Speakers

Graeme Innes AM
Commissioner, Lawyer, Mediator and Company Director, Graeme Innes has been a Human Rights Practitioner for 25 years. Graeme is the Human Rights Commissioner and is Responsible for Disability Discrimination with the Commonwealth Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission and was Deputy Disability Discrimination Commissioner from 1999 to 2005. He has also worked in equal opportunity nationally and has been a Member of - The NSW Administrative Decisions Tribunal; The NSW Consumer, Trader and Tenancy Tribunal; The Social Security Appeals Tribunal; and a Hearing Commissioner with the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission. He was Chair of the Disability Advisory Council of Australia for four and a half years. He was the first blind President of Royal Blind Society of NSW, and the first Chair of Vision Australia, Australia's largest national blindness agency. He has been a delegate to the World Blind Union and the President of that Union's Asia-Pacific region; a member of the Australian delegation to the United Nations on the Rights of People with Disabilities and has consulted to organisations such as Westpac and Qantas on disability issues. In 1995 Graeme was admitted as a Member of the Order of Australia (AM) for his contribution to the development of Commonwealth disability discrimination legislation.

Fiona Smith
Fiona Smith was appointed Chairperson of the Equal Opportunity Commission in December 2003. A long-term advocate of social justice and disability issues, Fiona's role at the Equal Opportunity Commission is providing her with yet another quest to forward the cause of human rights and nurture a community that embraces diversity and is free from discrimination. Fiona has used her legal and social policy skills in her work with Federal and State tribunals, government agencies and the not-for-profit sector. She previously managed the equal opportunity unit for the Brotherhood of St Laurence and was a member of the Australian Council of Social Services. She served in the Guardianship and Administration Board, was a part-time member on the Commonwealth Administrative Tribunal and served as a director of the Royal Victoria Eye and Ear Hospital for four years. Fiona chairs the Business Licensing authority and is a trustee of the Reichstein Foundation. In 2003 she was awarded a Centenary Medal for her contribution to the Victorian Justice System and was named a finalist in the 2004 Bulletin magazine's Smart 100 for her contribution to social justice.

Simon Evans
Associate Professor Simon Evans is Deputy Dean of the Faculty of Law. He was Director of the Centre for Comparative Constitutional Studies until July 2007 and Director of Teaching from July 2003 to December 2005. He researches and teaches in constitutional law, constitutional theory, and property law. His particular fields of research are on he constitutional provisions that limit the ability of governments to take or regulate private property for public purposes and the mechanisms to ensure accountability of the executive government. He has worked as an Associate to Sir Anthony Mason at the High Court of Australia and as a solicitor at Mallesons Stephen Jaques in Sydney. He is a member of the Australasian Law Teachers Association, the Australian Association of Constitutional Law, the Australian Institute of Administrative Law and the Australian Society of Legal Philosophy.

Michelle Bissett
Michelle is an Industrial Officer with the ACTU, a position she has held since early 2001. Michelle has represented the ACTU in a number of major cases before the Australian Industrial Relations Commission designed to improve minimum standards for Australian workers, including the Working Hours Case, the Redundancy Test Case and the Work and Family Case. As well as being responsible for development and implementation of industrial and workers' rights policy, Michelle is also responsible for the development and implementation of vocational education and training policy. Prior to joining the ACTU Michelle held a variety of positions at the State and National levels with the Community and Public Sector Union where she represented the union on a diverse range of industrial and related matters within the Federal Public Service and the telecommunications sector including Telstra and Special Broadcasting Service and Australia Post. She commenced her union career in 1983 following a period of employment in the public sector where she was active as a union delegate.

Stepan Kerkyasharian
Stepan became the President of the Anti-Discrimination Board on 15 September 2003. He also continues to be the Chair and the Chief Executive Officer of the Community Relations Commission for a Multicultural New South Wales. Mr Kerkyasharian was appointed as the Chair of the Ethnic Affairs Commission of New South Wales in 1989 which became the 'Community Relations Commission for a Multicultural NSW' in March 2001. He became a Member of the Order of Australia in 1992 and received the Gold Cross in the Order of Merit of Poland in 1990. He was made a Fellow of the University of Technology Sydney in 1995 and in September 2000 the International Olympic Committee conferred the Olympic Order upon Mr Kerkyasharian. He is a member of; The NSW Board of Studies; The NSW Geographical Names Board; The Independent Complaints Review Panel of the ABC; The Police and Ethnic Advisory Council.

