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Help expose this shocking story. 19 January 2022

Bettina Arndt

How can we have trust in our institutions if governments can be hoodwinked into passing draconian legislation as a result of false, misleading statistics? We’re talking about totally wrong figures which claimed five times more sexual assaults than were actually reported and underestimated ten-fold the proportion of such cases determined in court.

This week’s intriguing story reveals how grossly inaccurate data was promoted and correct statistics suppressed whilst the media and feminist parliamentarians scared the public into believing there was good reason to push through dangerous affirmative consent laws.

In March last year I wrote about the shockingly low figure of 2% which was being claimed as the conviction rate for rape cases in NSW. I questioned how this was possible, since all the data I could find suggested a very different picture, with every effort being made to push sexual assault cases through to trial.   

In stepped Greg Andresen, one of the smartest and most tenacious researchers working on men’s issues in this country. Greg spent the next nine months on the case, starting with writing to the NSW Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research (BOCSAR) which collects most of the relevant data, seeking clarification. BOCSAR confirmed they had no idea where that 2 per cent figure had come from and Greg embarked on a mighty investigation seeking to work out what the real statistics are and how the parliament and the public came to be so thoroughly misled.

He’s put together a timeline of the resulting paper trail, as he pursued relevant authorities to find out what happened. At the heart of the problem was a 2020 NSW Law Reform Commission report on the proposed sexual consent legislation which actually recommended against the enthusiastic/affirmative consent laws being promoted by Attorney General Mark Speakman and his feminist colleagues. The NSW Bar Association warned that these laws “would potentially criminalise many sexual relations” and were likely “to result in significant injustice.” The purpose of these laws, requiring checking for consent every step of the way throughout lovemaking, is to find more men guilty of rape.  

But the Commission’s report served another purpose. It was used with great alacrity by the feminist lobby who seized upon a key statistic included in the publication which claimed that only 3% of people alleged to have committed sexual offences ended up with a finalised charge. NSW Police Commissioner Mick Fuller was quick to jump on board, being quoted in The Telegraph saying “last year we received more than 15,000 reports of sexual assault. But men continue to get away with it – less than 2 percent of reports lead to guilty verdicts in court.”

Note that he’s talking about guilty verdicts, which are naturally less than the finalised charges which include unsuccessful cases, but either way the tiny numbers are far off the mark. The Commission screwed up big time, misrepresenting the true number of reported sexual assault incidents by a factor of more than five, which meant the proportion of persons of interest who faced a finalised charge for sexual offences was ten times what they claimed.

It took Greg nine months to get the authorities to acknowledge they’d published misleading data. On December 6 the Law Reform Commission finally published an extensive correction on their website, admitting they’d totally stuffed it. (Note – their correction is immensely confusing. If you plan to study it closely first read this guide, otherwise it will do your head in.)  

It turns out that our criminal justice system isn’t failing rape victims. The Commission wrongly claimed five times as many cases of sexual assault incidents as were actually reported (14,171 vs 2,549)

The proportion of reported sexual offence cases determined in court was ten times more than the Commission first claimed – a leap from 3 to 30%.

There were 323 sexual assault guilty verdicts: that is, 12.7% of reported incidents led to a guilty verdict, not the 2-3% originally claimed.

Sexual assault is being treated very seriously. BOCSAR figures show mean custodial sentences for sexual assault are among the highest of all offences – three times as long as other assault and greater even than child sex offences.  57% of those convicted receive custodial sentences – about 4 times the rate of other assault and 6 times the rate (9.5%) for all offences. From March 2013 to September 2021 the number in prison for sexual assault more than doubled.

All these statistics are readily publicly available, yet our media and politicians instead chose to spend six months spreading alarmist misinformation based on the Commission’s wildly inaccurate statistics. “Many people will be screaming for action, screaming for law reform and screaming for cultural change,” claimed Mark Speakman in one of a series of media stories quoting the misleading 2-3% figures. That was used as evidence of the failure of our criminal justice system to deal with sexual assault – all part of the campaign to push through affirmative consent laws.  

Timing is everything.

Check out this sequence of events. Thanks to Greg Andresen’s efforts, the relevant authorities were made aware that the Commission had misled the public in September last year. Despite initial claims from the Police Commissioner’s office that they had used a different data set, Greg used a freedom of information request to obtain evidence that the Commissioner’s misleading statistics came from the Law Reform Commission’s report.

By September 21 the Commission acknowledged that BOCSAR was preparing a response to Greg’s enquiry – a tacit admission that they knew they had got it wrong.     

“We expect to have it finalised this week,” a BOCSAR analyst told Greg on October 18 when he asked when he could expect a response. They claimed they still had to “run a few programming requests to extract the correct data.” 

