Human Rights Oration: Towards a Treaty by Megan Davis – 28 Jun 2018

Prof. Davis is the Pro Vice-Chancellor Indigenous and Professor of Law at the University of New South Wales. A Cobble Cobble Aboriginal woman from the Barrungam nation in south-west Queensland, she is an expert member of the United Nations Human Rights Council’s Expert Mechanism on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.

Prof. Davis is also a constitutional lawyer who was a member of the Referendum Council and the Expert Panel on the Recognition of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples in the Constitution. She is also a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Law and the Australian Academy of Social Sciences and a Commissioner on the Australian Rugby League Commission.

In Towards a Treaty, Prof. Davis addressed constitutional recognition and Indigenous rights against the backdrop of shared responsibility agreements – first introduced in 2004 as part of the federal government’s “new arrangements”, the Uluru Statement from the Heart, and passage of the Victorian Treat Bill in legislative assembly.

Following the Oration Jidah Clark, a Senior Adviser in Aboriginal Policy and Research with the Victorian Equal Opportunity and Human Rights Commission, presented on the Commission’s work on Aboriginal cultural rights.

The Oration was bookended by a Welcome to Country by Aunty Zeta Thomson at the start of the event, and an excellent performance of three traditonal dances by Aboriginal dance group, The Fighting Gunditjmara, at the end.