The Australian Law Reform Commission (ALRC) has today released the Discussion Paper in its Review of Human Tissue Laws. The Discussion Paper contains a number of questions and proposed reforms for feedback. Organisations and individuals with an interest in the Inquiry are invited to provide submissions until 23 January 2026. 

ALRC Commissioner Dr Maeghan Toews said: 

“With almost 50 years between the ALRC’s first review of human tissue laws and our current review, medical treatment, technology and society have changed significantly. Australia needs human tissue laws that appropriately respond to new technologies and therapies, protect fundamental human rights, and support a donation and transplantation system that saves lives. Our Discussion Paper proposes important reforms to human tissue laws, and we welcome input from the community, medical practitioners, researchers, and anyone with an interest in the issues.”  

ALRC President the Hon Justice Mordy Bromberg added: 

“Australia’s laws regulating human tissue are a complex and important framework. The proposed reforms in our Discussion Paper strive to protect public trust in donation and transplantation systems, support critical medical and scientific research, and maintain the utmost respect for individuals and the human body. I encourage all stakeholders and members of the community to engage with the Discussion Paper and make a submission.”  

The Review of Human Tissue Laws Discussion Paper presents 49 proposals for reform, in areas including: 

• Harmonising and modernising the national regulatory framework for human tissue laws to provide better oversight; 

• Future proofing human tissue legislation, to account for innovations and advances in medicine and technology; and 

• Improving access to human tissue for valid purposes, while protecting the rights and dignity of donors of human tissue. 

The Discussion Paper also asks 47 questions, which seek input from stakeholders and the community on key issues identified by the ALRC. 

To date, the ALRC has conducted more than 40 consultations with more than 100 consultees, and received more than 100 submissions in response to its Review of Human Tissue Laws Issues Paper.  The ALRC will continue to consult extensively throughout the remainder of the inquiry. 

Background 

The Commonwealth Attorney-General referred the Review of Human Tissue Laws to the ALRC on 6 February 2025.  

The Inquiry’s Terms of Reference request the ALRC to consider what reforms are necessary to harmonise and modernise human tissue laws. As part of this, the ALRC has been asked to explore matters including tissue donation, retrieval and transplantation; definitions of tissue; consent arrangements; and disclosure of information provisions. The ALRC has also been asked to consider: equity and ethical approaches to improving access to cell, tissue and organ transplantation; contemporary and emerging technologies and practices; and international experience and approaches. 

The Review of Human Tissues Laws is being led by ALRC President, the Hon Justice Mordy Bromberg , alongside Commissioner Dr Maeghan Toews. The ALRC is to provide its final report to the Government by 16 August 2026. 

Learn more about the review at www.alrc.gov.au/inquiry/review-of-human-tissue-laws. 

Links 

• Review of Human Tissue Laws: Discussion Paper (2025) 
• Review of Human Tissue Laws: Issues Paper (2025) 
• Submissions to the Review of Human Tissue Laws
• Terms of Reference for the Review of Human Tissue Laws 

ENDS 

For more information contact: 

Jez Hunghanfoo 
Director of Communications and Engagement 
P: 03 9959 5313 
E: comms@alrc.gov.au 
W: www.alrc.gov.au 

The Australian Law Reform Commission (ALRC) today released its Discussion Paper in its Review of Surrogacy Laws. The Discussion Paper sets out proposed reforms of surrogacy laws for feedback and also asks a number of questions. Organisations and individuals with an interest in the review are invited to provide submissions until 19 December 2025. 

ALRC President the Hon Justice Mordy Bromberg said:

“Regulated surrogacy is an accepted practice in every Australian jurisdiction. Our ideas for reform seek to improve regulation of surrogacy in Australia so that our laws better realise the underlying policy intent – avoiding exploitation and promoting the best interests of the child. ALRC Inquiries are underpinned by extensive research, stakeholder consultations and engagement with experts, and we want to hear from as many people as possible in relation to our proposals. I encourage all those with an interest to make a submission.”  

Assistant Commissioner for the Inquiry, Associate Professor Ronli Sifris, added:

“The ideas for reform in the Discussion Paper are informed by our research, consultations, analysis and the submissions we have received to date. It contains options for reform aimed at better supporting the formation of families, protecting the rights of children, preventing exploitation, and ensuring all parties to surrogacy are treated fairly. I encourage individuals to read the Discussion Paper, consider the proposed reforms and tell us what they think as we prepare recommendations for our Final Report.”  

Surrogacy is a practice in which a person carries and gives birth to a child for another person or couple. While surrogacy laws exist in all Australian states and territories, they vary across jurisdictions, creating complexity and challenges in effectively regulating surrogacy. These challenges create a surrogacy landscape in Australia that is confusing and difficult to navigate, with constraints on access that cause many to travel overseas for surrogacy. 

The ALRC’s Discussion Paper contains 41 proposals for reforms, along with 24 questions seeking feedback on how proposed reforms could work. Proposals include: 

• Creating a nationally consistent legal and regulatory framework for surrogacy, with oversight by a national regulator 

• Safeguards that must be complied with before a surrogacy arrangement begins 

• Financial and other support 

• Appropriate domestic pathways to legal parentage 

• For overseas surrogacy arrangements, if intended parents have gone through certain steps to register the arrangement, they can access a streamlined process for the child to obtain citizenship and passport documents. 

• Information about the surrogacy arrangement available as an addendum to the birth certificate and via a surrogacy register. 

Background 

The Commonwealth Attorney-General referred the Review of Surrogacy Laws to the ALRC in December 2024. The Inquiry’s Terms of Reference request the ALRC to make law reform proposals that: are consistent with Australia’s obligations under international law and conventions; and protect and promote the human rights of children born as a result of surrogacy arrangements, surrogates and intending parents, noting that the best interests of children are paramount. 

The Review of Surrogacy Laws is being led by ALRC President, the Hon Justice Mordy Bromberg, along with Assistant Commissioner Associate Professor Ronli Sifris. The ALRC is to provide its final report to the Government by 29 July 2026.  

Learn more about the review at https://www.alrc.gov.au/inquiry/review-of-surrogacy-laws/ 

Links 

Review of Surrogacy Laws Discussion Paper (2025)

Two page explainer 

Review of Surrogacy Laws Issues Paper (2025) 

Terms of Reference 

ENDS 

For more information contact: 

Jez Hunghanfoo
Director of Communications and Engagement 
P: 03 9959 5313 
E: comms@alrc.gov.au 
W: www.alrc.gov.au 

Keynote address to the Australian Institute of Employment Rights‘s Ron McCallum Debate: Reforming Australia’s Labour Laws, 6 November 2025, Sydney

CHECK AGAINST DELIVERY

In my current position as President of the Australian Law Reform Commission, I get invited to speak at events such as tonight’s often. As the founding president of the Australian Institute of Employment Rights, the important institution hosting tonight’s Debate, I was particularly pleased to receive this invitation to speak, especially as I was instructed that I had to be brief. But what pleased me more was that the invitation was to speak at an event which honours my great friend and mentor – Ron McCallum.

Ron McCallum and I go back a long way. Ron was my lecturer in labour law at university. Ron ignited my passion for labour law – a passion which has dominated my work as a lawyer and as a judge. If I have any wisdom about labour law, it is largely due to Ron. Even the little bit of wisdom I wish to convey to you tonight – that there is a better way to reform our labour laws – has a connection to Ron.

Ron and I were both members of the steering committee of eminent persons which, as part of a law reform exercise engaged in by the Australian Institute of Employment Rights in 2007, developed the “Australian Charter of Employment Rights” and the accompanying book of the same name. As the introduction to the book states, the Charter was created as an instrument for advocating for the reform of labour law in Australia.

