Why did I feel it was interesting to interview George? He is one of Australia’s foremost social justice lawyers — a principled advocate whose career bridges the courtroom, the classroom, and the community. As Principal Solicitor of the National Justice Project and an Adjunct Professor of Law at both the University of Technology Sydney and Macquarie University, George has dedicated his life to using the law as a force for equity and human rights. His work has championed the rights of people living with disabilities, LGBTQI+ communities, asylum seekers, prisoners, youth detainees, and First Nations peoples — often taking on cases that expose and challenge systemic injustice. Beyond litigation, George’s leadership extends into research, education, and reform through initiatives such as the Health Justice Program, CopWatch, and Tech4Justice. His profile is compelling not only for the breadth of his legal expertise — spanning defamation, privacy, and public interest law — but for his unwavering commitment to ensuring that Australia’s justice system serves those most often left behind.
This interview offers a rare, candid look into the mind of one of Australia’s leading human rights advocates, whose work sits at the intersection of law, justice, and systemic reform. Speaking with both moral clarity and lived experience, he reflects on the challenges of confronting entrenched injustice through the courts, the emotional toll of advocacy, and the creative ways the National Justice Project blends litigation, community partnerships, and cultural safety to drive lasting change. His insights move beyond legal strategy to explore questions of dignity, leadership, and hope—revealing not only how to fight for justice within a flawed system, but how to imagine something better beyond it.
Here’s our exchange:
Where are you originally from, and what was your childhood like there?
I was born in Brisbane, Australia, under extraordinary and tragic circumstances. I am a posthumous child, arriving into the world eight months after a car accident that claimed my father’s life. That beginning, marked by loss and survival, has always been a quiet backdrop to my story.
Despite such a traumatic start, my childhood was not defined by tragedy. I was raised within a loving and supportive community that gave me a sense of stability and belonging. The people around my mother and me – my family, relatives, neighbours, and friends – created a safe and nurturing environment where I could grow and thrive.
What was your family dynamic, and who were the key figures in your upbringing?
My mother and grandmother were key figures. My mother carried a strength and determination that enabled us both to keep moving through adversity. At the same time, it was my grandparents who provided the stability and love I needed most in those early years. My grandmother, a kindergarten teacher, was a steady, nurturing presence, offering the care and constancy that gave me a solid foundation in what was an uncertain time.
Who were the most influential people in your childhood, and what lessons did you learn from them?
My grandparents were the most influential figures in my early years. They weren’t wealthy, but they loved each other deeply, and they loved me without reserve. I only lived with them until I was three, when my mother remarried, but their presence and influence remained strong throughout my life until they passed away. From them, I learned that the true measure of a life is not material wealth, but how you treat those around you. Their example taught me that patience and kindness are forms of strength, and that resilience is rooted not just in endurance but in compassion.
What is one of your earliest memories, and how do you think it shaped who you are today?
My earliest memories are of the quiet routines of life with my grandparents. I remember attending kindergarten with my grandmother, who was a teacher, and another time, sitting in my highchair at breakfast in the kitchen while my grandfather read the newspaper with his tea as the ABC News played on the transistor radio. Those small, everyday moments created a sense of safety, rhythm, and belonging that anchored my early years.
Looking back, I can see how they may have shaped me. My grandmother’s role as a teacher may have encouraged me to question and develop a love of learning, while my grandfather’s daily habit of reading the newspaper and listening to the national radio may have sparked my curiosity about the wider world.
Were there any cultural or family traditions from your childhood that helped define your values?
When my mother remarried, both my stepfather and my step-grandfather became important influences in my life. They were respected leaders in the community, and I grew up watching the way people turned to them for guidance and support. They gave their time and energy generously (probably too generously), and their example taught me that true leadership is not measured by authority or status, but by service to others.
What motivated you to study what you studied?
When I finished school, I wasn’t entirely sure what path I wanted to take. Studying law was, at first, a pragmatic choice — I thought it would give me useful skills and keep my options open. Over time, though, that practical decision became something far more meaningful. I realised that what drew me to the law wasn’t the commercial or financial work, but the chance to do something that mattered — to help people and make a difference. I discovered how the law could protect rights, advance justice, and support others in the way I had once been supported at a pivotal moment in my own life. What began as a sensible option gradually became a calling.
At what age did you start working, and what did your first job involve?
I began working at 14 in a clothing factory in Surry Hills, back when Australia still had a fashion industry. My job was to fix stud buttons on jeans. It was repetitive and menial work, but also a formative experience. It taught me discipline and gave me my first real taste of independence. I remember the feeling of no longer having to ask my parents for pocket money. That small act of financial autonomy was empowering.
