Events

2025 Jim Carlton Integrity Lecture

Held in conjunction with the Accountability Round Table

In light of recent exercises of the power to pardon by outgoing US president Biden and recently inaugurated President Trump, this issue is topical once more.

The rough equivalent in Australia to the power to pardon is the prerogative of mercy which is used in exceptional circumstances to temper the law by providing clemency. The prerogative, seldom used and conventionally said to protect the law’s reputation, was recently used to pardon Kathleen Folbigg after she was convicted of killing her four children, and after 20 years in gaol. In that matter, the Governor of New South Wales exercised the prerogative of mercy to grant clemency to Ms Folbigg, a person convicted of crime. This followed the recommendation by the NSW Attorney General of a pardon and the NSW Governor, Her Excellency the Honourable Margaret Beazley AC KC, accepting the recommendation.

Justice Pritchard will review the history of each of the power to pardon and the prerogative of mercy (Locke, Blackstone etc), more recent practice in relation to the exercise of each, the relationship of each to the rule of law (including the immunity of the prerogative from judicial review), and more generally political theory and executive or prerogative pardons.

Each year, we come together for Lighting the Wilin, a beloved annual event which recognises National Reconciliation Week at the University.

We invite all University of Melbourne students, staff, and our broader community to join us for this important event.

On the morning of 30 May, we’ll gather in the Wilin Garden at the Southbank campus to recommit to Reconciliation and to celebrate the vital role of the Wilin Centre.

After Lighting the Wilin, we invite you to join us in the Fiona and Sidney Myer Gallery to enjoy morning tea and the newly opened exhibition, The Ocean Remembers, featuring work by Ali Gumillya Baker and Jody Haines

Please register for this event for accurate numbers for catering.

Banner image: Gregory Lorenzutti

The Ocean Remembers

(Re)membering to Listen, Jody Haines, palawa, (2023) is a single channel projection work, extracted from a larger seven channel work called Against the Wind, featuring a surround soundscape. The work was filmed on Tommeginne Country, Lutruwita (Tasmania), where Haines created a visual love letter to Country. This work follows the ‘slipstreams of songlines’, remembering and relearning, deep listening and breathing.

Sovereign Fleet, (2013), is a series of photo portraits of women by Ali Gumillya Baker. Using the symbolism of 18th and 19th century transport ships, her works refer to colonial archives, memory and inter-generational transmission of knowledge. Her photographs suggest a contemporary retort to the colonial representations of Aboriginal women. For Gumillya Baker, it is through art, performance, and research into the colonial archive that sovereignty is continually demonstrated and asserted.

By focusing on the process of remembering, the exhibition provides the audience with an opportunity to consider the notion of ‘ocean as witness and source’.

This event follows Lighting the Wilin held at the Wilin Garden from 10AM, Friday 30 May. Please join us for morning tea and the opening for The Ocean Remembers.

Exhibition:
30 May - 28 June
12PM - 5PM Tuesday to Saturday

Title: (Re)membering to listen, 2023, Duration: 9.32 mins, Single Channel Video with surround soundscape.

PARKING

The City of Melbourne has recently changed the parking restrictions around the Southbank Campus. Parking control hours are now expanded to 7am–10pm, seven days per week, and are capped at three hours. A $2-per-hour fee after 7pm is also now in place. There is no change to the $4-per-hour peak rate between 7am–7pm. Parking inspectors are regularly in the area fining drivers who overstay their meter, so we encourage everyone to be aware and avoid an expensive fine. More information.

ACCESSIBILITY

All venues at the Southbank campus are wheelchair accessible. To read more about access services available at our venues, please visit: https://finearts-music.unimelb.edu.au/access-our-events.