record
- 12:34Speaker 2: levels for all of the reasons that you've just highlighted.
- 12:38Speaker 2: This is such a wake up call for Australia, for
- 12:41Speaker 2: our parents and for our young people around. This second
- 12:44Speaker 2: thing that I wanted to highlight was just on that one.
- 12:47Speaker 2: On the fifth of November, I did a podcast where
- 12:49Speaker 2: I answered a question from a listener who said her
- 12:51Speaker 2: seven year old had come to her and said, I'm
- 12:54Speaker 2: a bit worried because my friend, who was also seven,
- 12:56Speaker 2: has got a girlfriend he wants to take pictures of
- 12:58Speaker 2: her vagina. And I just said, how wonderful it is
- 13:02Speaker 2: that this seven year old has gone to mum and
- 13:05Speaker 2: that Mum's created an environment where he knows I'm uncomfortable,
- 13:09Speaker 2: this feels icky, and the home situation is open and
- 13:13Speaker 2: supportive and judgmental, which brings me to the third thing
- 13:16Speaker 2: that I was going to say, and I guess it's well,
- 13:18Speaker 2: this is the question that comes off the back of
- 13:20Speaker 2: those two things.
- 13:21Speaker 3: What have you seen works when it comes.
- 13:23Speaker 2: To creating opportunities for open and supportive and non judgmental conversations.
- 13:29Speaker 2: A lot of parents number one don't know what to say,
- 13:31Speaker 2: and number two, even if they know what to say
- 13:33Speaker 2: they feel pretty uncomfortable with it, like, how do you
- 13:36Speaker 2: just how do you get the conversation going if you
- 13:39Speaker 2: haven't gone there before.
- 13:40Speaker 1: I think that trying to remove this kind of like
- 13:44Speaker 1: societal and post shame on the topic needs to go.
- 13:48Speaker 1: It's obviously an uncomfortable conversation. Look, sexual assault is an
- 13:51Speaker 1: uncomfortable conversation, and of course there should be shame around
- 13:54Speaker 1: the fact that the rates of it in our society
- 13:57Speaker 1: are so high, and to that statistic of adolescent males
- 14:02Speaker 1: being the main perpetrators of child sexual abuse and sexual
- 14:05Speaker 1: assault in our country, you know, that's devastating, but we
- 14:10Speaker 1: can also look at that as an opportunity of how
- 14:12Speaker 1: to change that because there's a reason that we've slightly
- 14:17Speaker 1: not me. We're not perfect, and there's still very long
- 14:20Speaker 1: way to go, but there has been slight reductions in
- 14:23Speaker 1: child sexual abuse being perpetrated by adults because we do
- 14:27Speaker 1: have widespread conversations, because you know, we've got safeguarding measures,
- 14:31Speaker 1: different things in place to protect vulnerable children in that way,
- 14:36Speaker 1: and I think that parents having conversations often and also
- 14:42Speaker 1: being willing to learn themselves, because you know, sometimes these
- 14:46Speaker 1: conversations may lead to a young person being like, actually, no,
- 14:50Speaker 1: like this is what I think, or you know, this
- 14:52Speaker 1: is how this is, and you might have to go
- 14:54Speaker 1: back and look at that and see is that the
- 14:56Speaker 1: reality for this young person, or you know, have I
- 14:59Speaker 1: been held something wrong? Saying something that's problematic right now
- 15:02Speaker 1: and being willing to make it a two way conversation
- 15:07Speaker 1: as well. But one thing I also want to really
- 15:09Speaker 1: highlight before we move on from this conversation is that
- 15:13Speaker 1: I think a lot of parents have conversations around sexual
- 15:17Speaker 1: assault prevention with their daughters, but I don't think we've
- 15:20Speaker 1: gotten to the stage where they're having them with their
- 15:22Speaker 1: boys yet and realizing that that's kind of the number
- 15:25Speaker 1: one thing you can do as a parent to prevent
- 15:26Speaker 1: sexuals sould if everyone else was speaking to their children.
