6 Key activities, how we work There is no simple way to solve complex human rights issues. Accordingly, we adopt a range of differing approaches to fulfilling our statutory functions and achieving our purpose. Some of the activities we conduct on an ongoing or regular basis, such as complaint handling under federal discrimination law, statutory reports on the human rights status of children and Indigenous peoples, and educational outreach. Other key activities are longer term projects undertaken for a defined period, such as major inquiries, engagement in United Nation human rights scrutiny processes such as the upcoming Universal Periodic Review and partnership programs with other government entities, business and, community sectors. Other activities require strategic and consistent ongoing efforts by the Commission on human rights issues – through our advocacy or engagement – such as our applications to the courts, submissions to Parliament and government, and coalition building with human rights partners across Australia, in the AsiaPacific region and internationally. As Australia’s National Human Rights Institution, the multiple functions and activities of all our work are conducted through the methodology of human rights-based approach (HRBA) of participation, accountability, non-discrimination and equality, empowerment and legality. We have a strong specialist expertise in this practice, and use this to elevate the voices of people, including children and young people, who don’t always have a platform. We do this though our conciliation process, statutory reports, projects, and partnerships. In doing so, we utilise practices such as applying a trauma informed principle to our work, utilising narrative story-telling to provide opportunities for individuals to give voice to their own experiences of human rights, building in the time and practice - particularly in our work with First Nations people - to listen deeply to those impacted by breaches of their rights and utilise co-design approaches in our projects and partnerships to develop new approaches grounded in human rights principles. 12 Australian Human Rights Commission 6.1 Strategic Priorities 2024–25 Improve enjoyment of human rights by all, supporting access to justice and remedies for people and communities whose rights are breached. Human rights protection needs to be a central part of laws, policies and practices, to build a fairer and more inclusive Australia. The advocacy of the Commission, as well as the partnerships we engage in, help us to positively influence laws, policies and practices and drive other practical changes. One of our core functions is to help people resolve complaints of unlawful discrimination and other breaches of human rights through our complaint handling service. People can complain to us about discriminatory treatment in many areas of public life or breaches of their human rights. Our conciliation service often resolves complaints without any need for recourse to the court and achieves systemic improvements in many areas of public life, including employment and access to goods and services. The Commission will continue to focus on reducing the backlog of complaints in 2024-25 awaiting conciliation utilising the short-term funding provided by Government to address this issue in October 2022. The backlog resulted from the significant and sustained increase in discrimination and human rights complaints stemming from the COVID-19 pandemic which has created a legacy caseload that is being reduced, although at a slower pace than anticipated due to ongoing very high complaint numbers, particularly complaints alleging disability discrimination and discrimination and harassment under the Sex Discrimination Act 1984 (Cth). We continue with the operationalisation of the regulatory framework for ensuring compliance with the positive duty under the Sex Discrimination Act 1984 (Cth). Our regulatory