Rebuilding institutional trust key to protecting human rights: Victorian Commissioner for LGBTIQA+ Communities

Rebuilding institutional trust key to protecting human rights: Victorian Commissioner for LGBTIQA+ Communities

The Victorian Commissioner for LGBTIQA+ Communities Joe Ball used the Higinbotham Lecture 2025 to make a call to Australians to stand up against rising authoritarianism and demand more from our leaders.

Commissioner Ball opened by reflecting on the significance that he – a transgender man – was delivering the Higinbotham Lecture. 

“I stand here, an unlikely person to be giving this speech, but I am also exactly the person [Higinbotham] intended the law to protect,” Commissioner Ball said.

“The child of working-class parents, someone with no legal training and someone who is transgender.

“In Higinbotham’s time, the only images of people like me might have been Harry Crawford, an Italian migrant who travelled to boat by Australian in 1875 and became known as the so-called ‘man-woman murderer’, or Edward de Lacy Evans, who was institutionalised and cruelly outed in the press.

“My standing here is, in its own way, the realisation of Higinbotham’s legacy, even if it is a future he could never have given words to or dreamed of.”

The prestigious RMIT event recognises the legacy of Victorian politician and chief justice George Higinbotham, who championed human rights.

During his speech, Commissioner Ball noted how far society had progressed, but that the LGBTIQA+ community, in particular transgender people, are still under attack.

“The oldest trick of power, the oldest fuel of authoritarianism, is disguise through inversion – to convince the majority that minority identities are the cause of their suffering,” he said. 

“The barriers to girls and women thriving on the field are well documented by Sport Australia and Victoria’s Office for Women in Sport and Recreation.

“Nowhere in those reports is ‘trans women’ identified as a barrier. That debate is not about equality for women – it is another inversion of power. A convenient distraction.”

Commissioner Ball argued that rising hostility against LGBTQIA+ communities is a misplaced reaction to public suffering, largely stemming from economic insecurity, which has been ignored by those in power.

“When suffering is ignored, it curdles into resentment. When resentment festers, it can be weaponised against those who are different from us. 

“This is how we lose.”

17 October 2025

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The importance of restoring trust in institutions 

A key theme in Commissioner Ball’s address was the need to restore public trust in institutions.

He advised the community not to trust blindly, but to scrutinise institutions to ensure they become worthy of trust.

“Trust in institutions was not lost by accident,” he said. 

“It was broken – by lies that led us into wars, by banks that gambled with people’s homes, by systems that promised protection and delivered abandonment.

“We rebuild trust by becoming truth-tellers and truth-seekers ourselves. We know this is possible – because we have done it before.

“In 1854, George Higinbotham himself went to Ballarat as a journalist covering the miners who stood shoulder to shoulder against injustice and lit the flame of democracy on this continent.

“Higinbotham praised the diggers as ‘the salt of the earth’ and warned that the injustices inflicted on them would only fuel unrest unless the system changed. 

“His words then still speak now: the law, he said, must protect the weak against the strong.”

Looking to a more equitable future

Commissioner Ball closed by applying Higinbotham's wisdom to the present day, proposing that the community build radical coalitions in pursuit of justice and human rights. 

“We live in a culture that worships individualism, telling us courage only counts when it stands alone and happens quickly, in line with the 24-hour news cycle. But moving quickly isn’t the most radical thing – often, it is to follow. 

“To trust someone else’s vision. To lend your strength to a cause already in motion. To stand beside those who are already brave and carry their message into every room you enter. To be patient and reflect, and to work towards changes. 

“This is how change actually happens. This is how we become custodians of human rights.”

The Higinbotham Lecture 2025 was hosted by the RMIT School of Law. Formerly known as the Graduate School of Business and Law, the newly established standalone school is home to undergraduate and postgraduate programs alongside flagship RMIT research centres.

 

Story: Keely Tzoukos

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17 October 2025

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