Tim McCoy dinner

It’s pretty special for me being here tonight as the speaker at the Tim McCoy dinner.

There’s so many people in this room tonight who have played a big part in my life - making me a better human rights advocate and a better person.

The McCoy Dinner is always a great celebration of the community legal and broader legal aid and social justice sectors.

A meeting of the pioneers who set up CLCs in the 70’s and 80’s and the people who are continuing the work and building on their vision.

I was born in 74’ and so am happy to claim to be one of the founders of Fitzroy Legal Service.

This dinner is also of course a fitting tribute to the life of Tim McCoy. From what I know of Tim I know his spirit lives on in the ethos of the CLC sector. Its great to have members of the McCoy family here.

We’re meeting on the traditional lands of the Wurundjeri people. I acknowledge their ancestors and elders and their unbroken culture and connection to country.

I acknowledge Aboriginal people in the room tonight including Antoinette Braybrook and Auntie Vickie Roach and Ashley Morris.

I’m going to talk tonight about my human rights education.

Not the kind of human rights education you get from textbooks or classes.

I mean the human rights education you get from working for 19 years in community legal centres, helping and learning from people in tough situations and working with expert community lawyers and advocates.

I was lucky in the lottery of life. 

I was born in a stable, safe and prosperous country - and into a loving, safe, happy and financially comfortable family. 

I grew up in leafy, lovely and boring Surrey Hills studied law and arts at Melbourne University and then, after thinking about careers as a journalist or diplomat, started my legal career at one of the top corporate law firms, Mallesons. 

It was a good introduction to one part of our legal system, but it was never where I wanted my career to lead long term. After a few years I put my hand up to do a secondment to a community legal centre set up by a pioneering Attorney-General named Rob Hulls.

I was living in Kensington at the time. They asked me where I wanted to work and I said anywhere in the West. 

They rang me back and said you’ll be working at the Brimbank Community Legal Centre in Deer Park with a longtime community lawyer called Amanda George who did a lot of work with people in prison. 

I thought what does a corporate employment lawyer like me know about helping people in prison?

I soon learned, with thanks to the amazing work colleagues at Brimbank - Amanda, Belinda Lo, Charandev Singh and Colleen Bourke.

I went from level 30 in the Rialto in Collins St to a demountable site shed office on the side of Ballarat Road with a dog under my desk and a veggie patch nearby. 

There was a framed award on the office walls for the “The community legal centre most likely to be stolen off the back of a truck”.

This was in July 2003 and I was 29 and I loved it.

I learned more about human rights and the law in those first six months there than I had in all my time at law school and corporate law.

I quickly learned about the unequal access to justice in our country.

Amanda asked me to help on a death in custody case. 

Garry Whyte had been arrested for burglary and remanded in prison. 

He was taken to St Vincent’s hospital for a scan and left alone unarmed and handcuffed in the scan room. 

He got up and ran out of the room in an apparent attempt to escape. The guard outside had a gun which he drew and shot. The first shot missed Garry and almost hit the other guard who was running behind him. The second shot hit and killed Garry.

The guard was eventually tried for murder and the Herald Sun ran a front page story about the case with a photo of Garry and his son. Garry’s son had spent months getting over the death of his dad only to have his photo splashed across the front page of the paper.

Amanda asked me to write on behalf of the family to the Herald Sun to get them not to use the photo again.

So I did what any good corporate employment lawyer would do. Research. I rang the Mallesons IP team and the library who sent me journal articles and precedent letters and memos. I did many hours of research about media, photography and copyright law and then carefully crafted a letter which we sent to the paper. The Herald Sun wrote back and said they wouldn’t use the photo again.

Amanda said it was fascinating watching me because it underscored the almost limitless resources and expertise that corporate clients got from the top firms - and also the results that those resources and expertise got.

Whereas community lawyers are constantly having to make agonising decisions about who to help and how much to help them, knowing that every hour spent with one client was an hour not spent with the next person waiting for help, or people in the community who needed help but didn’t know how to get it.

On the flip side of this Amanda taught me about efficiency. One day she wrote a media release and asked me to send it to Liz at the Federation of Community Legal Centres to put on the media fax - yes fax - which went to all the media outlets. 

As any good corporate lawyer would, I turned to my computer and started typing up a very professional cover letter with the Federation’s address and words like “Dear Liz, Please find enclosed a media release etc”

Amanda said, what the hell are you doing and grabbed a pen and a bit of A4 paper and in 5 seconds wrote Dear Liz, send this out the media fax pls and gave it to me to send.

The team at Brimbank showed sometimes breathtaking expertise around grief, trauma, poverty and disadvantage. I learned fast.

