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2024 Conference - Gold Coast

The 34th national conference of The Samuel Griffith Society was held over the weekend of Friday 24 to Sunday 26 May 2024 at the Sheraton Grand Mirage on the Gold Coast.

Key speakers included a Justice of the High Court of Australia, a former Attorney-General of Australia, and the Leader of the Opposition of Queensland.

The conference featured:

The conference program can be accessed here.

The following papers were presented at the conference:

The Honourable James Edelman
Overturning Al-Kateb v Godwin: Unanswered questions about the rules of precedent

Professor The Honourable George Brandis KC
Understanding Robert Menzies’ Attempts to Ban the Communist Party

Dr Janet Albrechtsen
The Rule of Law: The Chattering Classes Have Been Replaced by Thundering Mobs

David Crisafulli MP
The Right Priorities for Queensland

The Honourable Thomas Bradley
Legal History and Human Rights: Reflections on the Revolution

The Honourable Declan Kelly
The Contentious Role of the Supervisory Jurisdiction to Remedy Denials of Procedural Fairness

Dr Ben Saunders
Protection of Rights During Covid: Did Human Rights Acts Make a Difference?

Dr Mark Fowler
The Proposal for an Australian Human Rights Act: A Critique of Pure Human Rights Reason

Professor James Allan
Today’s Lawyerly Caste

Jarrod Bleijie MP
Some Reflections on Recent Events

Dr Zachary Gorman
The Nexus Clause: The Constitutional Oddity Shaping Federal Parliament

Morgan Begg
A Framework for Legal Conservatism in Australia

The Hon. Ian Callinan, AC, QC
Concluding Remarks

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