Free + Equal: Australian Conversation on Human Rights Closing Remarks

Closing Remarks

Emeritus Professor Rosalind Croucher AM President, Australian Human Rights Commission

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For a start, thank you Julia, Dr Baird for that wonderful MC-ing of the day. What an array of fantastic insights!

I said at the beginning that it would be challenging, insightful and exciting and I'm sure that, from my perspective, it's been every one of those things. I thought I would just try and capture some of the insights that you've all shared during the day and place it in the context of where we go from here.

Our first panel was a profoundly unsettling one, but when we're having conversations about ‘advancing Australia where?’ and it's a panel of our Indigenous peoples, we have to be unsettled. The idea of ‘lest we forget’ is a very powerful one. And, as I was reminded in another one of our events in remembering the Stolen Generations, if we don't know where we've come from, how can we make sense of our present? To which I would add, ‘let alone our future’. The idea of ‘lest we forget’ and the cathartic power of the ‘reckoning’ of which Teela spoke was reinforced by Helen Milroy from the perspective of the psychiatric discipline.

But, as Mick Dodson said, ‘it is a long game’, echoed by Cathy McGowan in a later panel, I saying, ‘it's not going to happen in a hurry’.

Dr Bachelet spoke of the fact that rights had to be claimed from the bottom up, that if we wait for it to happen from the top down, we will be waiting forever for it to happen.

When Sam Mostyn referred to Craig Foster, she spoke of him as ‘doing human rights’ and I like to think of that as encapsulating actually what human rights is about. Human rights is ‘a doing word’. I know the grammar is not quite right, but you get the idea. Human rights is a doing word and Craig is doing human rights. If we object, or if people object to the outside nature of human rights, well make the conversation and narratives our own, like Craig has shown. It is not a blank canvass as Dr Bachelet reminded us. We know—and Cathy Branson reminded us—of the wonderful work that Frank Brennan led ten years ago and the work fellow commissioners are undertaking now. June Oscar, with her Wiyi Yani U Thangani project, listening to the voices of Indigenous women and girls; Kate Jenkins in leading a national inquiry in sexual harassment in the workplace; Megan Mitchell listening to the voices of children; our Race Discrimination Commissioner, Chi Tan, in leading conversations with Muslim communities—and it goes on and on through all the NGOs represented in various ways in this room and the advocates all.

What we're seeking to do in the project of the moment is to continue that momentum, and to amplify the voices that are already out there. It's not a niche concern, as we were reminded.

I like the way that Helen ended and I will return to that, because I think it's an important theme about standing up and speaking, ‘Walk with us’, she said, ‘and we can achieve it together’. To me, that also echoes what Dr Bachelet spoke of in referring to ‘strategic optimism’. I like that phrase very much—and also her phrase about ‘accumulated youth’. I think that those of us who are a few decades on from the young people we just saw will happily claim ourselves as having much ‘accumulated youth’!

Dr Bachelet and Cathy McGowan spoke of conversing as a two-way thing. Not just speaking, but listening. Especially to those who disagree with us. That is something that resonates greatly with me. In the beautiful eulogy that my dear father, at the age of 98, delivered for my mother who passed away a couple of weeks ago—he gave a 45-minute eulogy which was magnificent—he said that my mother (and my sister’s in this room so I will say ‘our mother’), never gave up on the things she was passionate about, she always spoke to those who criticised her, but she was never devious. In the work at the Human Rights Commission, I channel my mother; and I channel the suffragettes, because the suffragettes understood it was a long game. Women's suffrage was not achieved overnight, it took decade after decade after decade of relentless advocacy and relentless speaking. The expression used was ‘much speaking’, so never giving up, never being devious and speaking and listening to the critics. I have a list of the sternest critics of the work of the Human Rights Commission and, one by one, I listen and speak to them. So, I am walking in the path of my mother and those suffragettes in the work I am doing.

As the national human rights institution, we need to use our authority to keep up the pressure in those conversations—and we do. The concern over the position of asylum seekers and refugees has been a constant theme in the conversations that we’ve been having and I point here to the very powerful work of the commission in the reports that have been released recently, the Legacy Caseload report dealing with the 30,000 people still here in the limbo of their position; the report on risk management in immigration detention centres and also a report on families that were taken to Nauru. Here, our authoritative voice is important.

