On the eve of the release of the state's annual crime figures, Don Weatherburn, director of the NSW Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research, says nearly every other crime category has decreased in prevalence – some have fallen spectacularly since 2000 – but sexual assault refuses to move.

“It’s the one offence which does not show any signs of going down and, in fact, it is rising,” said Weatherburn.

Since 2000, the rate of murder has just about halved. Crimes against property have halved. Yet the rate of sexual assault has increased by nearly 40 per cent since that time. It goes through patches where it is stable but then grows again.

Is it just more likely that women are reporting sexual assault?

Weatherburn says we can’t know. But he also says that’s often the most convenient response from those who have responsibility for doing something about the rate of sexual assault.

To September last year, there were 5814 reports of sexual assault. Of those, over 40 per cent were adults reporting a contemporaneous incident; another 36 per cent were children reporting that crime as a child; and a further 19 per cent were historic, adults reporting childhood victimisation.

And on top of those figures, we know that sexual assault legal clear-up rates refuse to budge while those in other areas have improved significantly.

Since 2000, the percentage of reported cases of sexual assault where an offender is charged within 90 days has actually fallen from 17 per cent to 11 per cent. Perhaps this will all change after a comprehensive review of the NSW sexual consent laws.

Antonia Quadara says the ABS’s personal safety survey confirms the rising incidence of sexual assaults; and she and her team have some solid research on what we can do to make a difference.

Quadara, a senior research fellow at the Australian Institute of Family Studies, who manages its sexual violence research team, says perhaps the uptick is because we didn’t talk about sexual violence for aeons. That just means it’s there and we need to fix it.

Her answer is primary prevention. It’s not a quick fix: she’s forecasting 20 to 25 years.

“We have to challenge and replace the norms and ideas about men and masculinity and what it is for men and women to interact to together.

“What is sex, what is sexy?”

She says that shaming boys won’t work but education will.

“There is work we need to be doing with boys who are eight, nine, ten and give them an idea that adult masculinity is not sweary, not shouty,” she says.

“As the train of puberty comes towards them, we need to provide them with options. We have to give them wriggle room."

She says that work of Respectful Relationships is excellent and the Victorian government (as well as others) is rolling that out across kindergarten to year 12.

“And let’s not get despondent. Think of it as a long term project.”

Let's make it less than 25 years.

Jenna Price is an academic at the University of Technology Sydney who researches family violence.

Have you experienced sexual violence? Did you decide to report it?
If you have a story to tell, we would like to hear from you - find out more here.