That experience also gave me an early insight into the lives of people whose daily work is often unseen or undervalued. I came to understand that there is dignity in all forms of work, and that the values of persistence, resilience, and pride in one’s labour are not measured by status or pay, but by character. It is a lesson that has stayed with me throughout my life.
How would you describe your current job and its responsibilities?
I am the CEO of the National Justice Project, a not-for-profit legal service with a several-million-dollar budget and a team of around 20 full-time staff. My role requires me to balance multiple responsibilities: leading our legal strategy, managing the organisation, fundraising, and ensuring that we remain a sustainable and impactful force for justice.
As CEO, I am responsible for governance, finances, and staff wellbeing, while also acting as a public advocate for systemic change. I split my time between being a manager, fundraiser, strategist, and lawyer, often moving between coffee catch-ups, courtrooms, boardrooms, and community forums in the same week.
The role also requires me to be a bridge — between our clients and the legal system, between our staff and our mission, and between our vision and the supporters who make it possible. At its heart, my job is about ensuring that the National Justice Project can fearlessly pursue justice while building an organisation that is resilient, ethical, and committed to serving those most in need.
How do you decide which cases to take on, given limited resources, so that they have both strong prospects for legal success and the potential to drive systemic reform?
The National Justice Project selects cases through a structured process that balances legal merit, organisational capacity, sustainability, and the potential for systemic reform. Each potential case is considered at a weekly intake meeting, using a decision matrix to ensure consistency and transparency. A threshold question is whether the case aligns with our priority areas and whether it falls within areas of law where we have expertise and can add value.
If a case falls within scope, we then assess both its strategic potential and practical demands on our organisation. We consider the likelihood of legal success, limitation periods, timeframe to resolution, and whether the matter could generate recoverable costs or damages. Equally important is the potential for systemic change: we score cases to identify those with the capacity to influence laws, policies, or practices beyond the individual claim. Resource implications are also weighed, including expected workload, disbursements such as expert reports, and fundraising opportunities.
We evaluate broader strategic factors: the chance of achieving the desired outcome, whether through litigation or settlement, and the possibility of external support from pro bono partners or allied organisations.
Finally, we carefully assess whether our legal strategy and the anticipated outcomes align with those of the enquirer.
What internal criteria or metrics do you use to assess whether a legal strategy has succeeded in changing policy or practice, not just winning a specific court case?
We judge strategic success by whether our litigation and advocacy change policy and practice, not only by court outcomes. For each strategy, we track whether decision-makers adopt our recommendations and whether our cases are cited in judgments, coronial findings, parliamentary materials, or official policies and guidance. We then monitor the implementation of those commitments in real settings such as policing, prisons, youth detention, immigration detention, and healthcare, including the status of coronial and inquiry recommendations linked to our matters.
We measure effects on people and communities. That includes trends in key harm indicators — for example, deaths in custody, deaths where the use of the prone position is involved, use of force in mental health crises, or delays and discrimination in access to care — alongside access-to-justice signals from our digital tools and clinics: usage, completed complaints, conversions to formal action, and resolution rates, benchmarked against official statistics where available.
How does the National Justice Project balance the needs of individual clients with broader advocacy work—especially when the latter may require slower change but greater reach?
Our advocacy work seeks justice for our clients and systemic change to eliminate discrimination. We amplify the voices of our clients by sharing their stories with decision-makers, the media, and supporters — but only with their consent.
At the National Justice Project, our starting point is always the individual client. As a law firm, we must act on their instructions and in their best interests, which is why we carefully select cases where our legal strategies and advocacy objectives align with our clients’ wishes.
We build relationships of trust and ensure that in every forum — whether in court, before decision-makers, or in public advocacy — our clients’ voices are placed at the forefront. This alignment is essential: it honours the dignity of each client while ensuring that their courage and experiences guide the broader reforms we pursue.
Our client-centred and compassionate approach ensures that individuals remain at the heart of our work, while our innovation equips us to turn personal struggles into catalysts for national change. In this way, we balance meeting immediate client needs with driving the slower, long-term advocacy needed to dismantle discrimination and racism for all Australians.
What are the biggest barriers you face in holding governments accountable for systemic discrimination, and how do you overcome institutional or political resistance?
One of the greatest barriers we face is the entrenched nature of systemic discrimination itself. We are a small organisation challenging powerful institutions and deeply embedded cultures of prejudice that are resistant to change.