Simon Rice
Simon Rice has practised, taught, written and researched in anti-discrimination law since he was Director and principal solicitor at Kingsford Legal Centre in Sydney 1989-1995. He has been Director of the NSW Law and Justice Foundation, President of Australian Lawyers for Human Rights, and a consultant to the NSW Law Reform Commission on its review into the NSW Anti-Discrimination Act. Since 1996 he has been a part-time judicial member of the NSW Administrative Decisions Tribunal in the Equal Opportunity Division. He is currently Associate Professor and Director of Law Reform and Social Justice at the ANU College of Law, where he is conducting empirical research into anti-discrimination case law. He is the author with Neil Rees and Kate Lindsay of 'Anti-Discrimination Law in Australia', to be published by Federation Press in mid-2008.

Bonnie Mann
Bonnie Mann is an Assistant Professor of Philosophy at the University of Oregon. Her writing is informed by two decades of activism in the movement against violence against women and the anti-war movement. In a broad sense, her research is in the areas of feminist philosophy and modern and contemporary continental philosophy. She engages in themes from and philosophical work based on aesthetics, the environment and the embodied experience; and her writing is often directed at sorting through, deploying and thinking critically about "postmodern," or "poststructuralist" feminism. She has worked for many years as an activist in the movement against violence against women, and has been concerned with the liberatory impulse in feminist philosophy and how it fares within poststructuralist thought. Her research also engages in the issues of war, gender and aesthetics; the relation between gender as identity and experience of the broader politics of gender; and the relation and dispute between phenomenology and psychoanalysis.

Dea Thiele
Dea Thiele is an Indigenous Australian born at the Burnt Bridge Mission at Kempsey, NSW, and has extensive experience in the ACCHS sector. Ms Thiele is the current CEO of NACCHO and is responsible for management, leadership, political and financial direction of the organisation and is directly accountable to the NACCHO Board of Directors. Her experience is focussed on health policy development as a vehicle for improving health outcomes. Her expertise also lies in integrating Aboriginal community values and priorities with best practice recommendations from sources such as clinical research.  Ms Thiele was metropolitan Representative for the NSW Aboriginal Health Resource Co-operative now the Aboriginal Health & Medical Research Council (AH&MRC) from 1994 to 2000; State representative  for NACCHO (1994-1997); member on the NSW Aboriginal Mental Health Advisory Committee (1995); representative on the NSW State Partnership Forum (from 1996) and Chairperson since 1996 to the  Kamaku Building Enterprises Aboriginal Corporation and the Murawina Mt Druitt Aboriginal Childcare Centre in Sydney. She has been deputy CEO and CEO of Daruk Aboriginal Community Controlled Medical Service Co-op Ltd from 1994-2000, and member of other Aboriginal organisations such as AMS Redfern, Deerubbin LALC, Aboriginal Housing Co-op Redfern, Winnunga Nimmityjah in Canberra and the AH&MRC Ethics Committee. Ms Thiele managed and supervised trainees and students at Daruk on placement throughout any given year ensuring their placement within appropriate teams for the term of their educational rotations.  Ms Thiele was a Board of Director for the Western Sydney Area Health Service (WSAHS) (1996 to 2000), Board of Director of the New Children's Hospital - Westmead (1995 to 2000) and member of the Australian College of Health Service Executives since 1997. In this capacity she has played a role in influencing health policy and health care delivery, based on the views and values of the Aboriginal community as well as recommendations pertaining to best practice derived from research evidence.

