WARNING: This article discusses alleged sexual assault, rape and domestic violence.
Except this time, we shouldn't, because when you look beyond this one story and look at what has happened across Australia in the space of barely a week, the picture is genuinely disturbing.
This isn't simply about one alleged incident in Macarthur. It isn't about one school. It isn't about one suburb and it certainly isn't something we can dismiss as somebody else's problem.
Australia has a serious problem with violence against women and girls.
The numbers have been telling us that for years. The headlines this week should force us to listen.
THREE 17-YEAR-OLD BOYS CHARGED
On 20 August, NSW Police announced that three 17-year-old boys had been charged following the alleged sexual assault of a 17-year-old girl at a home in Sydney's Macarthur region. Police allege the incident occurred on Saturday, 15 August.
Following an investigation by detectives, search warrants were executed at several homes and electronic devices and other items were seized for examination.
One boy was charged with 11 offences, including aggravated sexual assault in company and sexual intercourse without consent. Another was charged with eight offences, including six counts of aggravated sexual assault in company and sexual intercourse without consent. The third was charged with two counts of aggravated sexual assault in company.
Two of the accused attend St Gregory's College in Campbelltown, whose principal publicly described what police allege as "abhorrent" and said sexual violence had no place in the community.
These are allegations currently before the courts. The accused are entitled to the presumption of innocence and the charges have not been proven.
But this article isn't here to decide their guilt. That's what courts are for.
We're asking a different question.
What the hell is going on around us?
Exactly one week before those charges were announced, another story emerged.
ONE WEEK EARLIER: THREE MORE BOYS
On 13 August, NSW Police announced charges against three more teenage boys, one aged 13 and two aged just 14.
Police allege a 14-year-old girl was sexually assaulted by the three boys in an alleyway in Sydney's eastern suburbs on the evening of 22 July.
All three were charged with aggravated sexual-assault offences, while additional sexual-touching charges were also laid. Again, these charges remain allegations and must be determined by the courts.
But stop for a second and absorb what that means.
Six teenage boys charged in two completely separate alleged group sexual assaults involving teenage girls, with the charges announced just seven days apart in the same city.
The cases are not connected.
But Australians should be capable of looking at two separate cases without pretending they exist in completely separate universes.
One alleged incident is horrific. Two separate alleged group sexual assaults involving boys this young should make every parent, teacher, coach and community leader start asking uncomfortable questions and while Sydney was dealing with those allegations, another horrific case was unfolding interstate.
A WOMAN WENT FOR A MORNING WALK
On Thursday, 20 August, a 23-year-old woman was walking in Brookfield in Brisbane's west when police allege a 32-year-old man approached her from behind and dragged her into nearby bushes.
Police allege she was sexually assaulted before eventually making her way through a creek and bushland to reach the Brookfield Showgrounds and call for help.
A man has since been charged with six counts of rape, along with stalking, assault with intent to commit rape, assault occasioning bodily harm and deprivation of liberty.
Those charges also remain allegations before the courts.
A teenage girl allegedly assaulted at a house.
Another teenage girl allegedly assaulted in an alleyway.
A young woman allegedly attacked while walking in the morning.
At some point we have to stop reading these stories individually and look at what the national data is telling us.
40,087 RECORDED SEXUAL-ASSAULT VICTIMS
According to the latest Australian Bureau of Statistics Recorded Crime data currently available, police recorded 40,087 victims of sexual assault across Australia in 2024. The next report is due in September 2026.
That was an increase of 10 per cent in a single year. It was also the highest number recorded in the ABS time series.
Of those victims:
-
81 per cent were female
-
39 per cent were aged between 10 and 17 at the time of the incident
-
41 per cent of recorded sexual assaults were classified as family and domestic violence related
Let that second number sink in. 15,524 recorded sexual-assault victims were aged between 10 and 17.
In NSW it is particularly confronting. There were 16,444 recorded sexual-assault victims in NSW in 2024. That was another 12 per cent increase and represented the 13th consecutive annual increase in the number of recorded sexual-assault victims in the state.
Of those NSW victims:
-
74 per cent were female.
-
85 per cent knew the offender.
-
And 45 per cent were aged between 10 and 17 at the time of the incident.
We're talking about 7,318 kids aged 10 to 17 in NSW alone appearing in police-recorded sexual-assault statistics for a single year.
That should disturb every Australian.
There is an important distinction here.
An increase in police-recorded sexual assault does not necessarily mean the underlying incidence of sexual assault has increased by precisely the same amount. Changes in reporting behaviour, delayed reporting, community awareness and police recording practices can all influence these figures.
ONE IN FIVE AUSTRALIAN WOMEN
The ABS Personal Safety Survey estimates that 22 per cent of Australian women, approximately 2.2 million women, have experienced sexual violence since the age of 15.
Around 2 million women, or 20 per cent, reported having experienced sexual assault.
Approximately 23 per cent of Australian women, 2.3 million, reported experiencing physical and/or sexual violence by an intimate partner since the age of 15.
Women were far more likely to have experienced violence from somebody they knew than somebody they didn't. Around 35 per cent of women had experienced violence from a known person, compared with 11 per cent who had experienced violence from a stranger.
So while the Brookfield allegation represents the nightmare scenario everybody fears, an alleged stranger attack, a huge proportion of the danger women face doesn't come from a stranger hiding in the bushes.
It comes from somebody already in their lives.
A partner.
A date.
A family member.
A friend.
Somebody they trusted.
Many cases never reach the police. AIHW reports that among women who experienced sexual assault by a male during the ten years before the 2021–22 Personal Safety Survey, only 7.7 per cent contacted police about their most recent incident.
So whenever we talk about recorded crime statistics, remember this:
The police numbers are not the whole picture.