Governments and agencies often employ delay, denial, and legal technicalities to avoid accountability, as political pressures can make decision-makers reluctant to confront discrimination within their own systems. Limited resources and power imbalances compound these obstacles, as we go up against well-resourced state actors who benefit from maintaining the status quo.
We overcome this resistance by combining rigorous legal strategy with advocacy. We build strong cases that are both legally sound and strategically designed to expose systemic failures, and we partner with pro bono law firms, experts, and community organisations to amplify our reach. Our independence allows us to be fearless, and our compassion ensures we remain client-centred even in the face of institutional pushback.
By leveraging media, public support, and innovative tools, we shine a light on injustice and increase the political and social cost of inaction. In this way, we use persistence, strong partnerships, social media, and public pressure to hold governments accountable — even when the odds are stacked against us.
In cases involving First Nations people, how do you ensure that the advocacy does not run the risk of paternalism and instead supports self-determination?
We ensure that any of our advocacy involving First Nations people supports self-determination by placing First Nations voices at the centre of everything we do in that area of work.
As a diverse organisation, we act strictly on client instructions and ensure that our advocacy reflects our clients’ priorities and perspectives rather than imposing our own. Our anti-racist ethics of practice commit us to client-centred and emancipatory work, meaning our role is to restore agency and dignity to our clients, amplify their voices, and support their sovereignty in practical, political, and intellectual terms.
Guided by our Innovate Reconciliation Action Plan, we embed cultural safety in our internal policies and daily practice so that our advocacy reflects the wishes and values of the communities we serve.
Given Australia’s complex federal system, how do you coordinate or prioritise action across states?
In practice, we manage this diversity much as we manage our broader case selection: through strategic focus, collaboration, and careful use of resources.
Our choice of casework already reflects a strong emphasis on strategic fit, impact, skills, and capacity. The same principles guide how we prioritise and coordinate action nationally. We focus on matters that not only have solid legal prospects but also the potential to create precedent or systemic change across multiple jurisdictions.
Where the issues are cross-border or nationally significant, we work closely with local partners, community legal centres, and advocacy organisations to ensure our approach is informed by on-the-ground realities and consistent with regional priorities. This networked approach allows us to adapt to local legal contexts while maintaining a cohesive national strategy aimed at advancing rights and justice across Australia.
To what extent has strategic litigation delivered long-term impact versus being symbolic—and how do you maintain momentum after a legal win?
Strategic litigation has delivered sustained and transformative impact far beyond symbolic wins. Over the past decade, NJP’s cases have not only secured justice for individual clients but also reshaped law, policy, and practice across Australia’s legal, health, policing, immigration, youth detention, and prison systems.
For example, our litigation on the prone hold led to binding rules prohibiting this practice—since then, no deaths in WA Police, NSW Prisons, or health services have occurred in this manner. The inquests into Naomi Williams and Dougie Hampson drove reforms that implemented more culturally safe healthcare, demonstrating that casework can help dismantle systemic racism in hospitals and policing.
In the refugee space, our class actions preserved refugees’ right to mobile phones in detention, and our casework for refugee children on Nauru secured lifesaving medical evacuations for over 1,500 people. These outcomes are not symbolic—they have shifted entrenched systems.
The key to maintaining momentum after a legal win is that NJP never treats cases as transactional. Each case is part of a longer campaign arc: we expose systemic failures through coronial and court processes, make reform recommendations, and then sustain pressure through media advocacy, parliamentary lobbying, petitions, and international tribunals.
Alongside litigation, we are advancing forward-looking reform through our Alternative First Responders campaign. This initiative seeks to divert people away from the criminal justice system by establishing trained, community-based responders to deal with crises involving poverty, homelessness, mental health, and social welfare. Instead of relying on police as the default responders in a crisis, the campaign is building the case for systemic investment in services that treat vulnerability as a health and social issue rather than a criminal one. This campaign demonstrates how NJP leverages litigation victories into broader agendas for structural change.
The cumulative effect of this approach is evident in the data: from systemic reforms in healthcare, policing, and prisons, to international accountability for refugee abuses, to shifts in public consciousness about First Nations justice. Strategic litigation, when coupled with sustained advocacy, does not simply deliver symbolic wins—it sows the seeds of structural change.
How do you manage the mental, emotional, and ethical burden on your legal and advocacy team when dealing with deeply traumatic or long-standing injustices?
