Financial Counselling Australia Conference

Adelaide, 29 May 2025

It’s great to be here in South Australia, a state that has so often been the beating human rights heart of Australia with so many human rights firsts.

South Australia was the first jurisdiction in Australia to:

• legalise trade unions;
• to give adult women the right to vote and stand for Parliament;
• to introduce anti-discrimination laws; and
• to decriminalise homosexual acts.

It’s worth pausing here to remember a particular awful injustice.

Just a few hundred metres from here one night in May 1972, gay university lecturer Dr George Duncan and another man were attacked by a group of men and thrown into the River Torrens.

George couldn’t swim and drowned. It’s suspected the attackers were vice squad police. No one was ever prosecuted.

But the death prompted a public outcry that led to South Australia becoming the first state to decriminalise homosexuality - 50 years ago this year.

So when we celebrate the law reform progress we need to remember the harms that preceded it and the advocacy - and sacrifice - of so many that brought about the change.

Financial counselling services

I have always been a big fan of financial counselling services.

Thank you for the work you do and the way you do it. It’s human rights work.

When I was a community lawyer working in Melbourne’s outer west we saw so many people in financial strife.

We helped with the legal problems and would regularly refer clients to financial counsellors and vice versa.

And when I moved to the Victorian Federation of Community Legal Centres, we worked on fixing unfair laws, policies and practices that hurt people in financial difficulty.

I read the Financial Counselling Australia strategic plan on Sunday. It’s an excellent plan.

Your values statement - or more specifically the “principles that guide your work” - is one of the best I’ve read. It starts by talking about decency, kindness and compassion. It also speaks to truth telling, justice and voice for First Nations communities.

I’m going to draw on both of those themes today and how they can be an antidote to the division and polarisation affecting our society today.

 I’ll end by talking about better human rights laws in this country – including how South Australia can once again lead on human rights.

Truth telling

We are meeting on Aboriginal land.

I acknowledge the Kaurna people, their elders and their ancestors.

As a non-Indigenous person I acknowledge this as a sign of respect and recognition of the ancient culture that has cared for these lands and that lives on today.

I acknowledge First Nations people in the room today.

I was privileged to work for two years as the CEO of the Yoorrook Justice Commission: the first formal truth telling Commission looking at historic and ongoing injustice against Aboriginal people in Victoria.

Yoorrook is a four year Commission, led by Aunty Eleanor Bourke and three other Aboriginal Commissioners, Trav Lovett, Sue-Anne Hunter and Maggie Walter and a non-Aboriginal Commissioner, former judge Tony North.

Yoorrook means “truth” in the Wamba Wamba language of north western Victoria.

Yoorrook has gathered stories and evidence from thousands of First Nations people across Victoria.

It has held formal public hearings where senior officials including the Premier gave evidence and were questioned about what the state is doing to address injustice against Aboriginal people.

Yoorrook has reached millions of people via media, social media, events and more.

If you haven’t watched Bridget Brennan’s recent 4 Corners program on Yoorrook, please look it up on iview.

Yoorrook finishes up next month.

To promote its culmination, Commissioner Trav Lovett is walking 400km from the site of Victoria’s first permanent settlement in Portland to the Victorian Parliament. I think he’s in Port Fairy today.

I’ll be walking with him on the final leg and if you’re in Melbourne on 18 June you should join us.

Yoorrook has been a remarkable journey that has changed Victoria for the better and will continue to change Victoria for the better.

Telling the truth of what happened to First Nations people - and what is still happening to them, and how the past is connected to the present – telling this story is an essential step on the journey to justice and healing.

We need to build a shared understanding where we have come from in order to build a better future together.

The two years I spent at Yoorrook took me on my own personal journey.

Learning so much more about the true history of our country changed the way I look at the world – a bit like putting on a different pair of glasses.

There are so many ways it changed my perspective but I want to pick five to share today.

First: pride in culture and generosity in sharing it

Yoorrook dealt with heavy, sad, tough issues.

