Our Patron

Brian Burdekin, AO

Professor Brian Burdekin AO has left a lasting legacy to two of Australia’s most disadvantaged groups – homeless children and people with mental illness.

During his term as Federal Human Rights Commissioner, he presented two landmark reports: a National Inquiry into Youth Homelessness in 1989 and Human Rights and Mental Illness in 1983.

Our Homeless Children, the 1989 report on youth homelessness, shocked the Australian public by revealing the number of young people who were homeless and the appalling lifestyle they lived.

Professor Brian Burdekin was the first Federal Human Rights Commissioner of Australia. In this capacity he conducted major national inquiries into the systemic abuse of particularly vulnerable groups – including homeless young people, the mentally ill and people with disabilities.

Until recently, Professor Brian Burdekin was Professorial Visiting Fellow at the University of New South Wales Law Faculty and previously taught at Melbourne University and many universities in Europe, Asia and the United States.

From 1995 to 2003, as Special Adviser on National Institutions, Regional Arrangements and Preventive Strategies to the first three United Nations High Commissioners for Human Rights, he conducted over 200 missions to countries in Africa, Asia, Europe and Latin America where governments or civil society wanted to create an independent Human Rights Commission.

Over the past 25 years he has helped to establish commissions in over 70 countries and has been international advisor to many National Human Rights Commissions in Asia, Africa and Central and Eastern Europe. He is generally considered to be the leading international expert on the subject.

In 1990-91 he was one of the key figures involved in drafting the United Nations principles prescribing the essential standards for National Human Rights Commissions, subsequently adopted by the UN General Assembly and endorsed by all Member States of the U.N. in 1993.

From 1976 to 1986 he served as Principal Advisor to a former Australian Prime Minister, Deputy Prime Minister, Trade Minister, Minister for Federal- State Relations and the Federal Attorney General.

Professor Brian Burdekin graduated in Arts and Law from Melbourne University where he was, from 1969-71, President of the SRC and a member of the University Council.

In 1995, he was made an Officer of the Order of Australia for his services to human rights - both in Australia and in other countries. His work with homeless young people led to his appointment as Chair of the Australian Youth Foundation (1990–98) and he has been patron of Burdekin for homeless young people in Sydney and the Burdekin Clinic in Adelaide for over 25 years.

Attached is the keynote speech presented by Professor Brian Burdekin at the National Children and Youth Homelessness Conference 2023 in Melbourne.

Below is a video of our patron, introduced by our Chief Executive Officer, Justene Gordon.