At the National Justice Project, we are acutely aware of the mental, emotional, and ethical burden that comes with working on deeply traumatic and long-standing injustices. To support our team, we have built a holistic wellbeing framework that includes access to counselling, paid time for mental health appointments, and a pro bono social work supervision program.
Our team also has access to Employee Assistance Programs, which include confidential counselling sessions for themselves and their families. We complement this with regular wellness events, mental health training, and structured reflective practice sessions led by skilled facilitators—providing a safe and confidential space to process difficult casework.
Our commitment to staff safety and wellbeing is further strengthened by embedding cultural safety and respect in the workplace. We provide training in cultural awareness and anti-racist ethics of practice, and we ensure that our work is trauma-informed to prevent retraumatisation of both clients and staff.
How does the National Justice Project ensure that marginalised voices (people with lived experience of injustice) are part of the design, implementation, and evaluation of your projects?
The National Justice Project ensures that marginalised voices, particularly those with lived experience of injustice, are central to the design, implementation, and evaluation of our projects through a client-centred and community-led approach. As a law firm, we act strictly on client instructions, ensuring that our advocacy reflects our clients’ priorities and perspectives rather than imposing our own. Our Anti-Racist Ethics of Practice commit us to work that is client-centred, emancipatory, and respectful. This means we treat our clients’ stories as belonging to them, work to restore their agency and dignity, and foreground First Nations sovereignty in practical, political, and intellectual terms.
Our commitment to self-determination is embedded across all aspects of our work with First Nations peoples. Guided by our Cultural Safety Policy and Innovate Reconciliation Action Plan, we ensure that our advocacy is accountable to communities and culturally safe. This includes training for all staff, partnerships with cultural authorities and knowledge holders, and maintaining strong two-way learning relationships with First Nations communities.
In addition, our high proportion of First Nations staff and leadership—including our Chair, Professor Larissa Behrendt, and Deputy Chair, Karen Iles—ensures that lived experience and community voices shape not only our casework but also our organisational priorities and governance.
Beyond staffing and leadership, we partner closely with First Nations organisations such as the Jumbunna Institute and community groups to ensure that systemic advocacy is grounded in lived experience and accountable to the people most affected. This combination of client-centred legal practice, anti-racist ethics, cultural safety frameworks, and community partnerships ensures that the design, delivery, and evaluation of our work amplifies and strengthens the voices of those directly impacted by injustice—rather than speaking for them.
With emerging technologies and platforms (AI, data-gathering, complaint tools like Hear Me Out), what are the risks of surveillance, privacy loss, or misuse, and how do you guard against them?
We are acutely aware of the risks posed by emerging technologies and platforms, including surveillance, privacy loss, and misuse of sensitive information. These risks are heightened in our work because we engage with communities that are already over-surveilled and disproportionately harmed by data misuse. We are therefore extremely cautious in how we design and operate digital tools.
A key concern for us is First Nations Data Sovereignty. In line with this principle, all data collected through Callitout.com.au is handled and controlled by the Jumbunna Institute for Indigenous Education and Research at UTS—a First Nations–run, led, and controlled organisation. This ensures that First Nations peoples retain ownership and control over their data, in accordance with the principles of self-determination.
More broadly, we apply strict privacy safeguards: we collect only the minimal information necessary, de-identify data at the earliest possible stage, and maintain robust security protections. This means that even in the event of a system breach, no identifiable harm can come to those who use our tools. In this way, our approach combines respect for sovereignty, minimisation of risk, and a commitment to protecting the safety and dignity of our clients and communities.
What strategies do you have in place when the legal system itself is part of the problem—for example, cases in which courts have been slow, biased, or under-resourced?
We are candid with our clients that the colonial legal system is itself a source of harm. From the outset, we work to understand our clients’ objectives and what justice means to them. We then manage expectations by acknowledging that courts can be slow, discriminatory, or under-resourced, and that systemic change takes time. Our clients also understand that colonial litigation is difficult and that we may not always succeed. To protect them from further disappointment, we adopt a practice of under-promising and over-performing, ensuring that outcomes are measured realistically and progress is recognised.
Our case selection strategy reflects this reality. We focus on matters with genuine prospects of success—where our skills as litigators and advocates can be most effective, and where outcomes will have a meaningful impact beyond the individual case. By doing so, we direct our resources toward litigation and advocacy that can drive systemic reform, not just individual remedies.
