Housing and the human right to a home

Speakers: The Hon Kevin Bell AO KC and Professor Tamara Walsh

Where: Online and in-person at Room 1M16, UQ Brisbane City 308 Queen Street (for those attending online, book an online ticket and a link will be shared by email closer to the event).

Part of what it means to be human is the need for home, a place to retreat to from the outside world. Having a home is a fundamental human right, as an end in itself and as a means to fulfil other human rights. While the socio-economic right to housing has not been incorporated into domestic Australian Charters, they do protect associated civil rights, including the freedom to choose where to live, the right to property and the right not to have one's home unlawfully or arbitrarily interfered with.

In this seminar, we bring together two of Australia's preeminent thinkers on the right to housing and home at a time when access to housing is becoming more and more elusive.

The Hon Kevin Bell AO KC has spent much of his life advocating for housing rights. He worked at the Tenants Union of Victoria before practising as a barrister for 20 years. As a judge of the Supreme Court of Victoria, he wrote many influential judgments on human rights, including the right to housing an home. As a professor in the Faculty of Law at Monash University and the Director of the Castan Centre for Human Rights Law, he continued to focus on housing, homelessness and human rights. Kevin Bell is the author of the recently published book "Housing: The Great Australian Rights".

Professor Tamara Walsh is a Professor of Law at the University of Queensland School of Law as well as the Director of the UQ Pro Bono Centre. She written extensively on how the law impacts on vulnerable people, including people experiencing homelessness. She is the author of "Homelessness and the Law" and has recently published the findings of her study into the use of human rights-based arguments in eviction proceedings involving social housing tenants.