Charandev schooled me in privilege. His words over a cup of tea resonated with me about a responsibility to use my privilege for good.

Amanda was a brilliant writer and editor and taught me about media and how to get opinion articles published.

I loved the community legal centre culture. Not just the satisfaction of helping people but also being able to be yourself a bit more.

At corporate law conference, people danced but only after main course and a few drinks. 

At a community law conference, people hit the dance floor after entrée, engaged in community legal centre dance battles, ripped the sleeves off their tshirts and did stage dives. We were young then.

I relished not having to wear a suit to work and shifted to pants and a shirt. 

Then jeans and a shirt. 

Then one hot day shorts and t shirt. Amanda had a quiet word to me that I need to dress more professionally.

I think she was wearing bright purple socks at the time.

I also learned that when you work for a not-for-profit good cause, people want to help you and you shouldn’t be afraid to ask for it.

We were running a Supreme Court case where we briefed a QC pro bono. The QC was skiing in Thredbo – as they do - and asked us to send the brief to his alpine chambers. 

I had to prepare the brief using the crappy photocopier in the community centre. No Mallesons document production team here. It was painfully slow and I was at risk of missing the express post deadline and also being late to an event in the city I was meant to be at. 

I drove into town and pulled up at some lights and amazingly an express post van pulled up right next to me. 

I rolled the window down, showed him the express post bag and said “Mate can you take this”. He said “I’m not supposed to”. I said “I work in a community legal centre”. He said “All right then”. 

I finished the secondment, quit Mallesons, volunteered and travelled and then ended up returning to the centre as manager after Amanda left.

One of my early cases was for an elderly woman from Bacchus Marsh who had been a forced labourer for the Nazis in the Czech Republic. 

The German Government had set up a compensation scheme for affected people. An organisation in Western Australia had somehow set up service offering to help people access compensation “at no cost to them”. Their idea was they would take a cut from the compensation. But the German Government knew about these schemes and sent the compensation cheques direct to the claimants. The elderly woman banked her money and the organisation ended up suing her for maybe a thousand dollars claiming they were owed money for the service they provided. She had been served with the papers, was suffering intense stress and caught the bus to Deer Park to get help.

So I had the job of trying to help her defend a case brought on the other side of the country. I rang Mallesons in Perth and asked if they’d take it on pro bono. They said they would, but when they looked at the amount claimed they said it wouldn’t make sense for them to take it on - they looked at it as if it was a corporate matter and their fees – even when waived on a pro bono basis - would massively exceed the amount being claimed. 

I was stunned but also realised that used to be my world - where things were looked at in economic terms and billable hours.

I told them the woman couldn’t sleep at night and asked if they’d at least be our agent to file an appearance in the court while I negotiated a settlement. I did this and the woman sent me a lovely Christmas card for years after.

I learned about dignity, pride and power.

I helped a woman who had been involved drugs and prostitution when she was young but had then turned her life around, had kids, got an aged care certificate and started working.

She was made permanent and got a pay rise and then the aged care agency realised they hadn’t done a criminal record check for her and asked her to complete it. When it came back – to them – not to her – they rang her and sacked her on the spot without even telling her what was on the record.

We eventually got the criminal record form which revealed a string of offences with fairly minor penalties. The last offence was more than nine and half years old. None of the offences would have shown up on the form if it had been 10 years old. But because the last offence was just under 10 years, everything showed up.

The old offences had nothing to do with her work performance and capacity so we brought an unfair dismissal case. 

We won an initial extension of time case and then negotiated a settlement in which she got some compensation and they agreed to give her job back in a few months once the 10 years had expired and she had a clean record. I was pretty happy with the outcome we’d achieved.

The 10 years expired and I called her but she wouldn’t answer.

I kept calling her and started to get frustrated. 

Finally she called me back a bit sheepishly and said thanks for what I’d done but that she was never going to go back and work for them. 

I was taken aback because I’d worked so hard to get the outcome for her and now she wouldn’t take it.

But slowly I realised that it was a good thing.

That what we’d achieved was about pride. And dignity. And putting her in a position of power.

I’ve stayed in touch with her over the years and I asked her permission the other day to speak about the work we did.

She said “Yes, and tell the people that getting my job back was to be part of the deal... Unknown to you, I never had any intention of going back … I wanted vindication.

I am a good person and hold strong morals and principles, and with your help, I wanted to shove it to the establishment...

Those people looked down on me because of my past, they had no right to fire me in the first place, then judge me with disdain in their eyes … I have more integrity in my big toe than those women who sat across the table from us.

And it's been not only 10 years I've kept out of trouble, but coming up on 20 years..”

