Janelle Saffin has been announced as the second recipient of the Kimberley Kitching Human Rights Award. The award was conferred in Adelaide at the 50th Australian Labor Party National Conference.
The human rights award is given in honour of Senator Kimberley Kitching, who died in office in 2022, to a member of the Australian Labor Party who has demonstrated an outstanding commitment to the advancement of human rights in Australia or globally, in recognition of Kimberley's strong and abiding human rights advocacy.
For more than four decades, from local communities in regional New South Wales to some of the great human rights struggles of our time, Janelle - a member of the NSW Branch of the ALP - has devoted her working life to a simple proposition: that rights are not given, they are won.
"Human rights, they start in our own backyard, but they don't stop there," Janelle said, on receiving the Award. "And from what I know about Kimberley, she subscribed to that. Human rights in our backyard, through the Labor Party, through the party she loved and was part of, but also they don't stop there. They go further. And I subscribe to that."
Janelle Saffin addresses the 50th ALP National Conference in Adelaide, after receiving the Kimberley Kitching Human Rights Award.
When the people of Timor-Leste struggled for their independence, Janelle stood with them. Working alongside Timorese leaders, including the incumbent Prime Minister Xanana Gusmao, and the international solidarity movement that backed the Timorese people's democratic right to determine their future, Janelle again lived up to that standard that Kimberley set.
And when democracy advocates of Myanmar fought for constitutional government, Janelle stood with them for more than two decades through the Burma Lawyers Council and through her work on constitutional reform and democratic governance, and through her service as chair of the Australia-Myanmar Parliamentary Group.
"In my political life, I frequently ski down the hill on one ski, and I'm still doing it at nearly 72," she added. "It doesn't always endear us to everybody, but when we know that a right has to be wronged, we go out and do it, and I'll continue to do that."
The inaugural Kimberley Kitching Human Rights Award was presented in 2023 to Victorian Labor Party member Tony Clark, at the 49th ALP National Conference.