The message that I want to convey tonight is not so much about how we should reform the substance of our labour laws – it is largely a message about process. However, I cannot pass over the Charter of Employment Rights without saying that that document was and remains a very useful guide to how the content of our labour laws should be reformed. The Charter is framed as a statement of the reciprocal rights of workers and employers that our laws should recognise and enforce. It was crafted on the premise that improved workplace relations requires a collaborative culture in which workers commit to the legitimate expectations of the enterprise in which they work, and employers provide for the legitimate expectations of their workers.

The importance of collaboration, or of a collaborative approach, was not only an essential element, central to the Charter’s content, it was also the defining ingredient in the law reform process through which the Charter was created.

The Charter is largely based on rights recognised in Conventions and Recommendations made through the collaborative, tripartite processes of the International Labour Organisation, in which all of the three stakeholders in labour relations – workers, employers and government – have direct input into the formation of labour law reform at the international level.

Indeed, the very idea for the formation of the Australian Institute of Employment Rights as a think tank for promoting labour law reform, was that a tripartite structure fairly reflecting the perspectives of employers, workers and government, should beat the heart of the Institute as well as its proposals for reform.

The impetus for that approach to labour law reform is reflected in Bob Hawke’s forward to the Charter of Employment Rights. Our esteemed former Prime Minister said this:

My appeal to Australia – to all workers, to all employers, to all political parties – is this: let Australia move beyond the class politics, the vitriol, the entrenched distrust, and the short-sightedness that have characterized at least the last ten years of industrial relations in this country. Let us set side, forever the senseless tug-of-war between labour and capital, and encourage both to pull co-operatively in the one direction. Australian industrial relations has now reached the tipping point. Australia needs to recognize that a winner-take-all approach is unsustainable, but that a win-win solution is attainable.

That impetus for a changed way of reforming labour law in Australia, is also reflected in my own words in the Introduction to the book where I said this:

A balanced, fair and inclusive approach to workplace relations in Australia is long overdue. Labour law has been a political football kicked back and forth by the ideological warriors of class politics for far too long and at far too great a cost. Class-based politics have engendered an adversarial and conflict-driven approach to workplace relations that has not served Australia well. This trend continues. The Charter is an attempt to encourage a new direction.

Unfortunately, the new collaborative, tripartite direction to labour law reform that the Charter was based upon and which it tried to foster, has not eventuated. Labour law reform in Australia remains a largely partisan exercise which, depending on which of our major political parties is in government, either the agenda of the workers or, alternatively, the agenda of the employers is the primary basis for the reform.

A well-crafted and far more effective law reform process would be based on a contemporaneous, holistic consideration of the agendas of all relevant stakeholders. That consideration would be conducted with comprehensive consultation and the active participation of all relevant stakeholders. It would make a non-partisan, independent, evidence-based assessment of the merits of each and every claim for reform. The process would identify the legitimate rights and needs of workers and those of employers and, supported by transparent reasoning, the law reform process would demonstrate how, in accordance with a principled rather than a value-laden approach, those rights and interests have been appropriately balanced to achieve a regime which is fair to all.

Now if, noting that the Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations is in the room, you’re beginning to think that my speech is a pitch for an Australian Law Reform Commission inquiry into Australia’s labour laws, let me assure you – that you are correct!

But let me end by saying that, based on my 45 years experience of labour law, whoever is given the opportunity to conduct a labour law reform exercise of the kind that I am advocating for, that exercise can be expected to unveil a very rich vein of productivity benefits. A gold-mine of productivity able to be accessed and shared by both workers and employers alike. That gold-mine is what Bob Hawke had in mind as the ‘win-win’ solution to the problematic ‘winner-take-all approach’ to the reform of Australia’s labour laws.

Address to the 2025 Australasian Law Reform Agencies Conference (ALRAC) by the Hon Michael Kirby AC CMG, 9 October 2025

The Honourable Michael Kirby AC CMG: Inaugural Chairman of the Australian Law Reform Commission (1975-1984); Deputy President Australian Conciliation and Arbitration Commission (1975-83); Judge of the Federal Court of Australia (1983-4); President of the NSW Court of Appeal (1984-96); Justice of the High Court of Australia (1996-2009)

BEGINNINGS

A lot of things were happening in Australia and the world on 1 January 1975.

The Watergate accused were found guilty of cover up of their crimes.  The Khmer Rouge commenced their campaign that would lead to their conquest of Kampuchea.  And the new constitution of Sweden came into effect. 

In Australia, on 10 February 1975, the Federal Attorney-General (Senator the Hon. Lionel Murphy QC) was appointed a Justice of the High Court of Australia.  He replaced Sir Douglas Menzies KBE, who had died at the annual Bar Association dinner in Sydney on 29 November 1974.  As Senator, Minister, and advocate, Lionel Murphy had been was a bold proponent of law reform.  In 1973, he had introduced the Law Reform Commission Bill into the Federal Parliament.  He said that the promotion of law reform on a comprehensive and uniform basis could only be undertaken by “an expert body, working full-time on the task and removed from the pressures of day-to-day politics”. 

Lionel Murphy also advocated that “many questions of law reform must be dealt with on a national basis, unless circumstances justify different treatment of the several States.”  There was a delay in the implementation of the Bill, once enacted.  However, the Bill had received the unanimous support of all Parties and both Houses of the Federal Parliament.  The Act commenced on 1 January 1975, just short of three quarters of century of the operation of the Federal Constitution. 

As and from 4 February 1975 the foundation members of the Commission commenced office: Professor Alex Castles (University of Adelaide); Mr Gareth Evans (University of Melbourne); Associate Professor Gordon Hawkins (University of Sydney); and myself (recently appointed a Deputy President of the Conciliation and Arbitration Commission).

Upon the immediate reference to the Commission of the task of proposing new laws to provide for the handling of complaints against police and the conduct of criminal investigation by police, timed to apply to the new “Australia Police”, (later to be renamed “Australian Federal Police”), I was appointed to serve full-time as first Chairman of the Commission.  I was relieved of my duties as a presidential member and Judge in the Arbitration Commission.  Gareth Evans was also appointed to serve full-time.  He was appointed by me to take charge of the Criminal Investigation report.  In June 1975, Mr F.G. Brennan QC of the Queensland Bar was appointed another part-time member to help with the criminal investigation inquiry.  At the same time, Mr John Cain, then President of the Law Institute of Victoria and later elected a member of the Victorian Parliament, was also appointed a part-time Commissioner.

This was the core of the foundation membership of the Law Reform Commission.  We were a good team; and we were all proud to serve in the new institution.

At the first meeting of the new Commission, held in the Sydney offices discovered for us by Mr Kevin Crotty of the Federal Attorney-General’s Department, we got to work at 99 Elizabeth Street, Sydney.  A  photograph was taken of us.  This is a well known image reproduced in the program of this conference.  The five of us look puzzled, but comparatively benign.  Of the six of us, four (Brennan, Castles, Cain and Hawkins) have since died.  Only Gareth Evans and I have survived long enough to join in the celebrations of this Golden Anniversary. 

The creation of the ALRC was one of several important developments in the law in Australia that occurred in 1975.  On 11 June 1975, the Racial Discrimination Act came into force.  On 8 July 1975 another federal statute abolished appeals from the High Court of Australia to the Judicial Commission of the Privy Council in London (with a few limited exceptions provided).  The residue of such appeals, involving appeals directly from the State Supreme Courts, remained until abolished by the Australia Acts 1986.  These were not just symbolic changes.  They helped shift the Grundnorm of Australian law to this country, asserting and providing for our own legal system, uniquely and locally accountable only to Australians. 

On 16 September 1975, Papua New Guinea was granted full independence from Australia under an autochthonous constitution, with the monarch represented at the celebrations by Prince Charles who in 2023 was to become King Charles III.  He was in Port Moseby and in the presence of the Governor-General of Australia Sir John Kerr and the Prime Minister of Australia, the E.G. Whitlam QC. 

