Human Rights: Universal and Inalienable
I'm very pleased to be speaking to you today. I'm especially encouraged that so many young people have put aside a weekend to think about, and talk about, human rights.
I'm very pleased to be speaking to you today. I'm especially encouraged that so many young people have put aside a weekend to think about, and talk about, human rights.
I would like to acknowledge the traditional owners of the land on which we stand, the Eora People, and pay my respects to their elders both past and present.
Read a statement about the history of the Australian Human Rights Commission, which was presented at the Commission on Human Rights in Geneva in 2003.
Speaking notes for a presentation to the Mission Australia National Management Team Meeting in Sydney on 22 August 2001 by Dr Sev Ozdowski OAM, Human Rights Commissioner
By way of preamble, it is clear the current climate of terrorism obviously requires governments to put in place measures that can effectively deal with a serious terrorist threat or event as soon as it is detected. Parliament cannot wait until potential dangers eventuate. It is understandable – indeed it is necessary in advance - to put in place measures that can deal with the worst case scenario that could arise.
I would like to begin by acknowledging the traditional owners of the land on which we meet, the Gadigal people of the Eora nation, and pay my respects to their elders, past and present.
This paper advocates that National Human Rights Institutions (NHRIs) have a very valuable role to play in the Pacific, and that the promotion and protection of human rights in the Pacific would benefit immensely by Pacific nations each establishing a NHRI.
Firstly, I must applaud Amnesty International Australia’s campaign to secure a fair trial for David Hicks. I hope you take some heart from the recent US Supreme Court ruling that the military commissions set up to try prisoners at Guantanamo Bay are illegal and must be abandoned.
Torture and various forms of terrorism have been practiced throughout history, though never on the scale we are now confronted with. The first visual records of police interrogation were discovered in a four thousand year old tomb in ancient Egypt. Since the pharaohs there have been many refinements in methods of inducing physical pain and gathering intelligence, most notably during the Spanish Inquisition, but more recently in the modern totalitarian state.
As the world awaits the birth of the new millenium with a level of anxiety we come to associate with expecting parents, I am pleased to note that the United Nations, in nominating 1999 the International Year of Older Persons, has not, at the last, forgotten the grandparents.
Between December 2007 and April 2008 the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Justice Commissioner, Tom Calma, will deliver a series of key speeches setting out an agenda for change in Indigenous affairs.
I begin today by paying my respects to the Ngunnawal peoples and their elders, whose land we meet on today. I acknowledge their graciousness in sharing their lands and their culture with all those who live and visit here.
Between December 2007 and July 2008 the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Justice Commissioner, Tom Calma, will deliver a series of key speeches setting out an agenda for change in Indigenous affairs.
Anglicare, Tasmania Annual Social Justice Lecture 22 August, 2007 TOM CALMA Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Justice Commissioner National Race Discrimination Commissioner Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission
I’m sorry that I can’t be with you in person to deliver these remarks, but through my voice for the day, Mr Glenn Pearson, I am very pleased to be invited to talk about my perspectives on the new arrangements in Indigenous affairs. Glenn – I owe you one!
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