The Dalai Lama and 2009 NAIDOC Person of the Year Professor Larissa Behrendt took to the stage at the Melbourne Convention Centre this morning, to mark World Human Rights Day. Amnesty International Australia’s National Director Claire Mallinson MC’ed the event.

Professor Behrendt spoke strongly against the NT Intervention and the Government’s failure to fully reinstate the Racial Discrimination Act. She said this has left some of Australia’s most impoverished and vulnerable – Indigenous peoples – unprotected.

Professor Behrendt said Indigenous people must be included in developing policy and programs that affect them, in order to end poverty and discrimination. She called for Australia to adopt overarching human rights protection.

The Dalai Lama then took up Professor Behrendt’s theme, lamenting the multiple human rights violations endured by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. However, he expressed his belief that, one day, the Indigenous peoples of Australia would enjoy full realisation of the rights currently denied them.

His inspiring speech discussed the rights violations in his own country, Tibet, and the urgent need to focus on environment. He called for greater respect not only for the rights of individuals, but of communities around the world. Referring to the work of Amnesty International, he also highlighted the vital role of NGOs in keeping human rights on the public agenda.

Peace Through Justice was co-hosted by the Australia Tibet Council and Amnesty International, itself a Nobel-Prize-winning organisation.

Professor Behrendt is a Eualeyai/Kamillaroi woman. She is Professor of Law and Director of Research at the Jumbunna Indigenous House of Learning at the University of Technology, Sydney, and is admitted to the Supreme Court of the ACT and NSW as a barrister.