News

Disability Rights

NOT HAPPY JAN : Speech for Epilepsy Action AGM

Thank you for the chance to speak with you at your AGM today. AGMs are important formal processes in the corporate life of an organisation. But they also provide an opportunity to reflect on what the organisation has achieved over the last twelve months, and to look into the future at the challenges ahead. You - as members, directors, staff and supporters of Epilepsy Action - know the organisation much better than I do. So I'm not going to attempt a review of your past, or polish up my crystal ball for some future gazing.

Disability Rights

Opportunity knocks

I follow this custom wherever I go to speak in public. I think recognising Australia ' s indigenous peoples and their prior ownership of this land in this way is more than just good manners. It is an important part of recognising our diversity as a nation.

Disability Rights

Recognition matters: Human rights and the rights of carers

For thousands of years, Aboriginal groups, who might spend much of their time living far apart in the expanses of this land, pursuing separately the business of survival, would come together at times to meet, to trade, sometimes to resolve differences, but also to exchange knowledge for mutual benefit.

Disability Rights

Human rights for people with intellectual disabilities in Australia: where to from here?

I will not speak in detail about human rights conventions and disability because this topic is addressed by my co-speaker in this session, Karl Lachwitz. I will say though that international human rights law and human rights debate has not yet acknowledged adequately or sufficiently clearly that people with a disability are part of what the "human" in human rights means. Equally, there has not always been enough attention to human rights dimensions in disability discourse.

Disability Rights

1996 Kenneth Jenkins Oration

I am honoured and delighted to be here to deliver the Kenneth Jenkins Oration. My participation continues the involvement of members of the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission with this event.

Sex Discrimination

Work Life Balance: AIM Breakfast

I hope you’re all enjoying your hot breakfasts and are extremely grateful for them. For a couple of reasons: First- you didn’t have to cook them yourself, or, to be more precise, wash up all the dirty frying pans yourself. This is because you are working and you don’t have time to cook hot breakfasts for a particularly fussy group of consumers, your family.

Rights and Freedoms

Can rights solve the issue of homelessness?

Homelessness has, I'm sure, been on your agendas for many years. More recently, both Parity and the Rudd federal government (if I can put you both in the same league) has given it a much increased focus. Today, I want to identify the many human rights issues raised in the context of homelessness, and suggest how a human rights framework would help address what is an ever-increasing problem in our society.

Rights and Freedoms

"Armenia to Rwanda - Genocide in the 20th Century - Has humanity learnt anything?": Dr Sev Ozdowski OAM (2004)

In so doing however I am confronted with the classic dilemma of many, namely what fresh insight can I bring to bear on this subject that has not already been canvassed.

Rights and Freedoms

"The human rights of vulnerable children in Australia": Dr Sev Ozdowski OAM (2002)

Mrs Irene Hancock, AWCH National President, distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen, all. I would like to acknowledge the Gadigal people, the traditional custodians of the land on which we stand.

Rights and Freedoms

The human rights of older Australians in the bush: Chris Sidoti

I am very pleased to be here tonight at the Rural Ageing Seminar dinner. Thank you, to Dame Roma and the Rural Ageing Seminar Reference Group, for inviting me to attend an event that (for once) takes place where it counts - in rural South Australia.

Commission – General

President Speech: 2010 Human Rights Day Oration

We meet today on the lands of the Gadigal peoples of the Eora nation. On behalf of the Australian Human Rights Commission I pay my respect to their elders past and present.

Commission – General

President speech: How human rights can promote the wellbeing of children in Australia

I would like to begin by acknowledging the traditional owners of the land on which we meet, the Wurundjeri People of the Kulin Nation, and pay my respects to their elders past and present.

Commission – General

Graduation Address

I speak to you now, not as the Chancellor of this University, but as the President of Australia’s national Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission.

Commission – General

International Human Rights Day Address

In keeping with the theme of today's awards, I want to welcome you all here to celebrate our local champions, many of whom are with us as nominees for the 2004 Human Rights Medal and Human Rights Awards.

Commission – General

Site navigation

First of all I'd like to thank you all for coming to here today. It is timely that we meet the day before Mr Kofi Annan, Secretary General of the United Nations arrives in Australia. It is from the United Nations that the international obligations we are discussing today are sourced.