On the morning of 11 November 2025 the Governor-General of Australia (Sir John Kerr) handed Prime Minister Whitlam a letter notifying him of his dismissal.  Malcolm Fraser was appointed Prime Minister on condition that he hold an immediate election.  Many Australians remember where they were when the news of the dismissal came through.  It deeply divided Australia.  However, as a result of the election held on 13 December 1975, the Fraser Government was confirmed.  The Coalition Parties secured 54% of the popular vote; 91 of the 127 House seats; together with 35 senate seats.

Many participants in law reform were full of gloom in December 1975.  But those who were not paying regard to the indications that Attorney-General Ellicott was a strong supporter of institutional law reform.  The policy platform of the Fraser Government included an item promising the referral of new laws for privacy protection to the Law Reform Commission.  Moreover, Mr Fraser had a personal commitment to administrative law reform, which he would later declare to have been one of his major achievements in office: the new federal administrative law.  Mr Ellicott promptly provided the Commission with a series of important and trailblazing projects.  These included the reform of the law on privacy; on Aboriginal customary laws; on human tissue transplants law; on federal sentencing law reform; on insolvency and consumer debt; on insurance contracts law reform; and on compulsory acquisition reform.

Mr Ellicott’s list was a thoughtful and challenging program for the Commission.  It provided it with the foundation for establishing its credentials.  I pay tribute to Whitlam and Murphy.  But also to Fraser and Ellicott.  The Law Reform Commission cannot, of course, control the governments and personalities of the elected decisionmakers.  However, the events of 1975 showed the vital importance of the Commission always preserving political neutrality, courtesy and engagement with whoever holds office (and however they secured it).  This had to be done professionally and equally with the opposition and minority and also with independent Members of Parliament.  The Commission, from the start, worked in a context dominated by the elected government.

DISTINCTIVE METHODOLOGY

It is tiresome for those who preceded current officeholders to endlessly adulate the way they went about things in earlier times that were necessarily, different and distinctive from what followed.

The methods which the original ALRC developed and pursued at the outset were suitable for the times in which the Commission began.  This is not to say they were conventional and unchallenging.  Many of the techniques that the ALRC developed at the outset, were quite different from the methods that had been followed by its progenitors in England, Scotland, New Zealand, Canada and several of the Australian states.  In part, the differences pioneered by the ALRC grew out of the federal character of the Australian Commonwealth, as required by its Constitution and its history.  However, some features of the methodology grew out of the controversial nature of many, even most of, the program items that had been assigned to the Commission by a supposedly conservative government.  The following features must be noticed:

1. Location: At the outset, a question arose as to where the Commission should be based.  This remains an issue to this day.  In our first discussions, I suggested it would probably be more effective if the Commission were established in Canberra, where virtually all of the federal agencies and decision-makers were by then based.  I made that suggestion, although I myself lived in Sydney where my family and partner were based.  The Commission discussed the issue.  I raised it with the senior officers of the Attorney-General’s Department including the Secretary (Mr [later Sir] Clarrie Harders); Deputy Secretary Mr Frank Mahony; First Assistant Secretaries Trevor Bennett; Lindsay Curtis; Peter Loof; Ewart Smith.  Another reasons for proposing Canberra was the presence there of the Office of Parliamentary Counsel and the precious few retired legislative draftsmen such as JQ Ewans and Noel Sexton.  Whilst acknowledging some reasons for establishing the site of the Commission in Canberra.  However, Mr Harder made it pretty clear that he was against that idea.  He did not accept the proposition that the proximity of the Commission with the Attorney-General’s Department would help to overcome the problem, perceived from the outset, namely the tension between the role of the Minister’s permanent department and advisers and the ALRC.  Sir Clarrie Harders explained that “if the Attorney-General wanted to secure advice from an enlarged group of officers based in Canberra, he would not create a Law Reform Commission.  He would have enlarged his Department.
   