Dr Sophie Couzos
Dr Sophie Couzos is a public health physician with over 17 years experience working within Aboriginal community controlled health services (ACCHS's) and as technical adviser to the elected national Board of Directors within the National Aboriginal Community Controlled Health Organisation (NACCHO), occupying this position since 1998. NACCHO is a non-government organisation and the peak Aboriginal health body in Australia representing over 140 Aboriginal community controlled health services (ACCHS's) nationally.  She has lived and worked in remote Australia for 14 years, spending seven years as a general practitioner (GP) in the Kimberley region of Western Australia. She has also worked as a rural GP in northeast Victoria, and as a microbiologist in Melbourne. She has undertaken award winning research (NACCHO Ear Trial), developed evidence-based clinical guidelines, and contributed to making health policy more equitable with regard to the Aboriginal population. Examples include the Medicare Rebate for an adult health check for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, Asthma Spacers Ordering Scheme, special PBS listings, Commonwealth Hearing Services Program and others. As editor and author of the principal textbook used for undergraduate and postgraduate teaching on health issues pertaining to Aboriginal peoples-'Aboriginal Primary Health Care: An evidence-based Approach' (now in its 3rd edition and published by Oxford University Press)- her area of interest is health policy pertaining to Aboriginal peoples.

Megan Davis
Megan Davis is a Director of the Indigenous Law Centre and Senior Lecturer at the Faculty of Law at the University of New South Wales (UNSW). Megan's research includes Indigenous peoples' rights in international law, in particular UN treaty body jurisprudence and the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples and is an Australian member of the International Law Association's Indigenous Rights Committee. Megan's previous positions include Director - Bill of Rights project; Gilbert + Tobin Centre of Public Law; Legal Counsel, Administrative, Legislation and Corporate Law Section for ATSIC and has held a UN Indigenous Fellowship for the UNOHCHR; participated in UN seminars and work groups as a Indigenous lawyer; and is a Legal Practitioner of the Supreme Court of the A.C.T.

Michael Jackson
Michael is specialised in Aboriginal Rights and Prisoners Rights and has published widely in both areas. His publication Justice Behind the Walls (1974) was the first empirical legal analysis of prison justice in Canada. This work is widely credited as leading to a number of major reforms in the correctional law field. Two of his principal recommendations that independent chairpersons should be appointed to preside at disciplinary hearings, and the courts should recognise a general supervisory jurisdiction over decisions which affects the rights and interests of prisoners with the establishment of a duty to act fairly, have since become a critical part of Canadian Prison law and administration.

He is the author of a number of highly credited publications including the 'Sentences That Never End', a Report of the Habitual Criminal Study reviewing the fate of men sentenced as habitual criminals. This Study led to the appointment of the Leggett Commission resulting in the pardoning of almost 100 former habitual criminals. In 1988 Professor Jackson authored two major reports for the Canadian Bar Association's Special Committee on Imprisonment and Release and these reports represented the Canadian Bar's recommendations for new correctional legislation, some of which now reflect in the Corrections and Conditional Release Act. In 1990 he successfully argued the Steele case in the Supreme Court of Canada in which that Court ruled that the continued detention of a prisoner under an indeterminate life sentence after 37 years was cruel and unusual punishment. Since 1987 he has been a member of the Canadian Bar Association's Committee on Imprisonment and Release and in that capacity has appeared before Committees of the House of Commons and the Senate and he sits as a member of the Commissioner's Forum, an independent group that advises the Commissioner of Corrections on public policy issues involving corrections.

As an integral part of his research Professor Jackson has spent extensive periods of time inside institutions in the Pacific Region observing decision-making processes; interviewing administrators, staff and prisoners. Professor Jackson is a regular participant in both national and international conferences on corrections and imprisonment. Over the past several years Professor Jackson has participated in meetings of the United Nations Working Group on Indigenous Populations, Geneva. In 1999 Professor Jackson was appointed Queen's Counsel by the Attorney General of British Columbia for his contributions to the legal profession particularly in the areas of Aboriginal and Prisoner's rights. Professor Jackson is a member of the bar of British Columbia and has represented prisoners and First Nations in landmark cases before the Supreme Court of Canada. He is a member of the Canadian Bar Association's Committee on Imprisonment and Release; has presented submissions on reform to the criminal justice system to committees of both the House of Commons and the Senate; and In 1993 Professor Jackson was awarded the Bora Laskin National Fellowship in Human Rights Research and in 1999 was appointed Queen's Counsel by the Attorney General of British Columbia.

Linda Rubinstein
Linda was appointed to a new part-time position of Director at Holding Redlick, Pro Bono in February 2005, following a long period of employment at the ACTU, where her responsibilities included work in the areas of industrial legislation and superannuation. Since starting her new role Linda has worked to develop policy and implementation guidelines for pro bono work with a commitment to human rights and social justice; including asylum seekers, Aboriginal groups, victims of discrimination, the International Women's Development Agency, the Victorian Relief Committee and the Environment Defenders Office. Linda has a Bachelor of Arts Degree from Monash University, and a Bachelor of Laws Degree from the University of Melbourne.

