Shared Words, Different Laws: What the Rule of Law Asks of Australia at Home

By Olivia McKenny, 2026 UNGA Fellow, Calleo Indigenous Community Fund

I found a deeper understanding of my policy paper in places I didn’t expect. In the silences. In the space between what countries say together on the world stage and how those commitments take shape in their own legal systems. Australia, Canada and New Zealand can share a statement on the rule of law, yet each has taken its own path when it comes to Indigenous languages. A shared statement tells you what countries value. Their domestic laws show how each has chosen to put those values into practice. It would be easy to call that a difference of approach and leave it there. But when so many of this land’s First Languages are in a critical state, that difference carries too much weight to be softened. Somewhere in that space, I came to understand what justice means to me.

I observed the 81st session under its theme, “Restoring trust, managing transformation: a United Nations that delivers for all,” and found myself reading it through my own work. At the United Nations, multilateralism is multilingual by design. Every statement is interpreted, because nations will only trust a system they can understand. Delivering for all means being understood by all. I wasn’t alone in drawing that link. In his vision for the session, the President of the General Assembly committed to promoting accessibility and multilingualism as part of renewing trust in multilateralism itself. He also returned to Eleanor Roosevelt’s reminder that human rights begin “in small places, close to home.” That phrase stayed with me. If multilingualism is part of how trust is built between nations, what does it mean for trust within one? For me, the place to test the session’s theme was at home: in the languages of this land, and in whether Australia’s institutions can hear them.

As a Gomeroi and Wiradjuri woman whose policy paper concerns Indigenous Language Centres, I found my clearest lessons in the Committee’s debate on the rule of law. Canada’s representative delivered a joint statement on behalf of Australia, New Zealand and Canada. It described fair and effective legal systems as the individual’s “main recourse against the arbitrary exercise of power,” and supported upholding the rule of law “within their own borders.”

One statement, delivered on behalf of three nations, does not mean three nations share the same rule of law. I knew the statement couldn’t say everything. Australia, Canada and New Zealand share the same common law and similar histories, including attempts to silence Indigenous languages. But at home, those shared values have gone in different directions. New Zealand made te reo Māori official in 1987, and it can now be spoken in any court. Canada has passed a federal Indigenous Languages Act. In Australia, there is no national law protecting First Nations languages, and language access isn’t yet part of how we understand the rule of law.

I kept coming back to that idea of a recourse. A recourse is only real if a person can reach it. For someone who speaks a First Language and can’t follow the proceedings that affect their life, that recourse can feel very far away. Sitting in a room where every word is interpreted, I found myself wondering what it would look like if the same care reached every courtroom at home.

Australia has more than 250 First Nations languages, and our path will need to be our own. But recognising what we share with Canada and New Zealand gave me a clearer sense of where the rule of law is strengthened. It isn’t only in courts and statutes. It’s in whether our institutions can speak and listen in more than one language. A rule of law that can understand the people it serves is a stronger one, and First Nations languages belong at the centre of that.

I’m grateful to have sat in the room where the world debates the rule of law. It reminded me that the truest test of a shared commitment isn’t found in New York. It’s found close to home, in whether the languages of this land have a place in our law.

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The views and opinions expressed by Global Voices Fellows do not necessarily reflect those of the organisation or its staff.