Nina Funnell

It's really alarming.

And I think particularly when I got that freedom of information data back and discovered that they're being FOI'd once a week, every week.

That for me was like this watershed moment of going, okay, this is not, Jess Denham's case is not an absurd outlier.

This is actually happening on the reg and we need to stop this.

So we started a petition called Don't Subpoena Our Support, Keep Counselling Confidential.

People get on it right now because that's the campaign that we're really pushing for at the moment and we're really hoping that the New South Wales Attorney General, Michael Daly, will hear the call and will realise that

You know, what is said in those moments in counselling, I mean, from a legal perspective, it's not even that useful because it's hearsay evidence anyway.

That's the first thing.

But far more important than that is that

following a sexual assault, people should be able to access that counselling safe in the knowledge that it genuinely is confidential and that they can park their feelings, their fears, their impact, they can talk about the impacts of trauma without their offender ever being able to read that.

And I think, you know, I've spoken to one person who

When she reported to the police, the police said to her, don't get counselling until after the criminal trial is over, which might be two to three years, but don't get counselling before then because if you do, we can't guarantee it will be safe.

Well, yeah.

Absolutely.

And if people are then delaying access to counselling for two to three years or they're being forced to choose between your access to justice or your access to confidential counselling, that's a binarised choice that survivors should never be put in.

And you're exactly right.

People need that counselling.

The earlier you get counselling, the better the outcomes are.

And particularly when you're going through something as traumatic as a trial or an investigation, having that additional support is really, really important.

We launched the campaign last month and already a lot of services and others have joined it.