Dr Bachelet also reminded us that human rights are not a ‘left’ or a ‘right’ issue. Bringing that to the Australian context, I did a simple exercise. I used a red pen for Labor and a blue pen for the Coalition and I set up a sheet on which I had all of the treaties to which Australia has committed over the last 50 years, when they've been ratified and when they've been signed. And apart from the second optional protocol of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which concerned the abolition of the death penalty about which I would say neither side of politics would have any objection, with my red pen and a blue pen it was a 10-all split. 10 reds and 10 blues. If anyone says it's a party political issue, they are wrong.

Cathy McGowan took us to the unity in the idea of a fair go. We were looking for common themes and Cathy talked of the idea of a fair go being a unifying idea. I would not recommend Cathy's dietary analogy—as in ‘eating an elephant’, but I agree there is magic to be had in the conversation that is the result of grassroots engagement. Cathy Branson spoke of human rights being ‘an attitude of mind’, but also reminded us that laws can change attitudes. As a lawyer and a legal historian and a prior law reformer I have to agree with that, and the laws that Susan Ryan was able to introduce in Parliament in the Sex Discrimination Act have profoundly affected the landscape for women in this country.

Education can have an enormous effect and I think here the work of the Human Rights Commission has been fantastic in preparing materials that are mapped to the curriculum in terms of citizenship and history. But also the power of early childhood education. ‘Play School’ is one of the most inclusive programs. I was watching it the other day with my grandees and I was delighted to see a person of short stature who was one of the fine actors in that show, although there's a lot more that can be done. One of my grandsons spotted the Magna Carta on my wall. It’s a fine document, but in the absence of our own Australian sense of what human rights are or rights and freedoms are in this country, it's Magna Carta in medieval Latin. But where my grandson had learned about Magna Carta was from ‘Horrible Histories’. The power of television and television shows for young people is an enormous thing that we can tap into. So, next time I don't want it to be Horrible Histories and the Magna Carta, but actually about the Australian Human Rights Act which will be in fridge magnet form on my fridge!

Nyadol reminded us to remember the impact of those on the edges of the conversation, and that idea of participating in conversations was another theme. Our young people this afternoon urged their inclusion in the conversations, about decision making about them. It is a theme that is so powerfully etched on my brain from the work of our Social Justice Commissioner June Oscar—‘nothing about us without us’—and it was a message that came through strongly in our Indigenous panel this morning. But it’s also a message that we should listen to in terms of not just Indigenous and young, but old people and decision making in older years and people with disability. So, any group about whom a decision is being made must be involved in that decision, otherwise that decision lacks legitimacy. That is a human rights-based approach.

So, what do we want the future of Australia to look like? We certainly want it to be a place that is fair, that is just, perhaps that reflects and embodies the key idea of the sustainable development goals, that ‘no-one is left behind’.

There is discontent. The level of dissatisfaction as Cathy McGowan told us, is huge. But, let's end with the strategic optimism again of Dr Bachelet and her reminder that we are more than a collection of individuals. Together, we are a collective force. It is a long game, as Mick told us this morning. So repeating the words of Helen to finish, ‘stand up, speak up, walk with us and we can achieve it together’.

Having completed those closing remarks, there’s a couple of housekeeping point and thank yous. The next stage in our national conversation is the discussion papers that we have released and we will be conducting consultations around those. The discrimination law paper, the positive framing paper and the paper on accountability mechanisms, they will inform the next stage of our work which will lead to a report in the middle of next year. That’s the process about the national conversation. The proceedings from today will be made available on the website. There are many people who could not join us today for a whole range of reasons and so we will have the proceedings available. They'll be done session-by-session to make it easily accessible on the website. The speeches of Dr Bachelet and myself this morning are now on the web, if you want to make reference to those as well.

Any event like this takes many, many people to get it to this point, but I just want to say thank you to one person, to Kate Griffiths, who has been working tirelessly on the conference from the very first, up to today. Kate is one of our younger members of staff, newer members of staff, but she has done a magnificent job. There are many others to thank, but I think Kate symbolises everything that has made this day so perfect. So thank you Kate, and thank you to everyone.

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