A day after details of rampant hazing cultures across Australian universities were revealed in the damning Red Zone report, Labor has announced it will force universities to hand over money if they don’t do anything about the situation.

What is Labor’s Plan?

Speaking at a conference for Universities Australia in Canberra today, Tanya Plibersek criticised the lack of response to issues of hazing and sexual assault on university campuses:

“I was at uni about 30 years ago. And 30 years ago we saw the same kind of complaints and heard the same kind of responses from residential colleges and universities,” she said.

“While I acknowledge that some residential colleges and universities have taken steps to address these issues, many have failed to take decisive action.”

Plibersek may have been low-key shading the University of Sydney’s attempts to stop their residential halls from creating a bad culture. Last year, the university handed down the Broderick Review, which was slammed for only completing less than a third of the 120 one-on-one interviews it had planned to conduct.

“If universities can’t ensure colleges are safe, they should sever links with them,” Plibersek said. “If some residential colleges and universities refuse to treat this seriously, governments must make them”.

Plibersek also suggested Labor might take legislative and regulatory measures to fix the situation. We don’t know what that means yet, but advocates have long suggested legislative changes to limit the independence given to some residential halls, such as the notorious St Paul’s College at the University of Sydney.

There isn’t much detail to the plan yet — we don’t know how much they would fine colleges, what legislative changes they want to make, or what demands Labor will make of the colleges before threatening to punish them.

Why All The Fuss?

Plibersek’s announcement comes after the release of The Red Zone: a 211-page publication that extensively detailed the hazing practices around Australia. The report is titled The Red Zone because that’s the name given to O-Week by student activists, due to the week’s reputation for rife sexual assault and harassment.

One of the authors of the report, Nina Funnell, told Junkee Labor’s plan could be a step in the right direction.

“It is excellent that federal politicians are now weighing in on this, and that they are prepared to take a tough-line stance on colleges,” Funnell said. “It’s time that ministers at both a state and federal level stepped up to the plate, and took ownership of these issues – rather than once again having it fall upon students and survivors”.

Much of the The Red Zone report focuses on incidents at the University of Sydney’s residential colleges — one hazing ritual saw students forced to eat a mixture of vomit and cow faeces, and another encouraged students to drink until they soiled themselves. The report also documents hazing practices at other universities, like the University of Newcastle and the Australian National University.

The report details some pretty gross stuff coming out of ANU: at St Johns’ XXIII College, four students were suspended after chanting “I wish all women were nails in my shed, then I’d grab my hammer and nail ’em in my bed” during O-Week.

The report also contains recommendations, such as improved oversight of student residences, counselling services at colleges, and greater transparency for information on residential hall culture.

And that might not be the end of it. According to Funnell, End Rape On Campus Australia has been inundated with allegations from universities around Australia since the publication of the report.

“Since The Red Zone came out on Monday, EROC has been inundated with more disclosures from current and former college residents around the country, who have alleged everything from sexual assault, rape, gang rape, harassment, hazing, intimidation, ostracism and other forms of initiation which are so disgusting it makes The Red Zone report pale by comparison.”

The University of Sydney told Junkee that they would welcome the opportunity to meet with Labor and discuss their plans.

“The colleges associated with the University of Sydney are governed by separate acts of NSW state parliament making them independent of the University,” the statement read. “However, the University is committed to practical reforms at the colleges and it is for this reason that we are working with the colleges and Liz Broderick and her team on improving campus culture for the University and five of its residential colleges”.