Keynote Address - NSW Humanitarian Awards 2025

The address given for the presentation of Humanitarian Awards 2025 by STARTTS (NSW Service for the Treatment and Rehabilitation of Torture and Trauma Survivors) was delivered at Parliament House, Sydney, on Thursday 26 June 2025 in the presence of many participants in STARTTS, from migrant and refugee communities, legal bodies, and medical and healthcare organisations.  Michael Kirby had earlier been a Patron of STARTTS.  He returned to deliver the opening address of the occasion.  In it, he describes a number of cases that came before him when he was a Justice of the High Court of Australia, including Minister for Immigration, Multicultural and Indigenous Affairs v B (2004) 219 CLR 365; and Al-Kateb v Godwin (2004) 219 CLR 562.