- 15:29Speaker 1: I don't want to make it seem as if I'm
- 15:31Speaker 1: attacking boys, because I'm not in any way, but the
- 15:33Speaker 1: statistics do not lie, and when we're seeing that high
- 15:36Speaker 1: rate of perpetration from this specific demographic, we all need
- 15:40Speaker 1: to be willing to confront the fact that the person
- 15:44Speaker 1: that we love so much may, when inundated with alcohol
- 15:48Speaker 1: and peer pressure, may act in a way that we
- 15:53Speaker 1: wouldn't be proud of if we haven't given them those
- 15:54Speaker 1: clear directions, and it is just such a cycle. So
- 15:57Speaker 1: like breaking that cycle and knowing that having these conversations
- 16:01Speaker 1: is not attacking young men and it's actually one of
- 16:02Speaker 1: the best things we can do for them.
- 16:04Speaker 2: Now, that's a conversation that I've had neumerous times when
- 16:06Speaker 2: I've presented around the country. I talked about on the
- 16:08Speaker 2: podcast as well, And I'm always worried that somebody's going
- 16:11Speaker 2: to jump down my throat and beat me up for
- 16:12Speaker 2: saying it and be really mad. But I actually think
- 16:15Speaker 2: we need to have some empathy for the potential perpetrator
- 16:18Speaker 2: or the perpetrator here, because the way that they will
- 16:20Speaker 2: carry throughout the rest of their lives every time this
- 16:22Speaker 2: conversation comes up, or if they go on to have
- 16:24Speaker 2: their own children, particularly daughters, if they have to imagine
- 16:27Speaker 2: their daughter going out on a date with somebody who
- 16:29Speaker 2: was just like what they were when they were a teen,
- 16:33Speaker 2: the damage, the psychological pain that they'll go through is
- 16:36Speaker 2: just extraordinary. Teaching our boys not to perpetrate is part
- 16:40Speaker 2: of the conversation. It's a really uncomfortable thing to say.
- 16:43Speaker 2: It doesn't feel nice to say it, and we're certainly
- 16:45Speaker 2: not pointing fingers, but it's also a reality that statistically
- 16:50Speaker 2: the guys are the guys are the accelerators, and the
- 16:53Speaker 2: girls of the breaks and when alcohol is involved and
- 16:55Speaker 2: peer pression and all the complexities of social just social
- 17:00Speaker 2: challenges when you're an adolescent, it's such a hard thing.
- 17:04Speaker 3: Our time is almost up.
- 17:05Speaker 2: Consent dot gov dot IU is the website where you
- 17:08Speaker 2: can find out more about what both Chanell, myself, Dan
- 17:11Speaker 2: and others have to say about this such an important topic.
- 17:16Speaker 2: Chanell is also the author of Consent Laid Bare, which
- 17:19Speaker 2: has been a phenomenally influential book in this particular area. Chanell,
- 17:24Speaker 2: I guess if we were to wrap things up with
- 17:26Speaker 2: maybe your top piece of advice for anyone who's listening
- 17:30Speaker 2: right now, the one thing that you'd want people to
- 17:32Speaker 2: understand about consent and about their kids as we continue
- 17:37Speaker 2: this conversation and as our society evolves around.
- 17:41Speaker 3: This really important area over the next few years. What
- 17:45Speaker 3: would your.
- 17:45Speaker 2: One, your one mega slice of advice be that you
- 17:49Speaker 2: want everyone to be able to walk away and remember
- 17:51Speaker 2: as a result of our discussion today.
- 17:53Speaker 1: Well, I would start by really heavily suggesting everyone to
- 17:56Speaker 1: go to consent dot govt AU and just you know,
- 18:00Speaker 1: a look and see what you learn. If you learn nothing,
- 18:02Speaker 1: great you could.
- 18:04Speaker 3: But you've got learn nothing.
- 18:05Speaker 1: Absolutely yeah, but you might you very well might learn something,
- 18:09Speaker 1: and there's definitely no harm in having look at the resources.
