By exposing human rights abuses, government wrongdoing and corporate misconduct, whistleblowers make Australia a better place. Yet too often in Australia whistleblowers are prosecuted rather than supported.

Join a panel of distinguished experts to discuss the state of whistleblowing and transparency in Australia right now - Kieran Pender, Senior lawyer at the Human Rights Law Centre, Professor Peter Greste, Executive Director of the Alliance for Journalists' Freedom and award winning journalist and author, Rawan Arraf, Executive Director of the Australian Centre for International Justice, and Richard Denniss, Executive Director of the Australia Institute.

Speakers: 

• Kieran Pender, a senior lawyer at the Human Rights Law Centre, leading its Whistleblower Project to protect and empower Australian whistleblowers. He is also an honorary lecturer at the ANU College of Law and an award-winning writer, for Guardian Australian, The Saturday Paper and the New York Times. Kieran is a globally-recognised expert on whistleblowing laws and previously led the International Bar Association’s work on whistleblower protection best-practice.
• Professor Peter Greste, an award-winning journalist, author and academic who spent fifteen years with the BBC before he joined Al Jazeera as East Africa correspondent. In 2013, he went to Egypt to help cover the unfolding political crisis but two weeks into the assignment, security agents raided his hotel room and arrested him and two colleagues. They were charged with terrorism offences, and in the subsequent trial they became champions of press freedom. All three were eventually convicted and sentenced to between seven and 10 years in prison, before being released under intense international pressure. Peter saw his trial and conviction as an extreme example of the way journalism was being attacked in the War on Terror globally, and wrote about his experience in The First Casualty. In honour of his campaigning, Peter has been given numerous awards including a Walkely (2014); the British Royal Television Society’s Judges Award (2015); the Australian Human Rights Council Medal (2016); the RSL’s ANZAC Peace Prize (2016); and the Australian Press Council’s Press Freedom Medal (2018). He is the executive director of the Alliance for Journalists' Freedom.
• Rawan Arraf, executive director of the Australian Centre for International Justice, an independent, not-for-profit and specialist legal centre working to develop Australia’s capacity to investigate and prosecute atrocity crimes. Rawan has ten years of legal experience in refugee protection, administrative law and international human rights law. Rawan most recently worked as a refugee lawyer at community legal centre, Refugee Advice & Casework Service providing a wide range of protection advice to people seeking asylum in Australia.
• Richard Denniss, Executive Director of the Australia Institute, Richard is a prominent economist, author and public policy commentator, and a former Associate Professor in the Crawford School of Public Policy at ANU. He is the author of several books including: Econobabble, Curing Affluenza, Dead Right: How Neoliberalism Ate Itself and What Comes Next? and Big: The Role of the State in the Modern Economy.

Verity Lane Market is open for drinks and dinner from 5pm. Please come early to enjoy delicious foods from authentic and diverse vendors, as well as a finely curated list of wines, beers, and cocktails.