- Thank you, Brooke, and thank you, Yvonne, for that wonderful as always Welcome to Country.
I, too, begin by paying my respects to the traditional custodians of this land on which
we meet, the Gadigal people of the Eora Nation, pay my respects to Elders past, present and
emerging, because the emerging leaders are our future. We put our faith in the children.
I also acknowledge the many Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander guests who are joining
us today. It is a great privilege for me as President of the Australian Human Rights Commission
to welcome each and every one of you to today's event. We have now reached the milestone of
32 years since the awards began. Joining us in the room we have commissioners past and
present, we have royal commissioners, we have judges, we have friends, family and our finalists.
If I can borrow a word from Yvonne, she spoke of warriors. Our finalists are our warriors
and today is your day. Some of our finalists have overcome adversity or taken a stand in
the face of prejudice. Others have exposed harmful practices. Others still have led enduring
change. All have strived for fairer and more inclusive communities. You have achieved remarkable
things, and we salute you. We live in a world that is rapidly changing.
New technologies offer previously unimaginable benefits to society and unprecedented challenges.
The robo-debt scandal revealed how easily the most vulnerable members of our society
can be harmed by new technologies. And we are all alarmed that algorithms allow the
manipulation of social media audiences to the benefit of the platform and those who
seek to undermine our democracy.
And we live in uncertain, even disturbing times. The April attacks on mosques in Christchurch
were shocking examples of extremism and anti-Muslim sentiment, but they also generated an outpouring
of compassion. Extraordinary police raids on journalists and the significant public
backlash demonstrated both the fragility and the preciousness of freedom of the press and
the public's right to know. Such issues pull at the seams of a cohesive society. But on
days like today, even when we feel the challenges are great, we should remember that what is
common to our humanity is even greater. Surely, compassion is central to our national
identity, respect and dignity similarly so. We do expect that everyone will get a fair
go and that we can all have our say. Australians like to keep the bastards honest, as Don Chipp
famously said, by ensuring people in authority are accountable for their actions. These are
values we hold dear as a nation and they are, in essence, a reflection of human rights standards
and democratic freedoms. At last year's awards, I announced that we
would embark upon a national conversation on human rights to reimagine how we value
and respect human rights, asking what kind of Australia do we want to live in. During
the year, we set out our approach in an issues paper and three discussion papers looking
at how our discrimination laws could be made more effective, and what protections are missing,
what domestic mechanisms are needed to ensure accountability for our human rights commitments
to the world and how to build a positive framing of human rights in law, policy and practice.
A significant highlight of the year, as Brooke mentioned, was our free and equal conference
in Sydney in October, with a visit to Australia of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights,
Dr. Michelle Bachelet. The conference and the roundtables we hosted during her visit
were an opportunity to focus on a shared vision for human rights reform into the future, and
as Dr. Bachelet urged, we should apply strategic optimism to reach our goals. Through our conversations,
we have learned that Australians do value their rights to freedom of expression, to
a fair trial, to equality before the law, and to freedom from discrimination. These
are all values that we hold dear as Australians. And yet, we have not effectively embedded
them into our laws and practices, especially at the Commonwealth level.
Our conversations have also prompted questions for our politicians. Do they protect our rights?
Do they restrict them? And, if so, how do they justify this to us, the electors? We
are talking about human rights and freedoms in a forward, future building way with strategic
optimism, where our focus is aspirational and positive. There is encouraging work taking
place in front of us, on our TV screens and Twitter feeds, in protests and vigils, through
the work of inquiries and roundtables and by people working late into the night gathering
evidence and crafting reports and recommendations for change.
The issues involved are far ranging - the environment, regional inequality, racism,
deaths in custody and demands that more be done to counter historical injustices, to
break cycles of intergenerational trauma. We will focus on some of these themes next
year. How to counter the rising tide of online hate speech and extremism, the environment
and human rights, water, food, clean air, and the sustainability of regional Australia.
Democracy - people and communities are entitled to speak up for what they believe in and to
congregate in public spaces to express their views, to hold those responsible to account
and call out injustice where they see it. Our democracy is precious. We want to see
people engaged in civic life, not silenced. It is frightening to see that the annual CIVICUS
Monitor, which assesses how well freedoms are protected, has downgraded Australia from
"open" to a country where civil space has "contracted", citing new laws that restrict
peaceful assembly, expand government surveillance and allow raids on media organisations. These
issues are all connected. But I have faith in human rights to help us solve problems.
And a belief in our shared humanity. The essential goodness in each of us.
Most of all, I see in the actions of our young people, our young warriors, in their dedication
to this nation and the planet, a better future for us all. Next year, we will bring our project
to fruition, not a close. We will release a national reform agenda and seek public comment
before finalising it in a report to the federal parliament in the second half of 2020.
Human rights matter. A society that values human rights is a society that values its
people. And a society that values its people is worth fighting for. So, let us celebrate
the achievements of the year in our Human Rights Awards 2019 and draw on the inspiring
actions and examples of our finalists so that tomorrow, we may continue to turn our aspirations
and hopes into reality.