In short:
Pre-recorded testimony for adult sexual assault complainants may soon be allowed in NSW under proposed government changes.
However, complainants will still have to appear for cross-examination and re-examination.
What's next?
The state government is set to introduce the reforms on Tuesday.
Complainants in sexual assault trials will be able to give pre-recorded evidence under reforms proposed by the New South Wales government.
The planned changes will also trial "ground rules" hearings at three District Courts, and narrow the circumstances in which courts can access a complainant's counselling records.
Attorney-General Michael Daley will introduce the "commonsense" reforms in the NSW parliament on Tuesday.
"Sexual assault complainants and witnesses are especially vulnerable in our justice system,"Mr Daley said.
"We want to help them give their best evidence by ensuring they do not need to tell their story multiple times and deterring inappropriate and irrelevant questioning in court."
Under the proposed changes, police interviews recorded with complainants and special witnesses will be able to be used as evidence-in-chief in adult sexual assault proceedings.
Such recordings are already admissible for children under 16, and people with a cognitive impairment.
Complainants will still have to appear for cross-examination and re-examination — a process described by some witnesses as bruising and invasive — until a separate review next year considers the feasibility of allowing for entirely pre-recorded evidence.
'Not what we've been asking for', advocacy group says
Women's Safety Commissioner Hannah Tonkin said sexual assault complainants were often required to give detailed accounts of events "years after their assault", which "takes an immense toll on their wellbeing, healing and recovery".
"Allowing complainants' pre-recorded evidence-in-chief to be used during sexual assault trials will enable them to give their account much earlier, in a safe setting, and to start rebuilding their lives sooner," Dr Tonkin said.
Advocacy group Fair Agenda has been campaigning for NSW courts to allow sexual assault complainants to pre-record the entirety of their evidence.
Campaign manager Jacinta Masters said while the state government's announcement was a step forward, "this is not what we've been asking for".
"We've been very clear pre-recorded evidence is needed for evidence-in-chief, cross-examination and re-examination," Ms Masters said.
Ms Masters said Fair Agenda had also been campaigning for prosecutors, not police, to pre-record evidence-in-chief.
"We have said that the police aren't the best people to be doing that evidence-in-chief because their purpose for conducting that interview is to conduct an investigation, not to prepare a case for trial,"she said.
'Ground rules hearings' to set direction of proceedings
The state government's proposed reforms will also include a three-year trial of ground rules hearings at Parramatta, Wollongong and Dubbo District Courts.
Under the pilot, hearings will be held ahead of complainants' evidence to allow the courts to provide directions about how the proceedings can run, including parameters about how a witness is to be questioned, and what they can be questioned on.
Ground rules hearings are already used in child sexual assault proceedings in NSW.
Dr Tonkin welcomed the pilot, which will run from 2027 to 2030.
"The introduction of ground rules hearings will reduce stress for complainants and improve the precision of their evidence and the efficiency of trials by ensuring that questions directed at the complainant are appropriate, relevant, and focused on the issues in dispute," she said.
The final tranche of the state government's announcement will mean complainants' counselling records can only be accessed by the court "when it is necessary", pending further research.
Victim-survivors and advocates have been campaigning for counselling records to be kept confidential from alleged perpetrators, with a petition led by freelance journalist Nina Funnell gathering almost 15,000 signatures in support of the call.
The change will be made ahead of a University of Sydney review into the current operation of the Sexual Assault Communications Privilege, which will examine potential alternate models, including whether counselling communications should be prohibited from criminal proceedings entirely.
Full Stop Australia chief executive Karen Bevan said the suite of proposed reforms were "a step in the right direction".
"We look forward to working with the government to extend these reforms so that every victim-survivor in NSW benefits from them," she said.
