Sex workers are experts in consent negotiation. We know consent can be shaped by financial arrangements or safety measures like condom use. We know that agreeing to one activity is never agreement to another. We discuss consent explicitly, read context clues to feel confident in implied consent, use non-verbal cues, and set boundaries every shift, every booking, every interaction.

Yet in the current push for stronger laws and policies on sexual and gendered violence, sex workers have been scapegoated for the behaviour of predominantly male perpetrators. In October 2023, Liberal Deputy Leader Sussan Ley called for a halt on new strip clubs, claiming a link between erotic entertainment and family violence. In the most recent federal budget, the government funded a pilot for mandatory age verification on online pornography, framed as a response to “extremely online misogyny” – despite rejecting the same approach as technologically unworkable just nine months earlier.

Neither claim came with evidence. Both were repeated uncritically by media, advocates and policy-makers. The effect is to cast sex workers as part of the problem, rather than recognising that we are disproportionately impacted by sexual violence, and a community with genuine expertise in consent. Our expertise should carry weight – in this inquiry, in state and territory consent law reform, and in the broader debate on sexual and gendered violence. Sex worker voices need a seat at the table as expert stakeholders, not just as a cautionary example. Justice responses to sexual violence need to actually work for sex workers, from making a complaint through to interactions with police, services, and the courts.