Deep injustice.

I saw understandable anger and trauma – and the trauma handed down over generations.

But I also saw incredible pride in Aboriginal culture and – despite all the injustice they have experienced - a remarkable willingness to share it with others.

At one event we held Uncle Robbie Thorpe described Aboriginal culture as “a gift to the nation”.

The generosity of spirit is breathtaking.

It makes the recent criticism of welcome to country ceremonies even more galling and ignorant.

Second: seeing the strength

It’s easy to get stuck in deficit language when there is such profound injustice affecting First Nations people and many of the statistics are so grim.

The need to address that injustice is urgent and as advocates we understandably want to point to the harm.

But it’s so important to do that with care to avoid reinforcing stereotypes and doing more harm.

And it’s vital to acknowledge the strengths and the progress - the things that are going right or in the right direction in spite of all the setbacks, the adversity and lack of support.

I saw so much strength and excellence in my time at Yoorrook, often in surprising places.

Incredible advocacy and resistance.

Tenacious and effective leadership and community building.

Deep environmental knowledge and care for country.

Creative brilliance in old media and new media - from art to fashion and music, and beyond.

Sporting brilliance.

Entrepreneurship and business skills.

Huge family and community networks.

And a deep enduring respect and recognition of Elders and ancestors.

There is so much here that non-Aboriginal society can learn from.

Third: the importance of culture and identity

Colonisation in Australia decimated First Nations clans and nations – particularly in areas hit hardest and earliest.

Some nations were wiped out.

Some were reduced to a handful of survivors.

Those survivors were often forced from their land, onto missions, into servitude or onto the fringes of white society.

Culture and language were suppressed.

Children with European blood were removed from their families and communities and told that Aboriginality was bad.

Aboriginal ancestry was shamed.

It is this history that makes it so painful when Aboriginal people have their identity questioned by non-Aboriginal people.

It’s also why it is so important to celebrate First Nations culture and support their work to celebrate and rebuild it.

Research like the landmark Mayi Kuwayu Study shows that when First Nations people are strong in culture and identity, they are strong in health and wellbeing.

On a personal level, for me with mixed race Sri Lankan and European heritage, Yoorrook reinforced the importance of knowing where you come from and being proud of it and teaching your kids about it.

Fourth: country is everything

One of Yoorrook’s expert advisers, Associate Professor Nikkie Moodie said: “We speak for Country. We are Country. We are the land, we act as land and for land.”

Colonisation in Australia was all about the land.

British law, infected by racism, ignored the rights of First Nations people who had lived here for thousands of generations.

For example, the United Kingdom legislation which set up the colony of South Australia in 1834 referred to these lands as “waste” and “unoccupied”.

Most of Australia is familiar with the case brought and won by Eddie Koiki Mabo and others.

The case was decided when I was in law school.

Back then, I looked at the case as a landmark, courageous decision by the highest court in our land.

After Yoorrook, I see the decision as the very least the High Court could do to recognise what was obvious for the previous two hundred years – that it always was Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander land.

I now look at Mabo through the prism of the Charles Perkins quote when he said “We live off the crumbs that fall off the white Australian table and are told to be grateful.”

In many ways the native title recognised by Mabo is the crumbs off the white Australian table.

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people have a chance to get what’s left over after everyone else has had their feed.

And Aboriginal nations most damaged by colonisation are least likely to have a valid native title claim.

It’s this history of racism, of blindness to the rights of Aboriginal people and taking of their land, that makes it so offensive when they are accused, without any irony, of coming for our backyards.

For the record, freehold land extinguished native title so our backyards are very safe.

I also think it’s important to see the Mabo decision not only as giving First Nations people something, but also giving the rest of us something: a way to help our national conscience and resolve, in an incremental way, a deep sore of injustice that still hasn’t been properly remedied.

