|
|
|
|
2004 Australian Human Rights Medal Winners10 December 2004 Winners of the 2004 Human Rights Medal and Awards were announced on International Human Rights Day at a luncheon in Sydney in December 2004. Seven independent panels of judges decided the winners and highly commended from a field of 136 high quality entries – covering issues including Indigenous employment and Indigenous rights, female prisoners, refugees and asylum seekers (including children in immigration detention), mental health and people trafficking. For only the second time in the history of the Human Rights Awards, the Human Rights Medal was jointly awarded – this year to Dick Estens, founder of Moree’s Aboriginal Employment Strategy and Deborah Kilroy, founder of the women’s prison support service Sisters Inside. The Law category was won by Julian Burnside QC for his advocacy for refugees and asylum seekers. Highly commended were Phillip Taylor, Stephen Kenny, Eric Vadarlis and PILCH Homeless Persons’ Legal Clinic Joint winners in the Community (individual) category were mental health consumer advocate Merinda Epstein, and campaigner for the human rights of young people in institutionalised care, John Murray. PEN Australia won the Community (organisations) category. Rural Australians for Refugees and Chilout were highly commended community organisations. In the Arts Non-Fiction category, the winner was Klaus Neumann’s Refuge Australia, an account of Australia’s long history of debate about refugees and asylum seekers. The judges said the strong field of entries made it impossible to select just one highly commended entry. The Television award went to Helen Grasswill, Quentin Davis, Mara Blazic, Ross Byrne and Roger Carter from ABC TV’s Australian Story for The Road to Tooleybuc. Film Australia’s Dhakiyarr vs The King and a series of news reports on trafficking and Indigenous issues by Suzanne Smith and Chris Schembri of ABC TV’s Lateline program were highly commended The National Indigenous Times won the Print Media award for Stolen Wages Payback Shame and Debra Jopson and Gerard Ryle of the Sydney Morning Herald were highly commended for the land rights expose Black Land, White Shoes. The Radio award was won by Kutcha Edwards and Juliet Fox of community radio station 3CR for Beyond the Bars: Out and Blak. ABC Radio National’s Radio Eye program was twice commended - for Nauru Calling by Julie Browning and Phillip Ullman for The Battlers by Sharon Davis and Steve Tilley. |