Speaking at the Free + Equal Conference on Friday (7 June), former High Court judge the Honourable Michael Kirby AC CMG reflected on Australia’s history in human rights, reforming the human rights framework, and how we can be doing better.

This comes after the Australian Human Rights Commission and the federal parliamentary joint committee on human rights undertook wide-ranging community consultations around reforming human rights law in Australia – and the bodies have since made a range of recommendations for reform.

Kirby began by saying that when he was growing up in Australia, he was under the belief that everyone was born “free and equal in dignity and rights”.

“But at a certain point, not too far into my life journey, when I discovered my sexual orientation, I found that we were not free and equal, and that dignity was not what we had, and not what I had. It was fear. It was terror. It was shame,” he said.

“It was something I had to keep very deeply in myself. Never mention it. Never talk about it to my mom. Never talk about it to my father. Never talk to my siblings or my grandmother. This was something I was programmed from a very early age to be unable to do. And I didn’t like it.”

This keynote followed an apology around discriminatory laws and policies, which NSW Premier Chris Minns said “criminalised, persecuted and harmed people based on their sexuality and gender”.

NSW was the last state to issue such an apology on Thursday (6 June), after homosexual activity was decriminalised in the state in 1984.

“The media made me very terrified that it would spill out to the shame of my family. And that was the deal, if you kept quiet about it, if you pretended, you would be left alone,” Kirby said.

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“It’s very important to understand that the apology that was given yesterday was an apology about a functional weakness of our democratic system. The functional weakness and the answer to those who say you can leave all this to Parliament. Parliament always fixes up injustices because if they don’t, they’ll lose their seats in the next election. That was the theory, and that was what we were told.

“We believe in Australia in settling these matters in Parliament. Parliament will fix things up. Well, why did we have the apology yesterday? We had the apology because Parliament doesn’t fix all things up.”

While Kirby admitted Parliament is good at fixing up “problems of majorities”, he noted that the country is still in need of a Bill of Rights, or Human Rights Act, and that every child in Australia should be taught that they are “born free and equal in dignity and rights”.

“Parliament is seeking to fix up the problems in those outlying cities, in our suburbs, in our big cities, those suburbs where governments are made and unmade. That’s what controls politics, and politics is played very hard in Australia. So sometimes, you need some deep principles as tools to ensure that the parliamentary system is helped and the parliamentarians have knowledge of the basic core principles that unite us together as human beings,” he said.

“In the discussions about earlier versions of the Bill of Rights for Australia, or Human Rights Act, there have been many discussions about what has been attempted in Victoria and in the ACT and in Queensland so far, discussed in other states of the charter.

“And I hope that what is now propounded by the Human Rights Commission will ensure that our whole country gets the benefit that I had of basic principles and the tools by which judges, lawyers, politicians and lawmakers can achieve human rights for all. It can be done.”

Lauren Croft

Lauren is a journalist at Lawyers Weekly and graduated with a Bachelor of Journalism from Macleay College. Prior to joining Lawyers Weekly, she worked as a trade journalist for media and travel industry publications and Travel Weekly. Originally born in England, Lauren enjoys trying new bars and restaurants, attending music festivals and travelling. She is also a keen snowboarder and pre-pandemic, spent a season living in a French ski resort.