At the same time, we pursue strategies outside the courtroom to address the system’s shortcomings. Guided by our Anti-Racist Ethics of Practice and Cultural Safety Policy, we combine litigation with community advocacy, public campaigns, and partnerships with First Nations–led organisations to expose injustice and push for structural change. In this way, we work not only within the legal system but also against its limitations, ensuring that our advocacy amplifies the voices of those most affected and contributes to dismantling the very systemic biases that create barriers to justice.
How do you maintain your independence and sustainability—financially and institutionally—especially when taking on high-profile cases that may antagonise powerful governmental or corporate interests?
We maintain our independence by not accepting government funding, ensuring that our advocacy is never compromised by reliance on the very institutions we are challenging. Instead, our financial sustainability is grounded in court-awarded costs, philanthropic donations, private foundations, and community fundraising.
We recognise that because we often litigate against government and its agencies, some donors who depend on government income may hesitate to support us. It is a delicate balance, but the success and impact of our work have led to a loyal base of supporters who have sustained us for over a decade. We anticipate this support will continue for as long as injustice persists in our nation.
What is your assessment of the current status of child detention laws in Queensland and other states, and what concrete reforms are needed to prevent harm to young people?
Right now, youth justice laws in Queensland and the Northern Territory are going backwards. Queensland has overridden its own Human Rights Act to allow children to be held in adult watch houses and to re-criminalise breach of bail, while the NT has tightened its laws in ways that will lock more kids up. These are policies that echo “tough on crime” rhetoric but fly in the face of the evidence, which consistently shows that detention increases harm and costs more than community-based responses. The only bright spots are the ACT, which will raise the minimum age of criminal responsibility to 14 next year, and Victoria, which will raise it to 12 this year with a plan to go higher.
What’s needed is a decisive shift towards evidence-based reform. That means raising the minimum age of criminal responsibility to at least 14 across all states and territories, ending the use of adult watch houses and solitary confinement for children, and repealing breach-of-bail laws that disproportionately trap young people—especially Aboriginal kids—in detention on remand. Courts should be required to prioritise hearings for children in custody, and bail laws must return to a presumption in favour of release, backed by therapeutic supports rather than punishment.
At the same time, governments should invest in what we know works: First Nations–led justice reinvestment, on-Country programs, and community-controlled legal and health services that deliver diversion, family support, and re-entry programs. These approaches are not only safer and more effective but also more economical than locking kids away. In short, Australia needs to move away from punitive, politically driven responses and toward evidence-based, rights-respecting reforms that actually prevent harm and reduce reoffending.
How do you integrate research, data, and empirical evidence into your legal arguments, and how do you handle situations where there is insufficient data but urgent need?
We are often first responders in a crisis, so we don’t always have the luxury of waiting for large-scale datasets before acting. Sometimes, there is simply no data to mine. Governments don’t fix what they cannot see, so systemic discrimination often goes unmeasured. If you don’t measure it, then it effectively doesn’t exist to those in charge. By way of example, it is difficult—if not impossible—to find data on adverse serious health incidents in Australian hospitals divided by race.
In practice, our approach is to identify significant systemic problems quickly through our grassroots networks, to develop a clear legal case theory that we and our senior counsel believe has merit, and then to secure the documentary, lay, and expert evidence needed to support our argument. Much of our evidence base comes from medical or scientific opinion, coronial findings, and expert testimony rather than statistical data alone. This allows us to build legally rigorous cases even where quantitative research is limited.
Where data is available, we integrate it directly into our pleadings and advocacy. We draw on academic research, government reports, clinical studies, and inquiries (such as coronial inquests and Royal Commissions) to frame systemic issues and demonstrate broader patterns of harm. This empirical grounding strengthens our legal arguments and ensures that courts and decision-makers cannot dismiss our cases as isolated or anecdotal.
When data is insufficient but the need is urgent, we rely heavily on our partnerships with grassroots organisations and community-controlled services. These partners are often the first to identify emerging crises, and their lived experience insights guide us to the most critical issues confronting marginalised groups. By combining their knowledge with expert evidence, we can act quickly while still maintaining legal and evidentiary integrity. Over time, our cases themselves also generate a new evidence base—through court findings, inquiries, and documentation—that can then be used to support systemic reform and future advocacy.
Looking forward, what new frontiers or areas of injustice do you believe the National Justice Project must address in the next decade—where is the gap that is not yet being addressed fully by legal or advocacy groups?
The climate crisis and climate justice, and the disproportionate removal of First Nations children from their mothers (and families) into the so-called “care” of the state.
Which book, film, or piece of art has influenced how you see the world, and in what way?