   The chief value of the Commission, he declared, was providing distinctive advice, with greater access to the national legal in profession and offering expertise beyond his Department.  He also said that, “being based in a state capital would ensure easier access to the leaders of the legal profession who could more readily be available to support the Commission in the main cities.  This was also the advice of the Foundation Secretary and Director of Research, George Brouwer.   Accordingly, in the end, we settled on Sydney.  It remained so until Justice Sarah Derrington (based in Brisbane) led the move of the Commission to that city; and later Justice Mordy Bromberg, resident here, who led the Commission to Melbourne.  I set aside the choices of different capitals.  Obviously, the focus must be on the work and availability of talent and expertise.  To shift the venue of the Commission only because of the residence of the President, may need further consideration and cost benefit analysis.
2. Staff: The venue of the Commission in Sydney soon emerged as an advantage in recruiting highly talented professional staff.  Many were lawyers who would not have been available in other cities.  George Brouwer moved from the Cabinet Office in Canberra, before subsequently returning to Melbourne. The key employees, under his direction, included: Keith Johnson (Administrative Officer); Gary Mahlberg (Deputy); Rae Hay (my PA who was the fastest typist in Christendom); and Roy Jordan and Virginia Purcell (the initial Librarians).   A number of highly talented officers, (Kevin O’Connor; Brian Keon Cohen [KC]; John Karkar [KC]) applied from Melbourne; but most of the staff had earlier been based in Sydney.  (David Partlett; Shenagh Barnes and Bill Tearle were recruited from Sydney.  Securing highly talented staff depends in part on the attractions of the challenges and the location of the institution. 
3. Co-operation: Although some earlier efforts had been made to create a national body that included the State and Territory law reform agencies (later extended to observer status for close neighbouring jurisdictions such as Papua New Guinea; New Zealand; Fiji) the engagement with agencies in different States and other countries waxed and waned. As was more common in 1975 than it is today, the chief initial contacts with the English and Scottish Law Commissions and later those of India and Ireland, were beneficial.  They led to the exchange of reports; discussion papers, speeches on methodology; and research documents.  All of this was before the development of the internet or of the free access service of AustLII (currently celebrating its 30^th anniversary).  Electronics made it much easier and quicker to secure materials from professional colleagues and elsewhere.  Within Australia, paying attention to collegial contacts helped to forestall the risks of political hostility and envy that sometimes arise within federations.  Great attention was also paid, institutionally and programmatically, engaging with legal professional bodies; universities and judicial institutions.  We were soon punching above our weight.
4. Part-time Commissioners and Consultants: Although the budget of the ALRC was greater at the beginning than it later became, the Commission developed economic ways to secure honorary assistance from members of the judiciary, legal institutions; expert academics; civil society; and specialised lawyers. With the approval of the Attorney-General, the Commission could recruit a large number of experts, most of whom were prepared to work without professional fees or at the cost of providing flights and other transport to meetings.  Meetings and other consultations became quite intense as the publication of reports was approaching.  The ALRC ultimately had little difficulty in recruiting part-time consultants to supplement the full and part-time commissioners.  They did not have the responsibility of ultimate decision-making.  But in our experience, there was an excitement and engagement in cooperation because of the manifest utility and practicality of our work.  Serving judges and engaging with others as part-time commissioners or consultants may be a means of enhancing, in an economical and attractive way, the assembly of top experts in helping with the preparation of reports.  Many judges have a professional sense of dedication.  Of course, judges and other participants are often under pressure because of their core duties.  However, our experience was that this was an economical and practical way to enhance our teams, devoted to preparation of reports.  The advent of audio-visual links (by Zoom, Teams and otherwise) has, if anything enhanced the potential availability of expertise, where appropriate, without fee.  Many judges, in particular, found this a way to move into improving the legal system, beyond individual case loads.
5. Public Hearings: Although enquiries on controversial legal issues have long existed, such as the Wolfenden Royal Commission on Prostitution and Homosexuality, institutional law reform had not, generally, in the past, involved public hearings to supplement the advice of experts.  To some extent, this was because of a perceived lack of marginal utility in opening up consultation to interested bodies and the general public.  However, from the start, the ALRC approached consultation from a different standpoint.  Some issues, of their nature, demanded public consultation (such as Aboriginal customary laws; privacy; and insurance contracts).  Other issues would be more appropriately dealt with by inviting consultation and extending invitations specifically to nominated witnesses.  Typically the consultation would gather useful facts and opinions, beyond those provide by expert reports.  Of course, in some cases the submissions did not demonstrate marginal utility.  However, one of the most important outcomes of public hearings was that they enhanced the profile of the work of the ALRC.  Inferentially, they increased public awareness of the importance of law reform. They also raised political expectations that results in the form of legal change would follow from the process.  Occasionally, politicians and sometimes even Attorneys-General, exhibited hostility to the process of public hearings.  They did not like to be pressured by questions emanating in consequence of reports on such testimony.  Departmental officials warned them against the publicity that might occasion political pressure or embarrassment.  Senator Peter Durack, the Attorney-General after Bob Ellicott, was heard to say, when assigning to the ALRC its reference on Foreign State Immunity: “Now let us see if Kirby can secure publicity about that one.”  However, the Commissioner in charge was a brilliant and creative lawyer, James Crawford (later a Judge of the International Court of Justice, before his untimely recent death).  He had no difficulty in gathering public and expert opinions that showed the human face of immunity previously locked away in law courts and law reports.  In my experience, departmental officials of a later age did not have the broad approach and empathy for law reform that Sir Clarrie Harders effortlessly exhibited.  The reduction in the number and sensitivity of references and the diminution of funding for infrastructure and personnel needs to be overcome.  Consultation should not be confined only to lawyers or other experts.
6. Draft Legislation: The English and Scottish Law Reform Commissions, in the 1970s and 1980s, ordinarily attached to their draft report a model statute. If enacted by Parliament, this would give effect to the policy decisions recommended by the Commission.  From the start, we faced two basic problems in copying that policy, compelling though it was.  The first was a degree of professional opposition amongst parliamentary counsel concerning their ascendency and defence of their primacy and drafting style.  The greatest problem, however, was the difficulty in recruiting a highly talented lawyer who could translate recommendations stated in prose into draft legislation.  We had an early breakthrough in the recruitment of John Q Ewens, long-time First Parliamentary Counsel.  He came to our rescue in the drafting of the proposed legislation on insurance contracts; privacy protection; and other topics.  Noel Sexton and Keith Mason, brought talents derived from training and experience to bear on many of the early reports of the Commission.  With disappointment, but understanding, the ALRC’s recent reports have not included draft legislation.  I remember the supreme utility of converting vaguely expressed proposals into draft laws, where every sentence could be measured.  If a report with recommendations, expressed in general language, has to compete with the urgent demands of a Minister for the use of parliamentary counsel’s time, the Commission will always come off second best.  If the Commission could convert its proposals into draft legislation, its output and speed of implementation would be immediately enhanced.  In part this is an issue of allocating public resources.  But, in part it concerns the technique of law reform itself.  It needs priority attention as an integral component of federal law making.
7. Parliamentary champions: In the early days of the ALRC we enjoyed the support of local champions on competing sides of politics.  The vigilant voice of Alan Missen (Liberal Senator from Victoria) proved a loyal champion in many of the projects in the early days of the Commission.  When the Hawke Government was elected, the incoming Attorney-General was Gareth Evans.  He was a powerful champion for the implementation of Commission reports.  Immediately on his appointment, he telephoned me to ask what reports were ready for implementation, pending the drafting of Bills for the Government’s own proposals.  At once, I nominated the report on insurance contracts and privacy protection.  Although he later moved from the Attorney-General’s portfolio, he never lost his interest in, and passion for, the ALRC.  With politicians in government and in opposition, the ALRC needs to develop appropriate processes of consultation and information.  It needs to engage in proper ways with media, including social media.  It needs to spread knowledge about its work.  When a proposal is drafted, or when a report is tabled, that needs to be considered for implementation.  The regular distribution of the Commission’s newsletter “Reform” now looks in retrospect to be somewhat amateuristic, certainly compared to the media of today.  However, it is not enough to do good works.  It is essential to spread the word to parliamentarians, officials, politicians, the general media and interested citizens and groups.  “Reform” used the methodology of the 1980s.  That methodology should be adapted and developed for the output of the current age.  Spending on such information may be cost effective.
8. Decline, Fall and Revival?: It is perhaps natural that, in these remarks, I should lay emphasis upon the earliest days of the ALRC.  Although those days were 50 years ago, they remain vivid in memory.  They established a methodology that was, measured in turn by reverence to the size and importance of the project and the numbers of proposals implemented, was    They led to a series of brilliant reports. 

At the time of my departure from the ALRC for the Court of Appeal in 1984, one of the most outstanding projects was nearing its conclusion.  In May 1984 an interim report was being produced that would later become the Uniform Evidence Act.  As a daily companion to thousands of lawyers, practising throughout Australia, that project was compiled under the supervision of Commissioner Tim Smith.  It was one of the biggest and most challenging of the ALRC projects.  Tim Smith, with the support of a magnificent team, including Stephen Odgers, brought the project to completion.  They provided a consensus report already in force in a majority of the jurisdictions of Australia.  After leaving the ALRC, Tim Smith became a greatly respected Judge.  His widow, Angela Smith, joins this celebration.  Her presence reminds us of the spouses and partners of the Commissioners.  They joined the research and administrative staff for regular social events.  These included Emad’s Lebanese restaurant beloved of the younger participants.  They also included the annual Christmas party at my home at Rose Bay, in Sydney.  Observing the social conventions of that time my already long-term partner, Johan van Vloten, was never present.  This was the reality of the operation of the law that was brought home to me every day of my service in the ALRC.  Legislative reform in New South Wales was finally adopted in 1984.  Perhaps it was a well-timed but unconscious tribute to the law reform struggle on so many fronts, to make the Australia a better and a kinder place. 

When I departed the ALRC in 1984, Justice Murray Wilcox of the Federal Court of Australia, was a full-time Commissioner engaged on the Lands Acquisition Act reference.  He had been appointed to the Federal Court in May 1984.  He served additionally as Acting Full-Time Chairman for 9 months.  He was succeeded as Full time President in May 1985 by Hon. Xavier Connor QC.  He completed his term in December 1987.  He complained to Government about the insufficiency of resources.  This notwithstanding, 14 reports were finalised and tabled during the years that Justice Wilcox and Xavier Connor were leading the ALRC.

Justice Elizabeth Evatt succeeded Xavier Connor.  She was appointed in January 1988, after Xavier Connor’s departure.  She had served in England with Sir Leslie Scarman’s Law Commission.  She had acquired great judicial skills.  She led the ALRC program in five areas of law: family law; business law, access to justice; government law; and law in Australian Capital Territory.  Throughout her time, the Commission continued to use the participatory approach.  Evidencing a view different from that expressed in the earliest days by Sir Clarrie Harders, the Attorney-General’s Department by this time began flexing its muscles.  It secured the appointment of one of its senior officers, Mr John Greenwell as Deputy President.  Later it procured the appointment of another senior officer, of the Department, Alan Rose, was appointed President (as the top job had by this time been renamed).  He was appointed on 11 May 1994.  An officer who had began an association with the Commission as a researcher, Ms Sue Tongue filled in the period between Justice Evatt’s departure and Mr Rose’s appointment.

An explanation for the delay in the completion of some reports can in part be found in the varying special talents of commissioners and their available staff.  However, most important was the reduction in numbers of distinguished Australian lawyers who were appointed ALRC commissioners. The fall in the number of reports over time captured the attention of successive governments; and the Parliament.  It was a clear outcome of the decline in funding of the ALRC.

I will not review the history of the Commission since my departure and that of my immediate successors.  The Business Council of Australia was a regular critic, notwithstanding the efficiency dividend that the Commission earned by several reports relevant to business, such as the reports on lands acquisition law; insurance contracts law; privacy law; and the Uniform Evidence Act.  However, more to the point, in my view, was the diminution of attention in the Executive Government and the Parliament for the Commission and its role.  Reduction in funding and diminution of appointments has an unpleasant tendency, unless reversed, to be quickly converted into an institutional decline.