The High Court judges recognised this. Justices Deane and Gaudron said:

The acts and events by which that dispossession in legal theory was carried into practical effect constitute the darkest aspect of the history of this nation. The nation as a whole must remain diminished unless and until there is an acknowledgment of, and retreat from, those past injustices.

Fifth: Sovereignty and treaty

The judges were talking about the grand theft of First Nations land, but the same reasoning might apply to sovereignty.

For thousands of generations Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander nations exercised their sovereignty in the continent of Australia and its islands over defined areas of country.

The injustice of the arrogant and racist assumption of British sovereignty over those lands has never been addressed.

First Nations leaders came up with the roadmap to do just that in 2017 with the Uluru Statement from Heart.

Voice. Treaty. Truth.

The Voice referendum failed but elements of the Uluru Statement are still alive in parts of Australia.

Like here in South Australia where there is a legislated and elected Aboriginal voice and a commitment to truth and treaty.

Or in Victoria through the elected First Peoples Assembly of Victoria.

As Yoorrook finishes, negotiations for a statewide treaty and local Traditional Owner treaties are happening in Victoria.

Treaties will deliver important benefits for First Nations people.

They will help to create a different story for future generations.

One where First Nations people have power and control over the issues that affect them.

Where First Nations families have access to quality culturally appropriate education, healthcare and housing.

Where First Nations communities are prosperous, where country is healthy and where culture and language is thriving.

Where, in the words of the Uluru Statement, sovereignties co-exist.

Treaties will benefit the rest of us.

They will help to remedy a deep injustice – to heal a lingering sore and bring us together as a nation with a brighter, united future.

Human rights values

I want to finish by talking about values and human rights.

The work at Yoorrook gave me a better understanding of the successes and failures of the modern human rights movement.

This movement emerged out of the horrors of World War 2.

The international community came together and said, “Never Again”.

To promote global peace, development and prosperity they came up with new international laws and institutions, most notably the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

Australia was closely involved in the Universal Declaration.

An Australian, William Hodgson, was one of just nine people on the drafting committee led by the extraordinary Eleanor Roosevelt.

Out of the mass slaughter and human suffering, these drafters created a document that should rightly be celebrated as one of the pinnacles of human achievement.

Australia’s Foreign Minister, Doc Evatt, strongly supported the Declaration and was President of the UN General Assembly when it was adopted.

You sometimes see Australian political leaders bristle when they receive criticism from UN bodies for failing to uphold human rights.

It’s worth reminding them that Australia helped to design the system that is holding them accountable.

Australia voluntarily participates in that system and it does so because it’s in our national interest to protect people’s rights at home and abroad.

When human rights are respected, our lives are better and our communities are stronger, healthier, safer and more prosperous.

The Universal Declaration is said to be the most translated document in human history.

It lists 30 rights that are essential for all of us to live a decent dignified life, no matter who we are or where we are.

The right to be safe, to vote, to stand for elections, to peacefully assemble and protest, to an education and, relevantly for your work, to an adequate standard of living including food, health and housing and more.

These rights are the key to a good life for all.

The blueprint for the kind of society we all want to live in.

They reflect values like equality, freedom, respect, dignity, kindness, thinking of others and looking out for each other.

The first article of the UN Declaration proclaims that all human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights.

These simple words say to every one of us, no matter who you are, or where you are - you have value, you matter and you deserve dignity – because of the mere fact that you are human.

The words are grounded in our common humanity.

Regardless of our differences, we all are human.

No us and them.

We all bleed the same. We all love. We all suffer. We all experience hope, sadness, wonder and joy.

Alongside the human rights treaties that followed it, the Declaration has played a key role in smashing ideas that some humans are worth less than others – in smashing the corrosive prejudice that gave rise to slavery, colonisation, eugenics, genocide and more.  

It’s this prejudice that led to the colonisation of Australia and the subsequent mistreatment of First Nations people.

It’s this prejudice that led a group of men to attack George Duncan and throw him into the Torrens River and drown him.

The words born free and equal may seem unremarkable today.

