Event and Ticketing Details
Dates & Times
Thursday 05 May
6:15 PM - 7:15 PM
All sorts of lofty ideals are projected onto the world of competitive sport. Sport is supposed to unite people across races and cultures. It’s supposed to deliver us role models. It’s supposed to provide a common talking point across social divides. Our expectations of sporting figures and sporting events sometimes seem unreasonably high and, at other times, contemptibly low.
What happens when we examine these expectations through the lens of human rights?
Can sporting boycotts embarrass governments into addressing human rights abuses? What are the costs of major sporting events like the Olympic Games and the World Cup in terms of human displacement? How well do events such as the Paralympics enhance the human rights of people with disabilities?
And, what toll does public scrutiny play on the personal lives of athletes? Does the demand that athletes act as model citizens – or model representatives for racial or cultural minorities – infringe on their personal freedom and privacy?
Presented in partnership with the Human Rights Law Centre.
Featuring
Hugh de Kretser
Hugh de Kretser is the Executive Director of the Human Rights Law Centre. He has worked on family violence, sexual assault and criminal justice issues for over a decade across his current role and previously as Executive Officer of the Victorian Federation of Community Legal Centres (2007–2013) and Manager of the Brimbank Melton Community Legal Centre (2004–2007).
Hugh is a Director of the Victorian Sentencing Advisory Council and was a Commissioner of the Victorian Law Reform Commission from 2008–2012. He is on the Governance Committee for knowmore, the national service providing legal help for people navigating the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse, and is a White Ribbon Ambassador.
Beverly Knight
Beverly Knight is the Managing Director of Alcaston Gallery in Melbourne.
A recognised trail-blazer in Indigenous sport, Beverly was the first female director of an AFL club, serving as Director of the Essendon Football Club for 17 years (1993 – 2010).
Knight is recognised for her expertise in their contemporary art practice and providing a pathway to an economy for artists. She was the key member of the reference group developing the Code of Conduct for the Federal Government and the Indigenous Arts Sector and served as a founding board member of the company administering the Indigenous Art Code.
She was a director of AFL Sportready (1995 – 2009), guiding the development of the company in its formative years to educate with professional traineeships for young men and women in all aspects of sport all over Australia.
Beverly Knight has maintained close friendships with Indigenous footballers and their families and assisting the new generations. She works closely with many public institutions and is highly regarded for her integrity and boundless energy for an exciting future for artists and women in business and sport.
Belinda Clark
Belinda Clark played cricket for Australia from 1991 to 2005. She was the first player, male or female, to make a double century in a one-day international.
She was named Cricketer of the Year in the inaugural edition of Wisden Australia, and was made a Member of the Order of Australia in 2000. She is currently serving as the first female manager of the Bupa National Cricket Centre.
Clark made the Australian team at 21 and became captain at 23, leading Australia in 11 Tests and 101 one-day internationals, with a win-rate of over 80%, and won two World Cups.
She led New South Wales to five consecutive Women’s National Cricket League titles and then, when she moved to Victoria, won two more. She opened the batting and had scored more runs than anyone in one-day cricket until Charlotte Edwards overtook, and averages over 45 in both forms of the game. And all of this while holding down a demanding job as Chief Executive of Women’s Cricket Australia initially and then as Women’s Cricket Operations Manager for Cricket Australia.
She was named Cricketer of the Year in the inaugural edition of Wisden Australia, was made a Member of the Order of Australia in 2000, inducted into the NSW, Sport Australia, ICC and Australian Cricket Halls of Fame. And then, once retired, she became the first female head of the Bupa National Cricket Centre (formerly the CA Centre of Excellence and Cricket Academy before that), where she is currently in charge of overseeing the Australian Cricket Talent pathway (including the Australian women’s Team and men’s program pathway up to and including Australia A) and construction and operation of CA’s new $30M Bupa National Cricket Centre in Brisbane that opened its doors in November 2013 as the premier elite cricket training facility in the world.
Belinda has a degree in Applied Science (Physiotherapy), experience in sports administration across multiple roles and in 2015 attended the Harvard Business School Advanced Management Program.
Francis Leach
Francis Leach is a broadcaster and journalist. He co-hosts the breakfast show with David Schwarz on 1116 SEN sports radio in Melbourne and is a regular panellist on ABC TV's The Offsiders and Ten's The Project.
For the last four years Francis was part of the ABC Grandstand team. He is also the creator and co-founder of the Sports Writers Festival which launched in Melbourne in late 2015.
He started his career rocking the nation at the ABC's youth radio network Triple J, where he hosted the network's morning current affairs program. Throw in a stint at ABC Radio National where he hosted a daily arts program for a while and you have the only broadcaster in the country who can lay claim to having worked with Phillip Adams and Dermott Brereton!