Please join members of the Australian Centre for Health Law Research for a public lecture on Thursday 22 August 2024, with Professor Ian Freckelton AO KC presenting. All are welcome to attend, and we look forward to meeting you there.
Event details
Date: Thursday 22 August 2024
Time: 5.30pm to 7.30pm AEST
Location: GP-Z1064, Level 10, Z Block, QUT Gardens Point Campus
Catering: Light refreshments will be available.
Cost: Free
Abstract
Australia has a history as a pioneer in statutory reforms to protect health and safety. Starting with mandatory seatbelts in 1970 and compulsory bike helmets in 1990, Australia has a significant track-record as a world leader in legislation drafted to change behaviours, reduce risks and investigate deaths caused by dangerous practices and deficits in regulation.
Professor Freckelton will chronicle three more recent initiatives, each of which has been world-leading, albeit controversial: plain paper packaging reforms for the cigarette industry, vaping bans and engineered stone prohibition. He will discuss the background to these reforms, emphasise the potential for coronial inquiries provide an evidentiary basis for public health interventions by government, and argue that Australia’s history in public health law reform is something of which the country can be justifiably proud in protecting the vulnerable.
Professor Ian Freckelton AO KC
Ian Freckelton is a King’s Counsel in full-time practice as a barrister throughout Australia with a mixed appellate, trial and advisory practice. He is listed as a Leading Senior Counsel by Doyle’s Guide and Best Lawyers in Australia. Between 2017 and 2023 he was a judge of the Supreme Court of the Republic of Nauru and has been a member of nine statutory tribunals at State and Federal level. Ian was a member of the Mental Health Tribunal of Victoria for 25 years until 2021 and is a member of the Coronial Council in Victoria. He is also a Professor of Law and a Professorial Fellow in Psychiatry at the University of Melbourne, where he is a Co-Director of the Health and Medical Law postgraduate programme, an Adjunct Professor of Forensic Medicine at Monash University, and an Adjunct Professor of Law in the Australian Centre for Health Law Research at the Queensland University of Technology. He holds a Doctor of Laws (LLD) degree from the University of Melbourne and a PhD from Griffith University. He is an elected life member of the Australian Association of Psychiatry, Psychology and Law and an elected Fellow of the Australian Academy of Health and Medical Sciences, the Academy of Social Sciences Australia, the Australian Academy of Law, and the Australasian College of Legal Medicine.
Ian is the editor of the Journal of Law and Medicine and the Founding Editor of Psychiatry, Psychology and Law. He is the author of more than 700 articles and chapters of books, and the author and editor of over 50 books, the most recent of which are: Expert Evidence: Law Practice, Procedure and Advocacy (7th edn, Thomson Reuters, 2024); Australian Public Health Law (Federation Press, 2023, with Bennett); COVID-19, Law and Regulation (Oxford University Press, 2023, with Bennett and Wolf); Pandemics, Public Health Emergencies and Government Powers (Federation Press, 2021 with Bennett); Tensions and Traumas in Health Law (The Federation Press, 2017, with Petersen), and Scholarly Misconduct (Oxford University Press, 2016).
In the 2021 Queen’s Birthday Honours, Professor Freckelton was made an Officer of the Order of Australia (AO) for “distinguished service to the law, and to the legal profession, across fields including health, medicine and technology.”
In July 2024 at a ceremony in Barcelona, Spain, Professor Freckelton was awarded the highest honour bestowed by the International Academy of Law and Mental Health, the Prix Phillippe Pinel, to become the first Australian recipient of this prestigious award.
Getting there
More information on getting to QUT Gardens Point campus is available on the QUT website.
