Tamara Walsh

Legal systems often fail to protect society’s most vulnerable—those experiencing homelessness, poverty, disability, and systemic disadvantage. Professor Tamara Walsh’s research addresses the critical problem of how laws and legal institutions disproportionately criminalise and marginalise these groups. Her work interrogates the intersection of poverty and criminal law, the inadequacy of social welfare protections, and the failure of legal systems to uphold human rights in practice. Walsh’s research reveals how survival behaviours—such as sleeping in public, begging, or fare evasion—are routinely penalised, perpetuating cycles of disadvantage and exclusion. Her scholarship responds to the urgent need for legal reform that centres dignity, equity, and access to justice.

Professor Walsh employs a socio-legal and empirical methodology, combining doctrinal analysis with qualitative research and lived experience data. Her work spans human rights law, youth justice, social welfare law, and law reform. She has led multiple Australian Research Council (ARC) Linkage Projects, including national studies on the criminalisation of homelessness and poverty, and human rights dispute resolution. Walsh founded the UQ Pro Bono Centre, the Deaths in Custody Project, and the Human Rights Case Law Project, which engage law students in public interest research and advocacy. Her interdisciplinary approach integrates law, social work, and public policy, ensuring her research is both academically rigorous and socially impactful.

Walsh’s research has produced over 100 publications, including landmark studies on homelessness, youth justice, and social housing. Her work has informed law reform submissions, parliamentary inquiries, and judicial reasoning. The Criminalisation of Poverty and Homelessness Project involved interviews with over 160 stakeholders across Australia and led to policy recommendations adopted by legal centres and advocacy groups. Her analysis of eviction proceedings in social housing has highlighted systemic failures and influenced tenancy law debates. Walsh’s research has also shaped legal education, embedding human rights and social justice into clinical legal programs and mentoring future lawyers committed to equity and inclusion.

The beneficiaries of Walsh’s research include people experiencing homelessness, children in state care, low-income families, legal practitioners, policymakers, and students. Her work supports community legal centres, human rights commissions, and advocacy organisations in designing more inclusive legal responses. Law students benefit from her experiential learning programs, which foster public interest lawyering. Her research has been cited by the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, and used in international forums to advocate for the decriminalisation of homelessness and the protection of socio-economic rights. Her influence extends across Australia, Europe, and the Global South, where her work informs comparative legal reform and rights-based policy development.

Professor Walsh’s research has led to measurable policy and institutional change. Her ARC-funded projects have shaped national debates on poverty and justice, and her work has been cited in government reports, academic literature, and UN submissions. She has received multiple awards for research excellence and public engagement, and her initiatives—such as the Deaths in Custody Database and Human Rights Case Law Repository—are widely used by coroners, legal professionals, and researchers. Her leadership in legal education has transformed how law schools engage with social justice, and her scholarship continues to influence law reform and human rights advocacy globally.