The Woodstock soundtrack was the first work that truly shifted my perspective. Hearing the voices and music of a generation confronting war, inequality, and cultural upheaval made me reflect, as a young person, on what politics and social order meant. It stirred my curiosity about the Vietnam War—not just as a historical event, but as a symbol of the tension between power and protest—and it planted in me a desire to search for peace and alternative ways of living in society. Through that music, I came to see art not only as entertainment but as a vehicle for dissent, solidarity, and hope.
Later, other works deepened and refined this awareness. To Kill a Mockingbird gave me a lens through which to understand racial injustice, showing how law, prejudice, and morality collide in everyday lives.
When you look at younger generations, what gives you hope and what worries you?
The younger generations give me hope for a better future. I’m often struck by how much self-awareness and empathy so many young people have compared to when I was their age.
At the same time, I worry about them too. The looming climate catastrophe feels like such a heavy burden for young people to carry, and I fear it has taken away some of their sense of possibility. I don’t always see the same kind of resilience that older generations had—but maybe that’s not a failing on their part. Maybe it’s a reminder that we, as an older generation, need to do more to protect them, support them, and fight for a future that allows them not only to survive, but to thrive.
If you could spend a full day with any historical figure—not for their fame but for their mind—who would it be, and what would you ask them?
I would choose to spend a day with Martin Luther King Jr.—not because of his fame, but because of the depth of his moral courage, leadership, and vision for justice. I would want to ask him how he would respond to the challenges we face today, particularly the attacks on civil society, democratic institutions, and the rise of racism and discrimination targeting individuals and communities. I think his perspective would be invaluable—not only in terms of strategy and resistance, but also in reminding us how to hold on to hope and humanity in the face of division and injustice.
If you had to teach a class on something completely unrelated to your career, what would you teach and why?
If I had the chance, I’d love to teach a history class on the gold rushes in Australia and California around the 1850s. I’ve always been fascinated by the way those events transformed societies—not just economically, but culturally, legally, and politically.
What interests me most is how both places, half a world apart, went through such similar upheavals: rapid population growth, huge migrations, social tensions, prejudice, and the beginnings of more diverse, modern communities. I think it would be a great way to show how history in different jurisdictions can mirror each other, and how the pursuit of something as simple as gold reshaped whole societies.
If you could ensure that one value or principle is never lost in society, which would it be?
Dignity is the foundation of all human rights—it recognises the inherent worth of every person, regardless of their circumstances. If dignity is protected, then fairness, equality, respect, and justice naturally follow. It compels us to see people not as problems to be managed, but as individuals with agency, voices, and rights that must be upheld.
Humanity is facing radical changes. To name just ten: geopolitical instability, climate change, economic inequalities, technological risks, public health challenges, political polarisation, resource scarcity, humanitarian crises, misinformation, and disparities in global healthcare access. If, in an imaginative exercise, you had the power to solve one of these problems, which one would you choose and why?
Climate change. I am old enough to have seen and experienced significant climate change in my own lifetime, and I fear for future generations. I have recently become a grandfather, and I fear for my grandson and his future.
What do you think humans owe each other, if anything at all?
Respect, kindness, compassion, care, and understanding. As Scout Finch says in To Kill a Mockingbird: “You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view—until you climb into [their] skin and walk around in it.”
Interviews often focus on the latest positive news, or interviewees only share what went well. Could you share something from 2024 that didn’t go as expected, and what you learned from it?
Although it wasn’t a 2024 event, one thing that didn’t go as expected was our tactical decision not to intervene in the NZYQ case. The Australian High Court’s ruling in that case ended up overturning 20 years of precedent on indefinite immigration detention and led to the release of many people whose deportation wasn’t “practicable” in the “reasonably foreseeable” future.
For me, it was a humbling reminder that even when the odds seem stacked against change, the law can surprise us. It taught me to stay open to possibilities, and to never underestimate the potential for justice to take a new path.
What personal goals—if you feel comfortable sharing them—do you have for 2025?
In 2025, I want to focus on being a stronger mentor and nurturing the leadership capacity of our wonderful National Justice Project team, while also continuing to grow my own leadership skills—particularly in building greater self-awareness, empathy, and emotional balance.
Just as importantly, I want to find a better work-life balance so I can spend more time with my growing family and stay resilient for the work I do.
Imagine you are in the final moments of your life. What work-related news would you like to hear, and why?
That the Australian Government establishes a legislated Voice to Parliament for First Nations peoples, establishes a Truth Commission, and enters into a treaty with First Nations peoples.