Susan Ryan
Susan Ryan was appointed the first Labor Senator for the Australian Capital Territory in 1975. In the Federal Parliament she was the Minister Assisting the Prime Minister during the Bob Hawke years on the Status of Women; and the Minister for Education from 1984-87. She presided over the federal government Sex Discrimination Act 1984 and the Affirmative Action Act 1986. Susan attended the World Conference on Women in Mexico City and United Nations Decade for Women Conference in Copenhagen. She was a member of the ALP Federal Policy Committee on Women and Education Officer of the International Women's Year Secretariat; and elected as one of the first of two Senators for the ACT and the first Labour Senator for the ACT in 1975. She was a member of the Council of the Australian Institute of Aboriginal Studies; member of the Opposition Shadow Ministry; Minister for Education and Youth Affairs; Minister Assisting the Prime Minister on the Status of Women; Minister for Education and Special Minister of State including responsibilities for the bicentenary; the National Campaign Against Drug Abuse and the implementation of the Australia Card Program. Her work has advocated Senate to pass the Sex Discrimination Bill and enact the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination; and the Sex Discrimination Act. She has been Executive Director of the Association of Superannuation Funds of Australia since 1993 and was a founding member of the Women's Electoral Lobby, ACT Branch. She was awarded the Order of Australia in 1990.

Geoffrey Robertson QC
Geoffrey Robertson QC has been counsel in many landmark cases in constitutional, criminal and media law in the courts of Britain and the commonwealth with frequent appearances in the Privy Council and the European Court of Human Rights. In the past year, his cases include: appearing for the Wall Street Journal in Jameel v WSJ, the landmark House of Lords decision which extended a public interest defence for the media in libel actions; representing Tasmanian aborigines in the novel action which stopped the Natural History Museum from experimenting on the remains of their ancestors; defending the Chief Justice of Trinidad at impeachment proceedings; arguing the Court of Appeal case (R v F) which first defined "terrorism" for the purpose of British law; arguing for the right of the public to see royal wills and representing a trust for the education of poor children in litigation in Anguilla; and has served part-time as a UN appeal judge at its war crimes court in Sierra Leone.

Mr Robertson is the author of Crimes against Humanity – The Struggle for Global Justice. He writes and broadcasts on international legal issues; and creates Geoffrey Robertson's Hypothetical's for television. His most recent publication is The Tyrannicide Brief, a story of how Cromwell's lawyers produced the first trial of a Head of State, that of Charles I, where the book won a "Silver Gavel" Award from the American Bar Association. Mr Robertson is a contributor to Human Rights in the War on Terror. His paper 'Ending Impunity: How International Criminal Law Can Put Tyrants on Trial' was published in the 2005. In 2006 he chaired a Commission of Inquiry into the United Nation's internal justice system and is the founder and head of Doughty Street Chambers, UK's leading human rights practice, which comprises some 80 barristers and 30 staff. He is a Bencher of the Middle Temple; a Recorder (part-time judge) in London; an executive Member of Justice; a trustee of the Capital Cases Trust; and a visiting Professor in Human Rights at Queen Mary College, University of London.

Stephen Keim
Stephen Keim graduated from the University of Queensland in Arts and Law. He was admitted as solicitor in 1978; went to the Bar in 1985 and took Silk in 2004. Stephen practises across a broad range of areas including environmental law, administrative law and native title law. Stephen is a former President of the Queensland Council for Civil Liberties and is currently vice president of the Queensland chapter of the International Commission of Jurists. He is also a former president of the Legal Aid Commission (Queensland). Stephen is on the Council of Queensland University of Technology and is a former deputy chancellor of that University. Stephen has written extensively on legal topics including human rights issues. Stephen is the book reviews editor of the Queensland Bar Association journal Hearsay. In that role, he reserves the most interesting books on human rights for his own reading. Stephen has acted for Dr. Mohamed Haneef."

