The AAWAA Women’s Advocate

Repeat episode for the Easter holiday. Emma and Liv push back against the mischaracterisation of women's rights organisations advocating for sex-based protections as 'right-wing', 'reactionary', or 'extremist'. They trace the feminist lineage of our advocacy through second-wave traditions, materialist analysis, and campaigns against prostitution, surrogacy, pornography,...

Emma and Sue spotlight Local action with Dr Megan Blake, barrister for the Lesbian Action Group and president of the new YAEL Women’s Defence Guild. They discuss Megan’s commitment to material reality and accuracy over labels, her experience weathering public hostility while defending women’s sex-based protections and rights, and why YAEL was created to fund key legal cases so women are not bankru...

Emma and Amber discuss Victoria's  Change or Suppression (Conversion) Practices Prohibition Act , which is currently under review by the Victorian Law Reform Commission. AAWAA supports the ban on gay conversion practices — but the evidence suggests the Act is producing serious unintended consequences in its application to gender identity. Clinicians are stepping back from treating gender-distr...

Equality Australia has been ruled an advocacy body, knocked back for standard charity tax status, and then rescued with a bespoke DGR deal, vice‑regal patronage and a shield of secrecy. In this episode, Emma and Liv unpack how Equality Australia used Thorne Harbour Health’s DGR status, how the Albanese government is now moving to write Equality Australia into the tax law, how the Governor‑General’...

In this episode Emma and Suzi unpack the NCC 2025 preview’s new ‘all‑gender’ toilet option and what it really means for women’s access to safe, adequate facilities in public buildings. Drawing on AAWAA’s 2024 submission to the Australian Building Codes Board, we explain how the change allows a ‘constructive reduction’ in female‑only toilets, why all‑gender cubicles do not replace women’s toilets i...

Emma and Amber examine the CEDAW Committee’s advance observations on the Netherlands, asking what it means when a UN women’s rights body talks about “sex work”, “safe and legal workplaces, including home‑based sex work”, and even “minor sex workers”. They discuss how this language sits with CEDAW, CRC, Palermo and the 1949 Convention, why it signals institutional drift away from sex‑based protecti...

Emma and Suzi examine the Auditor-General's comprehensive performance audit of age pension administration in light of evidence AAWAA submitted to the Australian National Audit Office one year earlier. The audit validates systemic failures – $5 billion in incorrect payments, processing delays up to 4.2 years, only 48.55 per cent of phone calls answered – but contains no sex-disaggregated analys...

Emma is joined by Megan to unpack a significant development for women's advocacy in Australia: a formal meeting between AAWAA, Feminist Legal Clinic, the Coalition of Activist Lesbians, and the Australian Human Rights Commission. They discuss why women's organisations pushed to meet with the President, the Sex Discrimination Commissioner and the Human Rights Commissioner; what they present...

Emma and Luci examine violence and discrimination affecting lesbian and bisexual women in Australia. They unpack how governance failures themselves constitute discrimination: the systematic exclusion of lesbian women from policy processes on sex self-identification laws, exemptions under discrimination law, and school policies. They detail the Lesbian Action Group's failed exemption applicatio...

Emma and Lucy unpack violence against mothers – a form of sex-based harm that remains dangerously invisible in international policy. They examine three interconnected mechanisms: reproductive coercion, weaponisation of children against mothers, and systematic economic subordination through the motherhood penalty. They detail how institutional actors enable rather than prevent this violence, and ou...

Emma and Megan unpack the Combatting Antisemitism, Hate and Extremism Bill 2026 – a framework that criminalises organisational membership based on a vague "unacceptable risk" standard, without procedural fairness, and with a 72-hour consultation window. They examine the constitutional vulnerabilities: the absence of evidence that organisational criminalisation is necessary, the deliberate...

AAWAA's Christmas Wrap for 2025: Emma hosts Martine, Luci, and Suzi as they look back on a transformative year for AAWAA. They discuss coordinated national campaigns on sex self-ID and surrogacy prohibition, groundbreaking UN submissions on women's human rights, the 2025 federal election push to restore sex-based protections, international momentum against surrogacy, how we've built ge...

