PRESIDENT'S MESSAGE

A trusted voice for government and the community

This will be my last message before we, along with all NSW voters, are required to vote in the state election. 

The Law Society of NSW has made its voice heard during the campaign and its leadup. In early December last year, we launched our 2023 NSW Election Platform. From the beginning of March, we’ve been vocal in the media. 

Together with the NSW Bar Association we reinforced our call for more diversion, in appropriate cases, from the criminal justice system (including for young people) and the immediate implementation of a pre-court diversion scheme for small quantity drug possession offences, as recommended by the Ice Inquiry.

We have stressed the importance of better resourcing our courts and ensuring the innovative measures used effectively through the depths of COVID-19 are not abandoned by returning without thought to ‘business as usual’. Our advocacy on this point was strengthened by the results of a survey of nearly fifteen hundred solicitor members that showed, by an overwhelming margin, that these measures should remain available.

We joined with the Aboriginal Legal Service (NSW/ACT) Limited and the NSW Bar Association in urging whoever wins government to commit more state resources to supporting legal assistance to Indigenous citizens.

If you haven’t done so already, I encourage you to read our Platform, which offers proposals for a safer, fairer community. You can also read the responses from the Coalition, Labor, the Greens NSW and Alex Greenwich MP.

Whatever the result on Saturday, the 400 or so experts on our policy and segment committees will continue working to provide robust and independent input to government and the community on reform proposals and issues of public importance. 

Eliminating racial discrimination

Tomorrow (Tuesday, 21 March) will mark the 63rd anniversary of the Sharpeville massacre. Police opened fire on a peaceful protest against the apartheid ‘pass law’ that restricted black and other South Africans to designated areas. 69 demonstrators were killed.

In 1979, the United Nations declared the anniversary of the Sharpeville massacre the International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (IDERD) to be observed every year. 

In Australia in 1999 IDERD was rebranded to Harmony Day. Late last week the Australian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) published a factsheet drawing attention to this change of focus from ‘a day of solidarity with people struggling with racial discrimination’, and risking reinforcing inequality and maintain the status quo.

The AHRC says the “harmony” message may discourage people from speaking up about racism because it can be seen as opposing a harmonious Australian society.

Systemic racism has been prominent in the history of our country, and the impact of some of its laws, both historical and current, on different groups, in particular First Nations people, has been severe.

As a profession, and as a community more broadly, I believe we are only at the start of a journey of anti-racism and must commit to developing the language and tools to not only recognise racism but stand up and challenge it where it does occur. 

While racism exists, we are still some distance from the harmonious society to which we aspire. Until we reach that goal, it is incumbent upon each of us not simply to recognise racism and racial discrimination when it does occur but also to take conscious and meaningful actions to eliminate it.

If you’ve been the victim or witness of discrimination or harassment, racial or otherwise, remember the Elker platform administered by the Office of the Legal Services Commissioner provides a safe and confidential means of reporting these incidents. 

It is important that we continue meaningful conversations and action on anti-racism across our profession. I want to thank all members of our Diversity & Inclusion Committee for their valuable and ongoing work on this issue.

Cassandra Banks, President, Law Society of NSW