In our 62nd year NSWCCL's work has never felt more urgent and necessary. Across the country we are witnessing mass censorship across governmental, cultural and academic institutions where attempts to restrict democratic freedoms of speech, association and assembly are rampant. At precisely a time where more community dialogue is needed to promote understanding, we are witnessing restriction of political speech.
Amongst this, NSWCCL is thrilled to hear from voices speaking up for human rights, democracy and international law at our Annual Dinner. With independent journalist, film-maker and global best-selling author Antony Loewenstein to deliver a keynote address on Free Speech and Discomfort in a Time of War at our 2025 Dinner. Continuing our history of grappling with the essential democratic question of what are legitimate restrictions on freedom of speech and how to .
Antony's book The Palestine Laboratory: How Israel Exports The Technology Of Occupation Around The World won the 2023 Walkley Book Award and is also now a podcast and documentary film series. It details how Israel has developed a range of tools and technologies for maintaining the occupation and control of Palestine. Including through “smart walls”, facial recognition, biometric data. These surveillance and armament technologies are exported to countries across the world, including to Australia and many more with poor human rights records.
In his previous book, Pills, Powder and Smoke: Inside the Bloody War on Drugs he shows that the war on drugs has been used to control markets, territories and people and calls for the legalisation and regulation of all drugs as the humane path forward. He has written extensively for the Guardian, New York Times and many other outlets and regularly appears on CNN, Al Jazeera English and ABC Australia. He co-founded Declassified Australia in 2021 which publishes in-depth stories that uncover Australia’s often secretive relationships with democracies and dictatorships alike.
Antony will be introduced by human rights lawyer and founding Executive Officer of the Jewish Council of Australia, Sarah Schwartz. She is a Legal Director at the Human Rights Law Centre, where she leads the democratic freedoms team, and Lecturer at Melbourne Law School. She was previously Principal Managing Lawyer of the Wirraway Practice at the Victorian Aboriginal Legal Service, representing clients in matters involving police accountability, the rights of people in prison and representing families in coronial inquests into Aboriginal deaths in custody. Sarah is a John Monash Scholar and has studied a Master of Laws at Harvard University.
