10 Years of Impact: Human Rights Law Centre Dinners 2016
Thanks to everyone who helped make the 10 Years of Impact: Human Rights Dinners in Melbourne and Sydney such a success. Much fun was had and the events raised over $90,000. Thanks to all who either bid competitively in our fundraising auctions or generously made donations. This support is absolutely critical to our work.
A copy of Peter Greste’s keynote speech in Sydney is now available online here as well as an audio recording of Stan Grant’s keynote speech from the Melbourne dinner here.
Executive Director, Hugh de Kretser’s speech can be read here.
This year marks our ten year anniversary. In that time we have delivered justice for individuals and systemic change in a range of areas including for asylum seekers and refugees; Indigenous peoples; prisoners; LGBTI people and women. We have held Australia to account when it has failed to uphold the fundamental human rights guaranteed to all people. These dinners are a great opportunity to come together to celebrate these achievements and the partnerships and collaborations that have helped immensely over the past decade.
Stan Grant is a multi-award winning current affairs host, author and adventurer.
Stan Grant's Aboriginal heritage shaped his dynamic, resilient personality. Born in Griffith in south-west New South Wales, in 1963, Stan Grant's mother is from the Kamilaroi people and his father is of the Wiradjuri. Stan spent most of his childhood on the road living in small towns and Aboriginal communities across outback NSW. His father was an itinerant saw-miller who worked when and where he could. Stan moved so often he attended 12 different schools before he was in his teens.
Stan has won many major awards including an Australian T.V Logie, a Columbia University Du-Pont Award (the broadcast equivalent of the Pullitzer Prize), the prestigious U.S Peabody Award and he is a four time winner of the highly prized Asia TV Awards including reporter of the year.
Stan is passionate about justice and humanity. His years of international reporting has given him a deep understanding of how the world works. He is deeply immersed in the politics and history of Asia and the Middle East. He can link the importance of leadership and the impact of history and above all believes in the power and resilience of people.
Peter Greste is an Australian-born journalist with 25 years experience as a foreign correspondent.
He covered the civil war in Yugoslavia and elections in South Africa as a freelance reporter, before joining the BBC as its Afghanistan correspondent in 1995. He went on to cover Latin America, the Middle East and Africa for the BBC where he has been since 2006. In 2011 he won a Peabody Award for a BBC documentary on Somalia before joining Al Jazeera as its East Africa correspondent. In December 2013 he was covering Egypt on a short three-week assignment when he was arrested on terrorism charges. After a trial widely dismissed as a sham, he was convicted and sentenced to seven years in prison. In February the following year, after intense international pressure, he was deported under a presidential decree.
As a result of the letters he wrote from prison in the defense of freedom of the press, he won a Walkley Award in Australia in 2014, and Royal Television Society and Tribeca Disruptive Inovator’s Awards in 2015. He has also been awarded the International Association of Press Clubs’ Freedom of Speech Award; and the Australian Human Rights Commission Medal.