I loved the work at Brimbank but the casework felt like I was putting individual band aids on a system that was failing people. 

My real passion became trying to achieve justice by fixing failing systems.

I remember Neil Rees telling me that he did some work in the early days of CLCs on what drove people to CLCs and came up with three common reasons; personal experience of injustice, progressive politics and religion.

I don’t think any of these particularly fit well for me.

I think instead what drives me is that I get pissed off when I see injustice because laws and policies aren’t working properly for people.

And I’m driven to trying to fix them through law reform.

That’s why I left Brimbank to take the job at the Federation of Community Legal Centres and then at the Human Rights Law Centre.

I love law reform work but it’s critical to never lose sight of the people who are affected.

Auntie Vickie Roach is here tonight.

I met Vickie when the Human Rights Law Centre was looking at bringing a High Court challenge in around 2006 against new laws that meant that anyone serving a prison sentence could not vote.

Phil Lynch and I went to Dame Phyllis Frost Centre to meet her and she said she wanted to bring the case. Vickie won that case. The High Court struck down the new laws as unconstitutional and strengthened the protection of the right to vote in Australia.

For law students who frequently study it, Vickie’s case is known as Roach v Electoral Commission [2007] HCA 43. I used to look at the Human Rights Law Centre web stats -and the case summary about Vickie’s case was always one of the most visited pages on the website. 

That case is only a small part of Vickie’s advocacy - for human rights, prisoner rights and Aboriginal rights over many years as a writer and public speaker

Vickie won a Tim McCoy Award for her advocacy.

Vickie you’re an amazing person. You’ve taught me so much about strength, resistance, grace, spirit, justice and good humour.

Your evidence to the Yoorrook Justice Commission left a powerful impression on me.

What I learned working at the Yoorrook Justice Commission

I want to end by talking briefly about Yoorrook and then my new job.

Yoorrook is the first formal truth telling inquiry into historical and ongoing injustice against Aboriginal people in Victoria.

I worked for two of its four years as CEO.

The experience profoundly changed me.

Working with leaders like Aunty Eleanor Bourke, with the First Peoples Assembly and with Traditional Owners and First Peoples across the state has made me see our nation differently.

I now look differently at the Mabo decision.

Despite its undeniable importance and the incredible advocacy of Eddie Koiki Mabo and others who won the case, I don’t look at Mabo as a landmark step forward.

I look at Mabo as the very least the High Court could do to recognise what was obvious for the previous two hundred years – it was always Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander land.

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

We can say “Always was always will be” at the start of events like this but right now what First Nations people get in land rights is what’s left over after everyone else has had their feed.

After Yoorrook, I look at farm fences, creeks choked up with invasive species, urban landscapes, street signs and place names recognising people who murdered or harmed Aboriginal people.

I look at all these things much differently.

This of course is nothing new to First Peoples – but I hope my learning can make me a better advocate for understanding and change – to help the rest of Australia to see things through First Peoples’ eyes.

Yoorrook also reinforced for me the importance of identity and knowing your culture – how that connects to self esteem.

On a personal level, as the child of a mixed race marriage and having grown up always feeling outside of the racial norm, it taught me about myself and made me a better parent.

Finally, Yoorrook taught me that for First Nations people the past is the present.

That the injustice has shape shifted over time but still persists.

The massacres have ended but deaths in custody continue.

The missions have closed but the mass imprisonment is at record rates.

The assimilationist stolen generation policies have gone, the apology has been delivered but children are being taken from families, communities, culture and country at worsening rates.

Race discrimination has been outlawed but rampant inequality persists.

How do we change this?

Victoria is pointing the way – with its progress on truth and treaty and the building of self-determined First Nations leadership structures.

None of this is easy. But anything worthwhile is hard.

Priorities as President

I never expected to be standing speaking at this dinner as the new President of the Australian Human Rights Commission.

It is a deep honour to be chosen for this role.

I hope that over my five year term we advance human rights so that we move towards becoming the best and fairest version of ourselves as a nation.

In particular, I hope we can achieve three key things.

An Australian Human Rights Act. Our human rights safety net has holes in it. A Human Rights Act that will protect people’s rights in law. It will help to prevent human rights breaches from happening and build a culture of respecting rights. And it will give people and communities the power to take action if their rights are breached.

We also need modernised, effective national anti-discrimination laws and improved human rights education – to build understanding of the importance of standing up for everyone’s human rights and how doing so will make our country fairer, safer and more prosperous.

Human rights are the blueprint for a decent, dignified life for all. 

They are the key to creating the kind of society we all want to live in. 

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

Over my five year team, I hope to live up the values of the community legal sector and apply the things that many of you in this room have taught me about human rights.