To mark the 20th Biennale of Sydney, Freeman organised a public conversation at the Art Gallery of New South Wales between the Ethics Centre’s Simon Longstaff and Derek Matravers, who was visiting from Cambridge.
The Governor-General’s Prize, of which Freeman is director, marked the 800th anniversary of Magna Carta through its 2015 essay competition, the Prize for which was awarded by Governor-General Sir Peter Cosgrove at a reception held at Government House, Canberra, on 9 March, 2016.
Freeman organises for Jonathan Lear, Director of the Neubauer Collegium at the University of Chicago, to visit Sydney and work with Noel Pearson, and for the two of them to participate in a public conversation as part of the Sydney Ideas series at the University of Sydney.
Ken Wyatt tables the Final Report of the Joint Select Committee on Constitutional Recognition of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples in the House of Representatives. The report discusses Freeman and Leeser’s proposal for an Australian Declaration of Recognition.
Melbourne University Publishing announces that it will publish The Forgotten People, a collection of essays about liberal and conservative approaches to recognising indigenous peoples, to be edited by Freeman and Cape York Institute’s Shireen Morris.
Freeman addresses a meeting of Religions for Peace in the Jubilee Room at Parliament House, Sydney, about constitutional recognition of indigenous Australians.
Freeman writes in The Australian about the best approach for achieving practical recognition of indigenous Australians as well as symbolic recognition, despite Warren Mundine’s call for purely symbolic recognition.
Freeman argues in The Australian that Greg Sheridan’s approach to constitutional recognition fails to take account of the historical circumstances that give rise to a special relationship between Aborigines and the Australian Constitution.
On 13 April, 2015, at the State Library of New South Wales, Noel Pearson launched The Australian Declaration of Recognition, a pamphlet by Freeman and Julian Leeser, and Uphold & Recognise, a new organization committed to upholding the Australian Constitution and recognising indigenous Australians.
Reviewing The Aunt’s Mirrors for the Journal of the Australian Jewish Historical Society, Hilary Rubinstein writes that the book is “an exceedingly interesting and intelligent family history, felicitously told through the literary device of objects reflected in the mirrors… The book exemplifies family history at its best and most enlightening.”