- 18:13Speaker 1: I just really want to hone it on that point
- 18:14Speaker 1: we just said again, it can be really confronting as
- 18:18Speaker 1: a parent or a caregiver or something like that to
- 18:20Speaker 1: think about the fact that it's possible your own child
- 18:25Speaker 1: would ever perpetrate this. But the only way we can
- 18:27Speaker 1: truly stop this from occurring is through addressing the fact
- 18:32Speaker 1: that you know someone's perpetrating it, and again removing that
- 18:37Speaker 1: shame around the conversation and not making it seem like
- 18:39Speaker 1: an attack, but understanding it as a step towards a
- 18:42Speaker 1: more progressive, happier and you know, contrucive society, and being
- 18:50Speaker 1: willing to chat to our kids, knowing that even if
- 18:56Speaker 1: they're the nicest person in the world in all other instances,
- 19:00Speaker 1: that if we leave them to be educated on these
- 19:04Speaker 1: topics only from what they say on their screens, which
- 19:09Speaker 1: they are seeing from a very very young age and
- 19:11Speaker 1: quite explicit content that any young person can end up
- 19:16Speaker 1: perpetrating a violent act and in a sexual way, and
- 19:22Speaker 1: we just need to be willing to think about the
- 19:27Speaker 1: best result for everyone being if everyone was willing to
- 19:29Speaker 1: have these conversations with young people. And I also really
- 19:31Speaker 1: quickly want to address I know that consent is in
- 19:34Speaker 1: the Australian education system at the moment, and that is amazing,
- 19:37Speaker 1: but that is a safety net for people who don't
- 19:39Speaker 1: have parents who they can have these conversations with all
- 19:41Speaker 1: people who you know. Unfortunately, there's devastating rates into family
- 19:45Speaker 1: violence in Australia, people who can't rely on that information
- 19:48Speaker 1: coming from home in that way. It's an amazing policy
- 19:52Speaker 1: that we have that, but it is the bare minimum
- 19:55Speaker 1: and it is really important that all parents that can
- 19:58Speaker 1: do step up and have these conversations consistently with their
- 20:03Speaker 1: young people in a way that you can't really rely
- 20:07Speaker 1: on students having with teachers because they are going to
- 20:10Speaker 1: be so much more personal.
- 20:13Speaker 2: Yeah, Chanelle, it really does start at home. Unfortunately not
- 20:17Speaker 2: everyone gets it there, but such an important point. Chanel
- 20:20Speaker 2: Kontos in Oxford, really appreciate your generosity and getting up
- 20:23Speaker 2: so early to have a chat with me on the
- 20:25Speaker 2: Happy Families podcast.
- 20:26Speaker 3: Thank you.
- 20:27Speaker 1: Thank you so much for having me.
- 20:28Speaker 2: If the podcast has raised any issues for you, you
- 20:31Speaker 2: can visit Consent dot gov dot au and get more
- 20:33Speaker 2: information there for you or your family. If there are
- 20:36Speaker 2: more serious issues that have been raised, check out Parentline,
- 20:39Speaker 2: Kids Helpline or Lifeline. There's also one three yarn for
- 20:43Speaker 2: our Indigenous listeners. Chanel Kontos is a leading advocate for
- 20:47Speaker 2: sexual consent education in Australia, the founder of the Teachers
- 20:50Speaker 2: Consent Movement, the author of Consent Laid Bare, and ambassador
- 20:54Speaker 2: for the Australian Government's Consent Can't Wait campaign. We will
- 20:58Speaker 2: link to Consent Can't Wait, the Australian Government campaign in
- 21:03Speaker 2: the Happy Families show notes and for more information about
- 21:06Speaker 2: all the things we've talked about.
- 21:07Speaker 3: That website will be the best place to go.
- 21:10Speaker 2: We really appreciate Justin roll On, the producer of the
- 21:12Speaker 2: Happy Families podcast make it sound so great.
- 21:13Speaker 3: Thank you JR.
- 21:14Speaker 2: Appreciate your help and for more information about making your
- 21:17Speaker 2: family happier, visit us at Happyfamilies dot com dot au.