A number of inquiries were initiated, over the years, to review the work of the Commission.  The largest of these was undertaken in May 1994 by the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Legal and Constitutional Affairs.  The report of that Commission was delivered to the Parliament in May 1994.  The committee was chaired by Mr Daryl Melham MP, with Mr Alan Cadman MP as Deputy Chairman.  It contained several past or future Attorneys-General, including the Hon. Michael Duffy MP; and Mr Daryl Williams AM QC. 

The report’s first recommendation was that the Federal Government should recognise that there is a continuing need for a Commission to carry out law reform functions.  It recommended a process of consultation by relevant departments with the Commission.  It also proposed that, “all government departments should make provision, by appropriate means, for the processing of Commission recommendations”.  Put broadly, the Parliamentary Inquiry represented a qualified endorsement of the Commission. But, actions speak louder than words.  In an article that I wrote in 2017, published in the Australian Law Journal (Vol 91 p841), I demonstrated by graphs and tables the significant and still then continuing decline in the number of Commissioners appointed; the provision of positive departmental attention to Commission reports; and the devotion of adequate funding to the ALRC.  These Indicia are incorporated in the Appendix.  Graphs can also speak louder than words.

In my remarks in the article, I cautioned against oversimplistic measurement of the success of reports.  For example, Attorney-General Ellicott’s reference on Aboriginal customary laws did not result in comprehensive legislation.  But it also was written by one of the Commissions most distinguished jurists, James Crawford AC, later a Judge of the International Court of Justice.  There is little doubt that the ALRC report on Aboriginal Customary law (which receives the most visits of any report on the ALRC website) had an impact on the Zeitgeist, or spirit of the times, that followed in the Mabo, Wik and other cases.  Law reform sometimes moves in mysterious ways.

To blame the ALRC for the non-implementation of it reports (where that has occurred) probably, at least in part, places blame in the wrong place.  The reason for inactivity (or even a refusal to consider law reform reports) will often lie with the legislature itself or with government departments and agencies.  Arbitrary, unreasoned power is inconsistent with the rule of law.  However, that is the reality that now sometimes applies to the pleas for law reform in Australia.  We do not have a national Human Rights Charter.  Still less do we have many constitutional principles that could occasionally result in judicial relief.  If management experts were to assess the Australian system of government as it presently operates, they would be rightly critical about inadequate attention to areas of law reform especially if there are powerful sectional interests; political apathy; the distraction of more popular issues; or indifference about the problems concerning minorities, our democratic system will not infrequently fail to yield reform outcomes.  Governments and Parliaments after all, can usually divert the explanation, and the blame, to another branch of government or the costs, other priorities, or disagreement with the law reformers, viewed as “out of touch” with powerful interests that can catch the ear of government. 

Indifference to many aspects of law reform is, sadly, a major impediment to action.  The exceptionally high rate of imprisonment of young First Nations’ people is Australia’s prisons (said to be amongst the highest rates of imprisonment in the whole world) was reported upon by the ALRC.  Yet effective action has not yet been forthcoming.  As I wrote in 2017 “The hostile forces should once again be overcome.  Optimism and idealism about law reform should be reinstated.  Tinkering, minimisation and inertia are unacceptable.  The rule of law needs, and the people of Australia, deserve better.”

I congratulate the President and his very small team, devoted to the reform of federal law in Australia.  I congratulate all those, who in the past, have laboured on law reform in a systematic, consultative and multi-disciplinary way.  There have been grand projects.  They show what can be done.  There have been novel methodologies.  They show how to enhance the prospects of success.  But in the end, if the Commission is to survive a further 50 years, it will need more champions in Parliament, like Bob Ellicott and Gareth Evans.  It will need more understanding of the priorities and the pains of inattention to law reform.  It will need impatience with bureaucrats who, unlike Sir Clarrie Harders, are devoted to protecting their patch and not to ensuring a better system of government for the people. 

Back in 1975, if I had been told that I would be speaking at the 50^th anniversary of the ALRC in 2025, I would have predicted the arrival of a golden age, integral to our governance.  This is not a golden age.  At best it is copper, or even possibly tin.  I hope and expect to be around, and still restless in 10 years’ time: for the 60^th anniversary.  It will be the Diamond Jubilee of the Commission.  It sounds like a milestone truly worth waiting for.  I hope that the ALRC will be strong, brilliant and enduring as a diamond, appreciated for its long lasting, effective and precious contributions to our Commonwealth.  

We who have laboured in institutional law reform should not only blame others for their disappointments.  We, who are or have been, members of the Commission, should honour and celebrate our successes.  We should share some of the blame for delay and inaction, ourselves.  We should face squarely the reality of democratic, social and economic forces that decide the agenda of actual law-making in Australia.  We should be realistic in our expectations.  And we all should strive to earn the diamonds that will be ours, in the decade ahead.

Address to the Australian Law Forum 2025 by ALRC President the Hon Justice Mordy Bromberg, 14 August 2025

Source: Lawyers Weekly (Instagram: Lawyers Weekly)

Transcript

CHECK AGAINST DELIVERY

“Sensation is unorganised stimulus, perception is organised sensation, conception is organised perception, science is organised knowledge, wisdom is organised life: each is a greater degree of order, and sequence and unity.”

At the essence of that quote – a quote often attributed to Immanuel Kant – is the idea that wisdom is more valuable than intelligence. I will come back to that because it is at the heart of one of the fundamental propositions I want to develop and leave you with. That proposition is this – in a changing world and, in particular, in a legal world about to be transformed by Artificial Intelligence, lawyers need to lean into and enhance the uniquely human skills we have that AI will complement but cannot replicate.

But before I develop that proposition, let me firstly say good morning and tell you how pleased I am to be joining you here at the inaugural Australian Law Forum. I would like to commence my address by acknowledging the Traditional Custodians of the lands on which we are meeting here today, the Gadigal Peoples of the Eora Nation, and pay my respects to their Elders past and present, as well as any First Nations people in attendance here today. Not only are the First Nations of Australia the oldest continuing cultures on the planet, they are also the keepers of a long tradition and history and of an ancient philosophy which I think shares my own view that wisdom is of a greater order of value than intelligence.

I understand that this audience today is a blend of lawyers from the major law firms, boutique firms, and in-house counsel. My intention is to speak to you today on a tension that all of us legal professionals are beginning to face in our work, whether in the world of law reform, in the courts, in private practice, or in our pro bono and community work. That tension is, in an environment that changes so rapidly, how do we both adapt to keep up while holding firm to the foundational virtues that underpin the worth of our profession and the services that we provide? What are the qualities that must sustain us through the next great challenge brought to our door by the winds of change?

Most of us would agree that the complexity and pace of change in the world is accelerating across all domains. Technology and data, health and science, environment and nature, social and individual norms and values, political and national dynamics and power. All of these areas are experiencing major shifts at speeds which test all of us both as professionals and as human beings.

The last five years have certainly demonstrated how rapidly change can take hold in so many aspects of our life. Let me take an example from the world of employment, a particular interest of mine. Five years ago, we experienced an unprecedented shift in our working lives as working from home became a new normal. We took our devices home expecting a few weeks of remote work, which became months, and then became a new pattern of hybrid work.

The working from home revolution – which has brought about arguably the greatest shift in power from employers to employees in living memory – is an example of the type of change that brings new opportunities and challenges to how we ourselves work, how we work with others, and how the law guides and shapes our shared expectations and boundaries about where work and life intersect.

And as the world changes, so too should the law. Leading the Australian Law Reform Commission in its 49th and now its 50th year of providing government with the best available advice on the law and how it may be designed and improved, I have learnt that change is the catalyst for law reform. Law is about regulating human behaviour, and law reform is about reforming the law to change behaviour or otherwise accommodate changed circumstances. Sometimes change comes in the form of changed social mores or attitudes. In such a case, the law needs to be updated to reflect evolving societal values. Or often, changed circumstances brought about by science or technology call for the reform of the law.

