The Australian government has recently launched Consent Can’t Wait, a campaign focused on supporting sexual consent communication between adults and young people.

Advertisements will run on television, in cinemas, online and on social media, encouraging adults to check their understanding of consent. Videos pose questions such as “how do I bring up consent?”, “do I have to ask every time?” and “what if we’ve been drinking?”, before finally asking “if we don’t know the answers, how will our kids?”.

The campaign website provides a range of resources designed to equip adults to have conversations with each other, and with young people.

While this campaign has a lot of positives, consent education won’t be enough to stop sexual violence on its own.

In launching this campaign, the government has cited statistics showing one in five women and one in 16 men have experienced sexual violence since the age of 15. One in two women and one in four men have experienced sexual harassment in their lifetime.

These statistics don’t account for the experiences of trans and gender diverse people. In Private Lives 3, a survey on the health and wellbeing of queer people in Australia, 64% of non-binary people, 55% of trans men and 42% of trans women had experienced sexual assault.

A lack of understanding of sexual consent is considered a major reason why sexual violence occurs. One report noted almost half of people living in Australia who........

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