annual report 08-09 - Public Interest Advocacy Centre

CHIEF EXECUTIVE
OFFICER’S OVERVIEW
6
The year had many highlights for PIAC—often in collaboration
with others—in influencing change in the public interest. It was
also a year of significant change and that meant we all had to work
through issues to ensure PIAC remains as effective as possible.
It was a year in which a number of PIAC’s major funding
agreements came up for renewal and I am very pleased to report
that all of these agreements were renewed and in some cases
increased. Our work is only possible with continuing support from
the NSW Public Purpose Fund, the NSW Government Department
of Water and Energy, the Commonwealth and NSW Governments
through the Community Legal Services Program, and private law
firm Allens Arthur Robinson. Without this commitment, PIAC
would not be able to achieve so much.
PIAC would also not be so effective without the highly
professional organisational support it has through its finance
and administration staff. The importance of organisational
capacity was highlighted this year with the Commemorative
Community Grant from The Myer Foundation and Sidney
Myer Fund Celebrating Our Partners program for organisational
development. PIAC has a strong focus on organisational systems
and support, knowing that these are vital to achieving success in
public interest campaigns.
A major area of work during the year was the protection of human
rights in Australia. The Federal Attorney-General, The Hon Robert
McClelland MP, highlighted this issue when he announced on
10 December 2008 the much-anticipated National Human Rights
Consultation. The announcement marked the 60 th anniversary of
the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
For several years, PIAC has promoted community awareness
of human rights and has lobbied for community consultations
at state, territory and federal level. This meant PIAC was ready
and able to ratchet up
its endeavours when
the Attorney-General
announced plans for
national consultation.
PIAC worked closely with
a number of groups to
provide information on the
consultation process and
how to participate. One of the most interesting aspects of that
work was the theatre-based consultation done with homeless
people.
Much of the human rights work has involved training and this
has been strongly supported by PIAC’s well-established training
program. The year presented some fantastic new opportunities
to work with specific communities to improve advocacy capacity.
In particular, PIAC worked with both Legal Aid NSW and the NSW
Cancer Council to train advocates in the Aboriginal community.
PIAC is keen to increase its training capacity by securing funding
for a second training position. To date, PIAC’s training work
has been largely self-funded; the challenge is to find additional
income to explore new training opportunities.
The year has proved to be a very successful one for the Homeless
Persons’ Legal Service (HPLS), achieving positive outcomes for
its major areas of work in addition to participating in the human
rights consultations. HPLS is a joint initiative of PIAC and the
Public Interest Law Clearing House (PILCH).
Since 2006, staff of the Homeless Persons’ Legal Service have
worked with the NSW Attorney General’s Department on
changes to the way in which on-the-spot fines are dealt with,
particularly in relation to people facing significant disadvantage.
In December 2008, that work bore fruit with the announcement
‘
A major area of
work during the year
was the protection
of human rights in
Australia. ’
PUBLIC INTEREST ADVOCACY CENTRE • ANNUAL REPORT 2008-2009