A case in point is the ALRC’s current review of Australia’s human tissue laws, some half a century after the ALRC first did so in the 1970s. Since the ALRC originally examined the laws relating to the regulation of human tissue, medical science has dramatically shifted our understandings of health and the capabilities for sustaining healthy organs for transplantation after a donor has died. The opportunities created by medical advances which do not diminish the inherent worth and dignity of life should be facilitated by the law. That challenge has raised difficult ethical issues, including whether death should now be differently defined.

Another case in point is the advent of Artificial Intelligence. Let me touch on that subject briefly because I think the current debate about it and whether and how the law should regulate Artificial Intelligence suffers from a number of fundamental misconceptions.

First, the debate does not recognise nor grapple with the enormity of the law reform task. Artificial Intelligence has the capacity to affect and to influence human behaviour on a scale which we have never before experienced. Because every law in one way or another seeks to regulate human behaviour, an instrument with that capacity will likely touch most of our laws.

AI is not just another new product, which our product liability laws will readily accommodate. It is not just another technological advancement on the same continuum as available technology. It is a different species of technology. As Waleed Aly recently described it – “technology has hitherto been something we build. We determine what it is and what it will do. But AI is not something we build. It is instead something we train. That is, we give it the tools to direct itself.”

The autonomy provided to AI is unique and gives rise to new and challenging risks of harm. The likely ubiquity of AI and its forthcoming role as the dominant purchasing and transactional agent for us all, together with its capacity to become the primary source of our information and news, also gives rise to risks never before encountered on this scale.

Yet, much of the current debate on the regulation of AI proceeds as though we are clear-eyed about the potential for risk and the capacity for our current laws to effectively address those risks.

The advent of Artificial Intelligence requires that we firstly identify the potential risks and harms that Artificial Intelligence may create. We then need to review the ‘Statute Book’ and many aspects of the common law to discern whether the law currently addresses those potential harms. Second, we will need to evaluate the extent to which the law addresses those harms effectively. That exercise will reveal the gaps in the law, those harms that need to be but are not going to be effectively addressed by our current laws.

The enormity of that exercise needs to be understood in the context of AI throwing up unique regulatory challenges. Many AI products allow for adaptation by a distributor as well as by the ultimate user. Who should be made legally responsible for any harm caused and in what measure will likely raise difficult legal questions. The attribution of legal liability will also likely face problems of proof because of AI’s lack of transparency – the algorithmic black box.

Then, of course, the law reform process will be faced with deciding whether relief from harm provided by the law should be preventative or merely remedial, or, perhaps a combination of both. Our laws ordinarily provide for preventative mechanisms to deal with products capable of causing serious harms, such as dangerous goods, hazardous chemicals or pharmaceuticals. Once we have identified and evaluated the full range of harms Artificial Intelligence is capable of causing, difficult evaluative judgements will need to be made about the nature of the relief from harm that the law should provide.

For those reasons amongst others, I regard the regulation of Artificial Intelligence as the largest and most complex law reform exercise that currently confronts Australia. It is the profundity and breadth of this change and challenge that will require us to take a deep dive and provide well-considered evidence-based solutions.

Yet, the public debate we are having has barely identified the fact that the regulation of Artificial Intelligence is a law reform exercise, let alone the largest of its kind. The debate about the regulation of Artificial Intelligence seems to be focused on whether we enact a single Artificial Intelligence Act or regulate Artificial Intelligence by amending existing laws, should that be required. That is a question largely of form and not of substance. We need to address substance first, and we need to engage in the evaluative law reform exercise I have described in order to appreciate what, if any, changes to our current laws need to be made. That exercise will enable the government to properly consider and determine the policy objectives that the laws regulating artificial intelligence should facilitate.

Whether the regulation of artificial intelligence should be “light touch” is not a question that can be properly answered without first identifying the potential risks and harms of AI, the extent to which the law is currently capable of addressing those risks and harms effectively, and the extent to which the regulation of those risks and harms may impede Artificial Intelligence from delivering the productivity benefits that it can obviously provide.

If we do not do that, the law will be left to chase a tail it will never ever catch.

Artificial Intelligence is potent, and it will be indispensable. It is wrong, however, to say that it is unstoppable and therefore that it cannot be regulated. That is another false assumption in the current debate.

However, whether Artificial Intelligence is regulated and whatever form that regulation takes, AI is and will remain an agent of change that will transform the legal profession. And so it should. There are aspects of our work and some aspects of the services the legal profession provides which will be greatly enhanced by Artificial Intelligence. There are also tasks which are currently provided by lawyers which AI will replace. It may be that AI will result in fewer lawyers.

We ought to be enthused by those features of AI that will enhance the services we provide. We are, however, somewhat threatened by the notion that AI will replace us.

During this conference, the lawyers here gathered, will be given opportunities to better understand the way that Artificial Intelligence can enhance the work that you do. I am personally optimistic that AI can and will make very substantial contributions to the productivity of legal professionals. I am confident that AI will get better at what it does. However, I think it important that we also recognise the limitations of AI.

To my mind, some of the forecasts I have seen which suggest that many tens of thousands of lawyers will be left without a job, are likely to be misplaced. They are likely to be wrong because of a failure to fully understand the valuable skills that lawyers have and the extent to which AI can or will replicate those skills.

First, the practise of the law is highly interpersonal. It requires human interaction and collaboration. It involves building important relationships with clients, opponents, government officials and others. Interpersonal skills, including emotional intelligence are significant to the lawyer’s critical function of persuasion and advocacy, both in and out of court.

Artificial Intelligence has no charm or charisma. It has no capacity to create bonds based on personal affection and trust. It has no understanding of those nuances of human communications which are not captured by data. It cannot replicate the trusting relationship that a client has with their respected lawyer, nor the trust that a judge has of reputable counsel. It does not network. It will not persuade new clients to join your practise, nor maintain and service the good relations lawyers must have with their existing clients.

Artificial Intelligence is data driven. AI finds patterns in data and uses that to make predictions designed to communicate the most relevant response to the prompt or the question asked of it. This is a form of intelligence. It is a means of organising knowledge that lawyers use extensively. We lawyers collect and organise evidence into rational categories. AI can do that. We identify and collect the law on a particular subject, be it statutory or case-law. AI can do that too. AI is as good at and potentially much better at dealing with what is known. Organising existing knowledge requires intelligence and AI has that intelligence.

Where the law is settled and the legal answer to the legal dispute or problem is obvious, organising existing knowledge about the law to identify the legal answer will be sufficient. But a capacity to organise existing knowledge will not suffice if the legal answer is unclear or ambiguous by reference to the existing state of knowledge of the law. That is because the legal answer, whether given by way of a lawyer’s advice or the decision of a court, will involve a judgement. In the case of a lawyer’s advice, that judgement will require a prediction about what is currently not known in law. In the case of a court’s decision, that judgement will involve creating new knowledge about the law.

The skill required to make those judgements is a far more valuable skill of a lawyer than the skill of organising existing knowledge. That is so because people who need legal advice and assistance will usually seek it where the law is unclear, rather than clear—where the legal answer needs to be predicted rather than merely stated by reference to what is already known.

The capacity to make those judgements—judgements upon which reasonable minds will often differ – depend not only on intelligence but on wisdom. Wisdom is a skill of a greater degree of order than mere intelligence. It is far harder to be wise than it is to be smart. And wisdom is a skill developed and exercised not merely by reference to data but by reference to innately human experiences that AI does not share.

Wisdom requires more than knowledge of existing data. It requires human experience and human understandings that are not well captured by data. For the wise lawyer, wisdom entails intuition and creativity of a kind not provided by data analysis. It includes navigating moral dilemmas and making value judgements in complex legal situations, where context, language, and nuance provide important clues in the search for parliamentary intent or in predicting how the common law or a judge or a jury will respond to any given factual situation.

