We again thank Councillor Yvonne Weldon for taking the time to attend our dinner to Welcome us on behalf of the Metropolitan Local Aboriginal Land Council. It was an honour to have Cl Weldon join us on Gadigal Country and share her time so generously with us.

We were thrilled to have the fabulous Wendy Harmer as our special guest at this year’s dinner. A long-time activist, comedian, journalist, and steadfast supporter of human rights and civil liberties, Wendy brought her trademark wit and wisdom to the evening. 

We also thank the Hon Dr Meredith Burgmann for hosting our dinner. Meredith is a long time member of the Council and a constant defender of human rights and civil liberties. We are deeply grateful for her presence and for her ongoing commitment to the causes we hold dear.

This year our keynote address was delivered by Professor Rosalind Dixon. We sincerely thank Ros for her insights, time and expertise. Ros addressed the concerning decline of our democracy, highlighting how successive governments have weakened it through attacks on the right to protest, a lack of meaningful action on lobbying reforms, and the troubling practice of cash-for-access to politicians. Our democracy is ailing, and it’s clear that change is needed. 

Huge congratulations to 2024 President's Award winner Antoinette Lattouf. Journalism is worth fighting for and journalists should be free to do their job without fear of losing their life. We salute Antoinette for her determined effort to call out the murders of Palestinian journalists who are just doing their job. A transcript of Antoinette's powerful speech is available here.

A highlight of the dinner remains our Excellence in Civil Liberties Journalism Awards. And this year did not disappoint. Thanks as always to Amber Schultz, our magnificent head of judging! We were honoured to present our awards to multi award winning investigative Paul Farrell in the Open Category and Choice Magazine's Jarni Blakkarly in the Young Journalist Category.

Paul led the team who created the multiplatform series “Stop and Search” which investigated the tragic and unreported circumstances that led up to a 20 year old man being shot in his own backyard in Western Sydney by NSW police officers and raised important questions about civil liberties and human rights in NSW. Jarni’s body of work for 2024 for Choice revealed how invasive some companies’ data collection policies are, highlighting consumers lack of choice, control or even transparency. This is core humanrights work and we are very proud to be associated with both of these fine journalists.

A dinner photo gallery is available for download here.