Joseph Pugliese
Dr Joseph Pugliese is an Associate Professor in the Department of Critical and Cultural Studies, Macquarie University, Sydney. His current research projects include: the nexus between race and new and emergent biometric technologies, the cultural politics framing the issue of "terrorism," and torture and trauma in the context of contemporary imperialism.

Peter Faris QC
Peter Faris QC has had a long and significant involvement with human rights in Australia. Apart from his role as Senior Counsel, his career has included periods as a solicitor amongst with Galbally & O'Bryan; and as foundation solicitor of the Central Australian Aboriginal Legal Service in Alice Springs. He was founder of the Fitzroy Legal Service, served with the Victorian Aboriginal Legal Service, and is a former Chairman of the National Crime Authority. Known as a popular and at times controversial presenter and commentator on Radio 3AW his opinion pieces have appeared in Crikey, The Age, The Australian, and The Herald-Sun.

Dr Sev Ozdowski OAM
As the Australian Human Rights Commissioner and Disability Discrimination Commissioner from 2000 to 2005, Dr Ozdowksi authored the ground-breaking research "National Inquiry into Children in Immigration Detention: A Last Resort?" The report ignited a nation wide debate about Australia's immigration detention policies and ultimately led to children being released from mandatory detention and a rethinking of the government's detention policies. As Disability Discrimination Commissioner, he was instrumental in the "National Inquiry into Mental Health Services: Not for service" report, which placed mental illness on the national agenda, leading to the reform of, and major budgetary increases for mental health services in Australia. Dr Ozdowski has an LLM and MA in Sociology from Poznan University, Poland and a PhD from the University of New England, Armidale. In 1984 Dr Ozdowski was awarded the Harkness Fellowship which took him to Harvard and Georgetown Universities and the University of California to work on race relations, international human rights and public administration. He also holds the academic appointment of Honorary Professor at the Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies in the School of Philosophical and Historical Inquiry - University of Sydney and most recently was awarded an honorary doctorate from Melbourne's RMIT University.

Peter Henley
Peter Henley is a senior associate at Mallesons Stephen Jaques, and is the Melbourne coordinator of the firm's Human Rights Law Group. He has worked on a number of individual complaints before the UN Human Rights Committee. Peter is also a member of the Human Rights Law Resource Centre Advisory Committee and has recently been working on a Communication to the UN Human Rights Committee regarding the detention, treatment and attempted deportation of an asylum-seeker.

Philip Lynch
Philip Lynch is the Director and Principal Solicitor of the Human Rights Law Resource Centre. Phil was previously the founding Coordinator of the PILCH Homeless Persons' Legal Clinic in Melbourne which, in 2005, was conferred with the Australian Human Rights Law Award.  Phil has worked as a commercial litigator with Allens Arthur Robinson; is a Board member of the Federation of Community Legal Centres (Vic); a Director and Editorial Convenor of the Alternative Law Journal; and is also Co-Convenor of the Human Rights Network of the National Association of Community Legal Centres.

Anne Deveson 
Anne Deveson is a writer, broadcaster and documentary film-maker with a long involvement in social justice issues. Two of her earliest films were about autism and intellectual disability. When her elder son Jonathan developed schizophrenia at age 17, she helped establish the NSW Schizophrenia Fellowship and the national organisation - Sane Australia. Anne Deveson has chaired two ministerial committees on mental health legislation and speaks widely in Australia and overseas on overcoming the stigma of mental illness. Tell Me I'm Here, her award winning account of her son's illness and death has become a national and international best seller, and has helped change understanding and treatment of mental illness around the world. In 2001, Anne won a special award at the Australia and New Zealand Mental Health Services Conference in recognition of her exceptional contribution to mental health. In a long and varied career, Anne Deveson's appointments include: Executive Director of the Australian Film, Television and Radio School; Commissioner with the Royal Commission on Human Relationships and founding member of the NSW Anti-Discrimination Board and Chair of the Commonwealth Governments Advisory Committee on Homelessness. She is currently a member of the NSW Mental Health Review Tribunal, the NSW Medical Tribunal and the NSW Expert Advisory Group on Drugs. In 2003 she published her book Resilience which immediately went to the top of the best-seller list. Anne Deveson has been awarded three honorary doctorates, and is an Officer of the Order of Australia. She is a natural communicator who uses her warmth and humour to convey a strong message of hope and inspiration.