Wisdom is also required in asking the right questions when trying to find the right legal solution. This is another task AI is not well-suited to undertake.

Wisdom includes creating new knowledge and not merely intelligently organising existing knowledge. It is a uniquely human contribution to good legal advice and representation. Whilst AI can complement wisdom, it cannot replace it.

The delivery of justice is a heavy responsibility and one that cannot be well executed without wisdom.

The legal profession will, I think, be resilient in meeting the challenge of AI. It can and I believe will do so by leaning in and focusing on those invaluable and irreplaceable skills good lawyers have. In the face of AI’s challenge to our profession, you need to make your clients appreciate that whilst AI can complement what you offer, it cannot and will not replace the value-adding critical skills which only the human lawyer can provide.

I hope that my analysis, including the dichotomy I have drawn between intelligence and wisdom, helps you to do so.

Webinar presentation slide deck (PDF)

From the ALRC President

ALRC President the Hon Justice Mordy Bromberg

Welcome to the latest edition of the ALRC’s In Brief newsletter. It has been a busy few months at the Commission, with all three of our Inquiries releasing publications, and a major media event for our most recently completed Inquiry.

The Review of the Future Acts Regime has delivered its Discussion Paper, the second publication for the Inquiry. The Discussion Paper outlines options for reform and asks for further feedback from native title holders and stakeholders on how the future Acts regime can be reformed, and invites submissions in response to the Discussion Paper.

Our Review of Human Tissue Laws and Review of Surrogacy Laws have both also released their Issues Papers in recent weeks, calling for submissions and asking stakeholders and the public to comment on the issues that we are likely to look at in these Inquiries, as well as outlining the approaches and principles we are considering in conducting these reviews. You can read further updates from all three teams below.

I was also pleased to visit Canberra last week to deliver a National Press Club address, ‘Safe, informed, supported: addressing sexual violence’ following the publication earlier this year of the Final Report for our Justice Responses to Sexual Violence Inquiry. Alongside Domestic, Family and Sexual violence Commissioner Micaela Cronin, we addressed the gathered media, stakeholders, and the audience watching the broadcast event, highlighting our Final Report’s important recommendations for reform in this area.

Commissioner Cronin and I took the opportunity to talk about the profound impact that sexual violence has on our communities and on individuals who experience sexual violence, and the imperative for substantial and sustainable reform across the justice system and beyond. You can watch the recording of the National Press Club address on the ALRC website.

We continue to plan the Australasian Law Reform Agencies Conference (ALRAC 2025) and our 50th Anniversary Celebration dinner in October this year. Further information will be coming in the next few weeks, including registration and ticketing for both events. If you wish to get in touch about these events, in particular for those who may wish to organise a table for our 50th anniversary celebration dinner, please email events@alrc.gov.au. I do hope we will see you there.

– Mordy Bromberg

The Hon Justice Mordecai Bromberg
President, Australian Law Reform Commission

Tell us what you think: submissions now open until 10 July

The Discussion Paper for the Review of the Future Acts Regime is out now. The Discussion Paper outlines options for reform to the future acts regime in the Native Title Act 1993 (Cth), and continues the conversation started earlier in our Inquiry by asking for your thoughts on potential reforms. Submissions in response to the Discussion Paper are now open, and will close on 11 July.

Join us at our free webinar, 1–2pm AEST on Wednesday, 2 July

On Wednesday 2 July, we will be hosting a free webinar to outline what we’ve heard so far, discuss some of our key ideas for reform, and answer your questions. You can learn more and register via the link before.

A message from Commissioner, Tony McAvoy SC

Our Commissioner, Tony McAvoy SC, has recorded a short video about the Inquiry and seeking your feedback to help us develop recommendations for reform.

Issues Papers released for the Review of Human Tissue Laws and the Review of Surrogacy Laws

Issues Papers have recently been released for both our Review of Human Tissue Laws and Review of Surrogacy Laws. Read more on these publications below.

The Issues Paper for the Review of Human Tissue Laws outlines key issues the Inquiry is considering, proposes principles to guide law reform in this area, and sets out questions for stakeholders to consider. Key issues include donation by living and deceased persons, anatomical and post-mortem examinations, advertising and trade in human tissue, and allocation of donated human tissue. Submissions in response to the Human Tissue Laws Issues Paper are open until 4 July.

The Issues Paper for the Review of Surrogacy Laws outlines topics of focus for the Inquiry, including barriers to domestic surrogacy, legal parentage of children born through surrogacy, oversight and harmonisation. The Issues Paper also seeks feedback on principles to guide the Inquiry, such as accessibility, pragmatism, harm minimisation, harmonisation and human rights. Submissions in response to the Surrogacy Laws Issues Paper are open until 11 July 2025.

Watch now: National Press Club address, ‘Safe, Informed, Supported’

Justice Mordy Bromberg addresses the National Press Club of Australia in Canberra on 4 June 2025

On June 4th, ALRC President the Hon Justice Mordy Bromberg joined Domestic, Family and Sexual Violence Commissioner Micaela Cronin to deliver a National Press Club address titled ‘Safe, informed, supported: addressing sexual violence’. Justice Bromberg and Commissioner Cronin addressed the ALRC’s 2025 Final Report in its Inquiry into Justice Responses to Sexual Violence, highlighted the seriousness and prevalence of sexual violence in Australia, and outlined the roadmap to tackle the challenges.

You can now watch the National Press Club’s recording of the joint address online via ABC iView (address and media questions) or the NPC channel on Youtube below (address only).

Upcoming events

Registrations will soon open for the ALRC’s 50th anniversary celebration dinner on October 9th, 2025. Hosted in Melbourne at the elegant RACV City Club’s 17th floor, the evening promises to be an engaging and enjoyable celebration of this iconic Australian legal institution, and an opportunity to network and hear from eminent peers and colleagues across the legal profession.

We will be announcing our program for the evening soon, along with ticket sales (both individual and table tickets), as well as a range of exciting featured guests. To stay updated on our 50th anniversary as well as the ALRAC 2025 event, and to be notified when tickets are released for sale, subscribe for event updates at www.alrc.gov.au/events.

Address to the National Press Club of Australia by ALRC President the Hon Justice Mordy Bromberg, 4 June 2025

Transcript

CHECK AGAINST DELIVERY

Can I commence by acknowledging the Ngunnawal and Ngambri peoples as the traditional custodians of the land on which we meet today. I pay my deep respects to their Elders, past and present. I also extend my thanks to the National Press Club for giving Micaela and I the opportunity to shine a spotlight on a social problem which is clearly out of control.

Not only out of control because sexual violence is experienced in Australia in endemic proportions, but out of control in the sense that no strategy has yet effectively addressed the problem. There are many levers government can pull to help address sexual violence, such as improved education, improved social services, and improving the way the justice system deals with sexual violence. Commendably, Government has begun to address that third lever. Improving the Justice System’s response to sexual violence was the focus of a recently completed 12-month Australian Law Reform Commission inquiry.

One of the principal findings of our Inquiry, and the fundamental point that I want to make today, is that the problem of sexual violence will not be addressed unless the justice system is given a better  opportunity to deal with it, in circumstances where currently, it is largely not dealing with it. Why – because, typically, sexual violence occurs in Australia without leaving a trace on the justice system. Most perpetrators are not held to account, and the vast majority of people who have experienced sexual violence are not given the opportunity of a just outcome.

Nine out of ten women who disclosed to a recent ABS survey that they had been subjected to sexual violence did not report to police. But even when victims do report, their engagement with the justice system is typically short-lived. In New South Wales, Victoria, and right here in the ACT (and likely across all States and Territories), in the order of 75-85% of reports to police do not proceed to a charge.