On 18 December, feminist organisations attended an ALRC roundtable on surrogacy law reform – and witnessed an independent review apparently structurally compromised. Emma and Amber unpack the governance failures: how the ALRC deflected legal questions about abolition, moved process concerns into private emails, conflated having women with representing women's interests, curated 'lived expe...

Emma and Amber discuss the Australian Law Reform Commission's review of surrogacy laws, examining why the roundtable with feminist organisations is scheduled for 18 December—one day before the submission deadline for feedback on its discussion paper—and why this timing exposes deeper governance failures. They unpack the advisory committee's structural conflicts of interest, the lack of ear...

In this episode, Emma is joined by Lucy and Liv to discuss their formal submission to the statutory review of sexual consent laws. In 2021, NSW introduced landmark "affirmative consent" reforms. But four years on, are they actually delivering justice for women? The team unpacks why the current legal definition of consent—"free and voluntary agreement"—is fundamentally flawed in a p...

Emma and Liv expose why consultation alone cannot satisfy Australia's obligations under CEDAW. Governments across Australia are treating consultation as political cover for decisions already made—but CEDAW demands something far more rigorous: mandatory impact assessment. They break down what the Convention actually requires (Articles 2, 3, 5, and 7), explain how General Recommendation No. 28 s...

In this episode of the Women's Advocate, Emma and Megan discuss the ABC’s relationship with ACON, the LGBTQ+ advocacy organisation behind the Australian Workplace Equality Index (AWEI). Following the National Press Club address, they explore ABC Managing Director Hugh Marks’s responses—both publicly and in follow-up questioning—on governance, editorial independence, transparency, and the influ...

We unpack revelations from a Freedom of Information release showing how the Australian Government works behind the scenes to push back against independent UN scrutiny of our nation's women's rights record. Emma and Megan discuss why the Government is actively countering the UN Special Rapporteur on violence against women and girls, how Australia is now treating women's sex-based protec...

Emma and Liv push back against the mischaracterisation of women's rights organisations advocating for sex-based protections as 'right-wing', 'reactionary', or 'extremist'. They trace the feminist lineage of our advocacy through second-wave traditions, materialist analysis, and campaigns against prostitution, surrogacy, pornography, and male violence. From 'forced al...

Emma and Megan unpack shocking FOI evidence showing systematic exclusion of women's groups from policies affecting our sex-based protections and rights. Whilst LGBTQIA+ organisations receive formal advisory positions, paid travel, and access to draft policies months before public consultation, women's groups scramble to respond to four-week consultation windows—if we discover them at all....

In this episode, Emma and Martine explore the Northern Territory’s landmark decision to ban all male prisoners from women’s jails—an “on my watch” promise from Chief Minister Lia Finocchiaro that has set a new national benchmark for protecting women in custody. We unpack two alarming incidents—a Victorian child sex offender housed at Dame Phyllis Frost Centre and Katie’s alleged assault at South A...

Emma and Megan examine how forty years after the Sex Discrimination Act was passed to implement CEDAW, confusion over sex-based protections is leaving women's services, sporting bodies, and advocacy groups without clear guidance. They explore the AHRC's rejection of lesbian exemption applications and institutional drift that prioritises other considerations over women's sex-based right...

Emma and Sue unpack Janet Fraser’s journey from second‑wave roots and lesbian organising in the ’90s to founding Joyous Birth after a traumatic hospital transfer, being branded for saying ‘birthing women’, and finishing law to fight for female‑only spaces and legal clarity. This podcast provides general information and opinion only and does not constitute legal advice. Listeners should seek indepe...

Emma hosts Amber and Martine to unpack Western Australia’s surrogacy ‘reform’: how an industry‑led process sidelined women’s voices, abolished ex‑ante safeguards, and bundled ART with surrogacy to fast‑track a market‑friendly law. Amber lays out the process failures and what the Bill changes; Martine maps the advocacy strategy in the Council—committee referral, reinstating pre‑conception approvals...

Emma hosts Amber and Lucy for a ground-level look at how exclusion of women from consultation is producing bad law across Australia. From WA’s industry‑driven ART and surrogacy bill and fast‑tracked sex self‑ID law, to NSW’s predetermined ‘equality’ process and bundling ART with surrogacy, to QLD’s token consultation windows, they unpack why this breaches CEDAW Article 7 and ICCPR participation ri...