agenda to fix our human rights safety net and build a fairer, healthier, safer and more prosperous Australia. I look forward to working with the Australian Government, parliamentarians and civil society to advance these reforms. Across the year, human rights issues featured prominently in national debates. The Commission contributed to these debates in line with our legislative mandate which requires us to promote an understanding and acceptance of human rights. The defeat of the Voice referendum in October was felt heavily by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples who strongly supported the proposal for a greater say in issues that affect them. The referendum outcome set back progress on the other elements of the Uluru statement; truth and treaty. The brutal October 7 attack by Hamas and the devastating and continuing response by Israel has impacted communities in Australia with sharp rises in antisemitism and Islamophobia. The Commission is undertaking work to support Australian communities affected by the conflict including by conducting a national study into racism in Australian universities. The Commission has long supported calls to expand federal anti-discrimination laws to protect people of faith, and to reform exemptions in the Sex Discrimination Act that allow discrimination against lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender students and staff by religious schools and other bodies. Despite promises from successive governments, these important reforms remain unfulfilled. The Commission is Australia’s national human rights institution (NHRI). NHRIs are a key part of the global system protecting people’s rights. There are internationally agreed standards for accrediting NHRIs. Independence from government is a key aspect of these standards. The Australian Government has implemented reforms to improve the independence of the Commission through transparent, meritbased processes to appoint the President and Commissioners. These reforms are important for community trust in the Commission. They were also critical in ensuring that the Commission was re-accredited as an ‘A status’ NHRI by the Global Alliance of National Human Rights Institutions in October 2023. The Commission received welcome additional funding in 2022 to stabilise our budget and fund new work developing the National Anti-Racism Framework and implementing new positive duty functions to eliminate sexual harassment, sex discrimination and other unlawful conduct. Despite this, our core funding continues to pose problems. The funding challenges are best demonstrated by the fact that: • The Commission continues to have a significant backlog of discrimination and human rights complaints. Temporary funding has helped us to make inroads into the backlog but complaint time frames remain too long, making access to justice harder to reach for people affected by discrimination and human rights breaches. Complaint timeframes have been impacted by the sustained increase in complaints received by the Commission which have remained at heightened levels ever since the COVID-19 pandemic. • Many Commission activities require externally sourced funding from the private and philanthropic sectors. • Our current core funding for workplace and community education supports only two FTE staff and is inadequate to properly deliver on this important function. Our education capacity has had to be supplemented by fee for service funding. Finally, I want to pay tribute to my predecessor Emeritus Professor Rosalind Croucher AM. I am grateful for her leadership and in particular her work on the Free and Equal project and to strengthen the Commission’s governance. I also acknowledge the important contributions of Commissioners June Oscar AO, Kay Patterson and Chin Tan who finished their terms in the reporting period. I join the Commission at a time of change. Over the reporting period the Commission welcomed new Commissioners Katie Kiss, Robert Fitzgerald AM, Annual Report 2023–2024 • 7