For outcome 1.3 Trust in our human rights expertise, the rigour and evidence base of our analysis, and of our reputation for robust, independent engagement are critical to the Parliamentary committee inquiry reports success of the Commission against this outcome area. adopt the human rights issues raised in our submissions and recommendations. In this reporting period, parliamentary submissions were referenced by parliamentary committees with a number of our issues reflected in the final UN treaty body concluding observations inquiry reports. In our United Nations engagement, the Commission’s advice and and other recommendations are adopted recommendations were reflected in the outcomes of the Universal Periodic by Government and implemented. Review process. Arguments presented in our submissions The Commission has strict criteria for when it seeks leave of the court to intervene to courts influence outcomes for parties in legal proceedings. We only seek leave when it is appropriate to do so – accordingly, and non-parties in a way that is consistent the number of interventions conducted is not a measure of the success of this with human rights. work. A more reliable indicator is first, the acceptance by the courts of our request to intervene and, second, the extent to which our advice is used. In this period, all our requests to intervene were accepted. The case studies presented in this statement show the contributions we made in these court proceedings. Many of the projects and activities referred to under Goal 1 seek to provide national leadership by identifying important issues that are not sufficiently on the national policy agenda and create momentum for those issues to be addressed. The Commission has been successful in raising awareness and building greater understanding of issues (such as the importance of focusing on human rights protections for new technologies, or on hearing the distinct voice of children, or Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander girls and women to understand the main issues that affect them). Having achieved greater awareness and recognition of these issues, the challenge ahead is achieving systemic change to address concerns that have been identified. This is a longer-term objective which requires the Commission to advocate for issues that may not be priorities for government at the time that they are raised; and to identify opportunities that may arise to shift existing approaches through law, policy, and practice. This implementation challenge is bigger than the Commission, often requiring action from actors across multiple domains – political, business, and the community. In the past year, the COVID-19 pandemic has created challenges to achieving this goal. The Commission has had to modify its approach to different projects, such as adapting to online consultation techniques and conducting awareness activities through virtual processes. The Commission has changed to the use of online technologies well, but this has nevertheless created challenges in accessing more vulnerable and marginalised communities, in outreach beyond the cities, and in building awareness of key findings at a time when the priority focus has to be on addressing the public health crisis facing the country and world. 78 Australian Human Rights Commission Annual Report 2020–2021