New South Wales is preparing to change the way adult sexual assault complainants can give evidence, with the government proposing that recorded police interviews be used as evidence-in-chief in criminal trials. The change is intended to reduce the need for complainants to repeat detailed accounts, but advocates say it stops short of the broader reform they have been seeking.

Attorney-General Michael Daley is introducing the package to state parliament as part of a wider set of changes to sexual assault proceedings. Under the proposal, a police interview recorded with an adult complainant or another eligible special witness could be played in court as that person’s evidence-in-chief. Similar arrangements already exist for children under 16 and people with cognitive impairment.

The proposal does not mean a complainant’s entire participation in a trial would be pre-recorded. They would still be required to appear for cross-examination and re-examination. That distinction is central to the response from advocacy group Fair Agenda, which has campaigned for complainants to be able to pre-record all of their evidence, including questioning by defence and prosecution lawyers.

Daley has described the reforms as a practical step aimed at reducing repeated retelling and discouraging irrelevant or inappropriate questioning. The government’s position is that recorded evidence-in-chief could allow complainants to give their initial account earlier and in a more controlled setting, while preserving the accused person’s right to test the evidence through cross-examination.

Women’s Safety Commissioner Hannah Tonkin has supported the direction of the reform, saying sexual assault complainants can face long delays before a matter reaches trial and may be required to recount traumatic events years later. The policy argument is that recording evidence earlier may reduce one part of that burden and help preserve the quality of the original account.

Fair Agenda has welcomed movement on the issue but says the model is incomplete. Campaign manager Jacinta Masters has argued that the government should allow the entire evidence process to be recorded in advance. The group also questions whether police, whose primary role during an interview is investigation, are the best people to conduct what will become evidence-in-chief for a prosecution.

The government has left that larger question open. A separate review is expected to consider whether entirely pre-recorded evidence should be introduced in the future. That means the bill before parliament should be understood as a proposed first-stage reform rather than the final word on how adult sexual assault evidence will be handled in NSW.

The package also includes a three-year trial of “ground rules” hearings at the District Courts in Parramatta, Wollongong and Dubbo from 2027 to 2030. These hearings would occur before a complainant gives evidence and would allow a judge to set parameters for how questioning is conducted, including the form and scope of questions.

Ground rules hearings are already used in some child sexual assault proceedings. Their purpose is not to prevent legitimate cross-examination, but to make sure questioning remains relevant, comprehensible and consistent with the court’s obligation to conduct a fair trial. The pilot will test whether similar arrangements improve adult sexual assault proceedings.

The proposed reforms also seek to narrow the circumstances in which a complainant’s counselling records can be accessed. Counselling material can contain highly personal information that may have little relevance to the facts in dispute, and governments and advocates have long debated how to protect therapeutic confidentiality while preserving an accused person’s right to obtain genuinely relevant evidence.

That balance is legally important. Criminal trials must remain fair to the accused, including the right to challenge prosecution evidence. At the same time, the justice system has increasingly recognised that unnecessary repetition, aggressive questioning or broad access to private material can discourage reporting and add to the burden on complainants.

Australia’s wider sexual violence data helps explain why the issue has become a continuing policy priority. The Australian Institute of Health and Welfare reports that about 14 per cent of Australians aged 18 and over — around 2.8 million people — have experienced sexual violence since the age of 15. That figure includes experiences across different contexts and does not indicate how many cases enter the criminal justice system, but it shows the scale of the underlying problem.

Only a portion of sexual violence is reported to police, and an even smaller portion proceeds to a criminal trial. Each stage can involve long delays, evidentiary disputes and difficult decisions for complainants. Governments have therefore been under pressure to improve the way cases are handled without weakening the safeguards that protect the presumption of innocence and the right to a fair hearing.

The NSW proposal is one attempt to change that process. Using a recorded police interview as evidence-in-chief could reduce duplication because a complainant would not have to repeat the same narrative in the witness box at the start of their evidence. It may also mean the initial account is captured closer to the time of the alleged offence.

But the most difficult part of a trial for many witnesses can be cross-examination, and the current bill does not remove that requirement. That is why advocates who have pressed for fully pre-recorded evidence say the reform only addresses part of the problem. The government’s planned review will therefore be closely watched, particularly by legal groups, survivor advocates and defence lawyers.

There are practical questions as well. Courts would need consistent standards for recording, storing and presenting interviews. Judges would need to manage disputes about admissibility, editing and the use of material that may not ultimately be relevant to the trial. Lawyers would also need clarity about how recorded evidence interacts with later testimony if a complainant’s recollection changes or further information emerges.

The ground rules pilot may provide another source of evidence for future reform. If judges can set clearer expectations about questioning before a witness enters the courtroom, the process may become more focused without altering the substance of cross-examination. The trial in three District Court locations is designed to test that model before any broader rollout.

For now, the central legal qualifier is that these are proposed reforms. They are not yet a settled statewide system, and parliament will consider the legislation before it becomes law. The government is presenting the package as a way to reduce unnecessary trauma and improve evidence. Fair Agenda and other advocates are arguing that the state should go further.

Evidence-in-chief is the part of a witness’s testimony used by the party calling that witness to present their account. Cross-examination is the opportunity for the opposing side to challenge that account. Keeping those functions separate is one reason the government has chosen a limited first step rather than moving immediately to a fully pre-recorded model.

The reform also has to work across cases that differ greatly in complexity. Some matters may involve a single recorded interview and a relatively focused dispute; others may involve later disclosures, digital evidence, multiple witnesses or new information obtained after the first interview. Courts will need rules for handling those differences without turning the recording process into another source of delay.

The planned 2027–2030 ground-rules pilot will provide a practical test of whether earlier judicial management changes the experience of adult complainants. If judges can resolve disputes about language, repetition and the scope of questioning before evidence begins, the pilot may show whether procedural reform can reduce unnecessary distress while leaving the substance of the defence case intact.

The broader policy challenge is significant. AIHW estimates about 2.8 million adults have experienced sexual violence since age 15. That does not mean every experience was reported or prosecuted, and the criminal justice system cannot address prevention on its own. But it helps explain why governments are examining whether court procedure itself creates avoidable barriers for people who do report.

The scale of sexual violence also means procedural reform will affect a diverse group of complainants rather than a single type of case. AIHW’s latest national summary, based on the 2021–22 Personal Safety Survey, estimates 22 per cent of women and 6.1 per cent of men have experienced sexual violence since age 15. Those are population estimates, not measures of criminal convictions, and they reinforce the need to keep statistical prevalence separate from the evidentiary standard applied to any individual prosecution.

The debate is therefore less about whether the court process should change and more about how far reform can go while maintaining the rights of all parties. The next steps will be the parliamentary process, the ground rules pilot, and the separate review of whether adult sexual assault complainants should eventually be able to pre-record their entire evidence.