And this fact speaks to one of the great successes of human rights.

The Declaration and the treaties that followed it sparked big steps forward for equality and inclusion for people and communities. Steps forward for racial equality. Religious equality. Gender equality. Equality for gay, lesbian, bisexual, trans and intersex people. Equality for people with disabilities.

Of course, we are not there yet.

Progress is fragile and cannot be taken for granted.

Big challenges remain on all these fronts.

Racism has risen in recent years.

Diversity, inclusion and equity initiatives are under threat.

We live in an increasingly polarised society - fuelled by mis and disinformation enabled by social media which monetises division and tribalism.

So how do we respond?

Part of the answer is the need to reaffirm the values at heart of our liberal democracy.

What is it that unites us as Australians?

How do we define what we stand for as a nation?

Our citizenship booklet tries to define what is to be Australian.

Forget cricket, it talks about our shared values such as the dignity and freedom of each person, equal opportunity and freedom of speech, freedom of religion and freedom of association.

New citizens must make a pledge saying:

I pledge my loyalty to Australia and its people,
whose democratic beliefs I share,
whose rights and liberties I respect, and
whose laws I will uphold and obey.
 

When the Prime Minister delivered his victory speech a few weeks back he sought to define what unites us as Australians, calling on all of us to “work together to build our national unity on the enduring foundations of fairness, equality and respect for one another.”

The values at the heart of Australia’s liberal democracy are human rights values.

These are the values that should unite us.

An Australian Human Rights Act

Part of living up to human rights values means properly protecting our human rights in Australian law.

You see, while Australia supported the Universal Declaration and promised to protect the human rights set out in the major international treaties that followed it, you can’t enforce these treaties directly in Australian law if your rights are breached.  

Our promises on the global stage are not backed up effectively.

Our human rights protections are patchy and our human rights safety net has holes in it.

There are many examples of how this creates problems:

• the Royal Commissions into Robodebt and the abuse experienced by people with disability and in aged care, exposed serious human rights breaches, and show how our existing systems are inadequate.
• We’ve seen police raids on the ABC and a journalist’s home for their role in exposing potential war crimes
• And during COVID we saw the criminalisation of Australian citizens attempting to return home.

An Australian Human Rights Act will help to prevent issues like these.

It would be like a reverse citizenship pledge where Australian governments and parliaments legally promise to protect the human rights of all Australian citizens.

The Australian Human Rights Commission has proposed a model for a Human Rights Act in our Free and Equal Project.

Last year, the Australian Parliament’s Human Rights Committee recommended establishing a Human Rights Act based on our model.

A national Human Rights Act will apply for federal government bodies like departments, the Australian Federal Police, Centrelink, Medicare, the National Disability Insurance Agency and more.

It will require them to properly consider and act compatibly with people’s rights.

This will foster a better understanding of rights and a culture of thinking about people’s rights which will help prevent human rights breaches from occurring.

And if breaches do happen, people will have the power to take action to address them.

We already have Human Rights Acts operating effectively in the ACT (2004), Victoria (2006) and Queensland (2019) applying to their respective state and territory governments.

There are so many examples of the differences, big and small, they are making in people’s lives.

Stopping families from being evicted into homelessness.

Securing dignity for people with disabilities – including on financial issues.

Helping women fleeing family violence.

I encourage you to take a look at the Human Rights Law Centre’s online publication 101 cases showing the benefits of Human Rights Acts.

And here in South Australia, a Parliamentary Committee has just recommended adopting a South Australian Human Rights Act, with consultation to be conducted on the model. South Australia can lead on human rights once more.

Across the country, support for a national Human Rights Act is strong.

It grew under COVID when there was a deeper appreciation of the lack of protection afforded to rights in Australia.

I encourage you to support for an Australian Human Rights Act and for Human Rights Acts in all Australian jurisdictions.

Human Rights Acts are a way to translate the values at the heart of your work into better legal protections for the clients you serve.

They help make our society fairer for all.