Two days later the new sexual consent reform bill was introduced into parliament and politicians lined up to show their woke credentials, one after another quoting the 2-3% figure as gospel, or screaming blue murder about the outrage of 15,000 sexual assaults complaints leading to such a low response. Green’s MP Tamara Smith was quoted in Hansard asking what kind of message is sent by the poor outcomes for this huge number of incidents, “The very architecture and fissures of the law around sexual assault have silenced and re-victimised mostly cisgendered women for so many decades. Where do we start to analyse the layers of patriarchy and marginalisation of women’s voices?”

On November 18, Greg contacted BOCSAR to check on progress. The analyst claimed there’d been “some complexity in resolving the differences between the figures” and apologised that it was taking longer than anticipated.

On November 23 the legislation sailed through parliament. Within two weeks, the detailed correction had suddenly appeared on the Commission’s website. Game over.  

Not that Mr Persistent has given up. Greg has put in a freedom of information request seeking correspondence between BOCSAR and the Commission over the past few months. And he’s been out there bombarding the ABC, SBS and all the other media sources who used the incorrect statistics alerting them to the Commission’s admission that they got it wrong. Not that they will do anything about it.

Luckily, there’s one politician prepared to stick his neck out. As always, Mark Latham from One Nation is on the case. He’s already posed a series of questions to the Police Commissioner and NSW Attorney General Mark Speakman, one of the key players in forcing the legislation through parliament. Latham plans to raise questions in parliament about the whole saga.  

The question is whether the timing of all this was a coincidence or a conspiracy involving key government organisations determined to mislead the public and the parliament to ensure smooth passage of draconian new laws and set up the feminists for a very, very happy Xmas. Take your pick.

Either way, the Law Reform Commission failed in their duty to inform the parliament prior to debate of the sexual consent bill that the report they tabled in November 2020 contained major errors. The Commission was aware this grossly misleading data was being used to manipulate parliamentarians into believing the criminal justice system required drastic reform – and yet they did nothing.  

This should be a major scandal and I need your help in ensuring it doesn’t pass unnoticed. Here’s a draft letter which I would like you to send to the NSW Premier and other members of parliament demanding a proper investigation of how this happened. With Victoria promising to introduce affirmative consent legislation this year and pressure for other states to follow suit, people living elsewhere should send the letter to their own parliamentarians and policy makers to warn about the duping of the public which has taken place in NSW. 

On a light note, one of my correspondents has sent in this wonderful British television skit about pre-coital agreements from over a decade ago. It’s telling that these comedians assumed a signed and sealed pre-bonking deal would do the trick. Little did they know what the feminists had in store for us all, with the affirmative consent model requiring enthusiastic yelps right through the proceedings to avoid illegal behaviour. Wouldn’t they have fun with that absurd notion?  

But sadly, this whole business is deadly serious, speaking to the capture of important government bodies by the feminist lobby which will stop at nothing in their quest to tilt the justice system even further to disadvantage men.

Vital call-out for prompt action

I’ve pushed through this blog ahead of schedule because there’s another urgent job awaiting you all. In recent months I have exposed the way the domestic violence industry, particularly Our Watch is using their government funding for blatant social engineering aimed at “gender equality”, which means advantaging women at the expense of men.   

Last year we had a bi-partisan parliamentary committee bravely taking on this constant feminist push with a proposal that the National Plan to End Violence Against Women and Children should address all victim groups, not just women. They made the point the previous Plan had failed in its stated goal of reducing violence. The government has been strenuously ignoring the recommendations of this committee.

With a Federal election looming and the existing Plan about to end this year, the feminists are clearly trying to get hold of the next shitload of funding and have just released a draft of their new Plan, which is an absolute disgrace. Just more of the Our Watch claptrap claiming gender equity is the key to ending violence against women, no mention of expanding the category of victims, and now a major new emphasis on coercive control, the latest weapon in the armoury being used against men.

They have put together a transparently self-congratulatory survey on the Plan, clearly seeking endorsement from their flock. Responses are due by January 31.

We really need you all to answer the survey in the next week – it is very short, with multiple choice answers. Here’s a draft letter to send to Anne Rushton, the relevant minister, which will give you useful points and links you can include in the comments section of the survey.  It was good to see the feminist media panicking about the short time period – which gives us some hope that our voices might actually be heard.

Yes, it is probably all a laydown misère but we can’t allow this conservative government to think no one notices their disgraceful pandering to these ideologues. I’ll be doing my best to recruit big numbers from other conservative groups. But we have a week to make our voices heard.   

This should be a major news story. Please help me expose it to the public and recruit people to write to parliamentarians about this scandal.

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