Member for Lismore Janelle Saffin has picked up one of the Labor Party’s biggest honours, named the second-ever recipient of the Kimberley Kitching Human Rights Award at the party’s 50th National Conference in Adelaide.
The award, conferred in honour of Senator Kimberley Kitching, who died in office in 2022, recognises an ALP member who has shown an outstanding commitment to advancing human rights in Australia or overseas.
For more than four decades, from local communities in regional New South Wales to some of the great human rights struggles of our time, Ms Saffin has devoted her working life to a simple proposition, that rights are not given, they are won.
When the people of Timor-Leste struggled for their independence, Ms Saffin stood with them, working alongside Timorese leaders including incumbent Prime Minister Xanana Gusmao and the international solidarity movement that backed the Timorese people’s democratic right to determine their future.
She went on to work for the United Nations Development Programme as Special Adviser during a critical period to Sukehiro Hasegawa, the Special Representative of the Secretary-General to Timor-Leste, before serving as Principal Policy Advisor on political, policy and legal matters to José Ramos-Horta across his terms as President, Prime Minister, Minister for Foreign Affairs and Cooperation, and Minister for Defence. She remains his Special Adviser and confidant today.
Ms Saffin’s engagement with Myanmar has spanned more than two decades, through the Burma Lawyers Council, her work on constitutional reform and democratic governance, and her service as founder and chair of the Australia-Myanmar Parliamentary Group, hosting events for Myanmar’s Parliament with both of its Speakers. She has also worked with Myanmar’s ethnic nationalities organisations, faith-based groups and political parties across the board.
She is Patron of the Australia-Myanmar University Constitutional Democracy Project, which she brought to Myanmar for the first time in 2013, securing sponsorship from the Union Parliament, and was a founding Patron of the Australia-Myanmar Chamber of Commerce.
As Myanmar Adviser, Ms Saffin accompanied Australian ministers including Kevin Rudd, Bill Shorten and Gareth Evans on high-level visits, led an Australian Women Leaders Delegation to the country, and served as Special Policy Adviser to Mr Rudd when he was Prime Minister. In 2016 she convened an induction programme for nearly 500 Myanmar MPs, run jointly by the country’s Parliament, the United Nations Development Programme and the Inter-Parliamentary Union.
“Human rights, they start in our own backyard, but they don’t stop there,” Ms Saffin 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.”
Back home, Ms Saffin practises law in her home town of Lismore, taking on migration matters and pro bono work for organisations including the Gallipoli Scholarship Fund. She is also an independent director and vice president of the United Nations Association of Australia, a Fellow and Adjunct Professor of Law and Justice at Southern Cross University, and an advisory board member for CHEGA! Timor-Leste.
The inaugural Kimberley Kitching Human Rights Award was presented in 2023 to Victorian Labor Party member Tony Clark, at the 49th ALP National Conference.
“In my political life, I frequently ski down the hill on one ski, and I’m still doing it at nearly 72,” Ms Saffin said.
“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.”
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