Last Tuesday, myself and a friend from the Harvard WorldMUN conference attended the Victorian Equal Opportunities and Human Rights Commission‘s human rights oration for 2013. This year, the oration schedule remarkably coincided with the travel schedule of prominent human rights lawyer Geoffrey Robertson QC, a lawyer whose writings I’m rather familiar with on account of his book, Crimes Against Humanity: The Struggle for Global Justice, being the required text for a particularly enjoyable class of mine last semester.

The oration was a fantastic mix of well-placed humour and poignantly rational discussion of the human rights issues of the the last century as well as the current period. Robertson made pointed references to the current Australian-Indonesian phone-tapping scandal, and recommended that Prime Minister Abbott follow the example set by President Obama in the phone-tapping of German Chancellor Angela Merkel: apologising profusely, assuring the Indonesian President and his wife that phone-tapping isn’t currently happening and won’t happen again, and staging an inquiry into the incident in order to find out why it occurred and who authorised the tap.

Abbott’s refusal to apologise is jeopardising key campaign promises, namely to ‘stop the boats’, whilst also jeopardising the future of Australia’s live export industry in Indonesia. There is nothing shameful about apologising for the actions of the intelligence community of the country you govern.

After the oration had concluded, in  a moment of self-proclaimed weakness, I purchased both of Robertson’s books that were on sale at the event, and even managed to get Dreaming Out Loud, his newest book, signed before he left.

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I recognise my shamefully abundant enthusiasm, and have come to terms with it.

Meeting Robertson and listening to his oration has definitely confirmed that I’m heading in the right direction, pursuing a career in human rights law with a strong international focus, following the completion of my Bachelor of Professional Communication next year.