THEN NSW POLICE ARRESTED 732 PEOPLE IN THREE DAYS
If you're still tempted to think violence within homes and relationships is some niche problem affecting a relatively small number of Australians, look at what NSW Police did last weekend.
From 14 to 16 August, NSW Police conducted Operation Amarok 14, targeting high-risk, repeat and wanted domestic and family violence offenders.
In three days:
-
732 people were arrested and charged.
-
1,589 charges were laid.
-
228 arrest warrants were executed.
Police conducted more than 12,000 apprehended domestic violence order compliance checks and officers seized 118 firearms and 16 other weapons.
NSW Police Deputy Commissioner Paul Pisanos said police receive a domestic and family violence-related call every three minutes.
Every.
Three.
Minutes.
To be clear, that does not mean 732 men were arrested for assaulting women. Domestic and family violence offending encompasses a range of circumstances and offences, and each charge must be considered individually.
But 732 people charged in three days should still tell Australians something about the workload police are carrying and the scale of the problem occurring behind closed doors.
THIS IS NOT AN ATTACK ON MEN
Before anybody deliberately misinterprets this article, this is not an attack on Australian men.
Most men are not rapists.
Most men are not domestic-violence offenders.
Most men would be absolutely disgusted by the allegations described above.
But decent men shouldn't be offended by a conversation about violent men. Decent men should be leading it. Men need to be able to tell another bloke when he's crossed the line.
Boys need mates willing to pull them into line instead of laughing along because everybody wants to fit in.
Fathers need to talk to their sons about women before social media, pornography, group chats and teenage bravado teach those lessons for them.
Coaches need to understand that developing young men isn't only about performance on a field.
Schools cannot treat conversations around respect and consent as another PowerPoint presentation everybody sleeps through.
Young men need to understand something that shouldn't be remotely controversial:
Being strong does not mean dominating somebody weaker than you.
WOMEN SHOULDN'T HAVE TO STRUCTURE THEIR LIVES AROUND MEN'S BEHAVIOUR
Women already know the routines because, for generations, they have been taught them from a young age. Text me when you get home. Share your location. Don't walk there alone. Watch your drink. Park somewhere well lit. Call me when you get to the car. Don't wear headphones. Stay together. Carry your keys. Look behind you.
Before going somewhere, women are often thinking about which road they'll take, who will be there, how they'll get home and whether they'll be safe getting from one place to another. These decisions have become so normal that we barely even question why women and girls are expected to constantly assess the potential threat around them.
We have spent generations teaching women how to minimise the chance of becoming victims. Be more careful. Be more alert. Don't put yourself in that situation. Don't walk alone. Don't drink too much. Don't trust the wrong person.
At some point, the focus also has to shift in the other direction.
We need to put considerably more energy into ensuring boys grow into men who don't create victims in the first place.
WE CANNOT JUST KEEP REACTING TO THE NEXT HEADLINE
At the most extreme end of this problem are the women who never get another chance.
The Australian Institute of Criminology recorded 46 intimate-partner homicide incidents in 2024–25, with 32 of those victims being female, around 70 per cent.
We don't need another slogan to tell Australians that violence against women is bad. Most Australians already know that. What we desperately need is a willingness to ask the harder questions about where this behaviour begins and what happens before somebody ends up in a police station, a courtroom or a morgue.
What are boys learning about sex and consent? What are they learning about women? What are they learning from their mates, their families and the content they consume online? Where are the fathers, coaches, teachers and male role models in those conversations?
When somebody starts behaving badly, what happens?
Does somebody pull them up early? Does a mate tell them they've crossed the line? Does a parent notice something is wrong? Does a coach or teacher intervene? Or do people laugh it off, boys will be boys…
THIS SHOULD BE EVERYBODY'S PROBLEM
Violence against women shouldn't belong to the political left or right. It shouldn't belong to feminists or conservatives, and it shouldn't become another political football where everybody spends more time arguing about language, ideology and who is to blame than actually protecting people.
If you're raising a daughter, this matters. If you're raising a son, this matters. If you're a coach, teacher, employer, brother, father or mate, you have a role to play too. Men, in particular, need to be part of this conversation.
We cannot demand respect for good men while refusing to confront the behaviour of bad ones.
A strong country protects vulnerable people. A strong community doesn't walk past violence or excuse it because the offender is somebody's mate, teammate, colleague or family member. This past week should make Australians uncomfortable, because perhaps that discomfort is exactly what is required to stop these stories becoming background noise.
40,087 recorded sexual-assault victims should never become just another statistic. Neither should hundreds of domestic and family violence arrests across a three-day police operation. Neither should two separate alleged group sexual assaults involving teenage girls and teenage boys. Neither should a young woman allegedly attacked while simply going about her morning.
Behind every statistic is a real person. Somebody's daughter, sister, mum, partner, friend or neighbour. Somebody whose life may never be quite the same again.
And perhaps that is the simplest point of all; We should give a shit before they're the person appearing in tomorrow's headline.
A NOTE ON THE CURRENT CASES
The criminal matters referred to in this article include allegations that have not been proven in court. All accused persons are entitled to the presumption of innocence. This article does not seek to determine guilt or innocence in any current proceeding.
SUPPORT
If this article has raised issues for you or you are experiencing a crisis, Lifeline is available 24 hours a day, seven days a week on 13 11 14 or by text on 0477 13 11 14.
SOURCES
-
Australian Bureau of Statistics — Recorded Crime – Victims, 2024.
-
Australian Bureau of Statistics — Personal Safety, Australia, 2021–22.
-
Australian Bureau of Statistics — Sexual Violence, 2021–22.
-
Australian Institute of Health and Welfare — sexual assault reporting data.
-
Australian Institute of Criminology — Homicide in Australia 2024–25.