That all suggests that only about 2% of women who say they have been subjected to sexual violence are able to overcome the barriers to access to justice. It also suggests that, at best, only about 2% of those alleged to have perpetrated sexual offending are held accountable before the law.

That is why the Australian Law Reform Commission says that most people who experience sexual violence in Australia shoulder that harm without an opportunity for a just outcome; and why we say that most people who perpetrate sexual violence face no consequences for their wrongdoing. This means that in our society, sexual violence is typically invisible – it is not recorded, recognized, or renounced. Community safety is not enhanced.

The justice system – and by that, I mean police, prosecutors, the legal profession and the Courts – will not fix the staggering prevalence of sexual violence on its own. However, the justice system has a critical role to play and the problem of sexual violence cannot be addressed unless the significant failings of the justice system are rectified. Many of the barriers to engagement with the justice system for people who have experienced sexual violence, are barriers for which the justice system bears some responsibility. Those barriers need to be addressed and are the main subject of the ALRC’s report.

We need to better understand that people who have experienced sexual violence need to be assisted to access the justice system and the just outcomes it is capable of providing. We also need to better appreciate that for our community to be safer, society needs the perpetrators of sexual violence to be brought to justice – for their conduct to be exposed, renounced, and addressed, and for a message to be sent to all – that sexual violence will no longer occur in Australia with impunity. Bringing people who have perpetrated sexual violence to account under the law is a fundamental requirement of a society governed by the rule of law.

The Australian Law Reform Commission is government’s trusted, expert and independent research and advisory body on law reform, providing government with frank, fearless, and expert advice for the last 50 years. In our national inquiry into the adequacy of the justice system’s response to sexual violence, the ALRC received hundreds of submissions, and was greatly assisted by the insight of a lived experience Expert Advisory Group. We also extensively consulted with police, prosecutors, defence lawyers, and judges. Front-line service providers were also consulted as well as academic experts. We also heard from many other people with lived experience of sexual violence and the justice system. Those valuable contributions were then supplemented by research and the astute consideration of our talented team of law reformers, led by subject-matter experts the Honourable Marcia Neave and Judge Liesl Kudelka.

Our 12-month inquiry produced a report titled “Safe, Informed, Supported: Reforming Justice Responses to Sexual Violence”, which makes 64 recommendations for either reform or further inquiry.

Of all the conclusions made about the justice system’s response to sexual violence, the ALRC considers under-engagement with the justice system to be the most significant problem. Most of the recommendations made in the Report are directed at addressing the barriers to access and engagement with the justice system that people who have experienced sexual violence face.

The ALRC, does not suggest that the problem of low trust and underuse of the justice system by those who have experienced sexual violence is the fault of those harmed.

Nor, by focusing on that problem, have we ignored the problem that many victims of sexual violence who do engage with the justice system are subjected to more harm than good. To the contrary, the ill-treatment and re-traumatization often experienced by complainants of sexual violence who do engage with the justice system, is itself one of the most significant barriers to engagement. The reason that many people who have experienced sexual violence do not engage with the justice system is their fear of ill treatment by police and prosecutors and during a trial. To address this, the ALRC has made many recommendations, including to:

• improve education and training about trauma for police, prosecutors, lawyers and judges;
• strengthen police and prosecution guidelines to better prevent traumatisation and the high rates of disengagement;
• ensure that prohibitions on inappropriate questioning of complainants during cross-examination are properly applied and enforced;
• challenge and address myths and misconceptions about sexual violence; and
• provide more assistance to complainants so that they can effectively engage with the justice system by giving them access to their own legal advice and to legal representation to protect them from the unwarranted disclosure of their private and confidential information.

If those failings of the justice system can be avoided or diminished, then one of the most significant causes for the under-engagement problem – the perception that if you engage with the justice system you will be re-traumatised – will itself be diminished.

The ALRC’s road map to improving the justice system otherwise addresses the under-engagement problem in three main ways.

First, we tackle the current absence of a safe, informed and supportive place to report sexual violence as a pathway into the justice system. Currently, police reporting is the principal place that people who have experienced sexual violence seek access into the justice system.

We know that people who experience sexual violence can feel scared, ashamed, humiliated or embarrassed. Feeling angry and betrayed, and feeling powerless and unworthy, can stop people who experience sexual violence from talking about what happened to them. We know that the formal disclosure of sexual violence can be a difficult experience. To overcome this significant barrier, the ALRC found that people who have experienced sexual violence need a safe, informed and supported place to disclose.

Research tells us that properly-resourced front-line sexual assault service providers can provide a best practice, trusted and safe place to formally report sexual violence. These services are also well placed to connect people who have experienced sexual violence to the legal advice that they need. Once connected, people who have experienced sexual violence can then make well-informed choices about their rights and entitlements, and to decide whether and how to engage with the justice system. The ALRC proposes, firstly, that this kind of legal assistance and advice be available to every person who has experienced sexual violence irrespective of where they live. And secondly, that the support services of a Justice System Navigator be provided – that is a support person who would walk alongside and guide complainants through the criminal justice system, including by supporting them to report
to police.

Second, we tackle the high attrition rate – the up to 85% disengagement rate for those people who have reported to police. The 2021 inquiry held here in the Australian Capital Territory found that the predominant reason for the low charge rates in the ACT is the failure of police to properly and appropriately investigate sexual offences. The findings of the ACT Review reflect what complainants of sexual violence have been saying for decades – that they feel disempowered, disrespected, and re-traumatised by police responses to their reports and consequently withdraw.

The ALRC considers that greater scrutiny and accountability of police behaviour and decision-making is required. To better understand the systemic reasons sexual violence matters typically drop out of the criminal justice system, we have recommended that each state and territory establish a task force to review all reports of sexual violence made to police within the last 12-18 months. We also recommend establishing an independent review and complaints mechanism, to both facilitate the on-going review of police decision-making, and enable an opportunity for complainants to challenge decisions made by police not to progress to charge.

Thirdly, the ALRC considers that people who have experienced sexual violence will more likely engage with the justice system if we expand their access to civil and to restorative justice pathways and remedies. We recognise that people who have experienced sexual violence have diverse justice needs well beyond a need to see a perpetrator convicted and imprisoned through the criminal justice system.

In the context of 1.7 million Australians experiencing sexual harassment over a recent 12-month period, the ALRC makes recommendations to make civil justice pathways more accessible by:

• extending the prohibition on sexual harassment (which in practical terms is currently mainly confined to workplaces) to all areas of public activity;
• reducing financial barriers and giving expanded access to cheaper and quicker tribunal processes;
• shifting the burden of, and responsibility for, addressing sexual harassment from the individual
  harmed to organisations and regulatory bodies; and
• expanding the range of orders that can be made when a court or tribunal finds that someone has been sexually harassed.

These proposals build upon the very good work undertaken by the Australian Human Rights Commission’s “Respect At Work” Report.

We also recommend making the restorative justice pathway more accessible — by legislating for restorative justice in sexual violence matters so this pathway is more widely available.

There are many more recommendations I don’t have time to outline, such as the need for better data collection and better evaluation of previous law reform exercises. But it is important to emphasise that all of the ALRC’s recommendations can be implemented without compromising the fundamental rights of an accused person to a fair trial.

Finally, may I conclude by saying that The National Plan to End Violence against Women and Children puts the annual economic cost of gender-based violence, including sexual violence, against women and children at $26 billion. It states that ‘more needs to be done to ensure justice systems are safe, accessible, and easy for victim-survivors to navigate’. Doing more will require more commitment and more resources. However, the investment necessary is well justified. It far outstrips the financial and human cost of sexual violence remaining widespread, under-reported, and, in the words of the National Plan, ‘in the shadows’.

The work of Micaela and the Domestic, Family, and Sexual Violence Commission and the ALRC’s proposed reforms will help to take Australia out of those shadows. We shine a light on both the problem and the solution. My appeal to you – the media here gathered – is that you now amplify that light into the blow torch required to help to finally bring the problem of sexual violence under control.