News

Disability Rights

Innes: ‘Signing up'

Graeme Innes AM, Human Rights Commissioner and Commissioner Responsible for Disability Discrimination Deafness Forum Conference, Canberra, 24 May 2008.

Disability Rights

Advancing human rights of children and young people with disabilities

I was around as head of the then Disability Advisory Council of Australia back in the late 80s and early 90s when ACROD and the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission worked together on a discussion paper and consultation process to identify and pursue areas of increased need for human rights protection for people with disabilities.

Disability Rights

Presentation to Productivity Commission DDA review hearing

We would like to begin by emphasising the limited role of discrimination law - that is, we agree to some extent with comments by ACCI that equality cannot be achieved solely by providing stronger antidiscrimination legal provisions.

Disability Rights

6th National Deafblind Conference

Almost every day there seems to be some new development in information and communications technology. Technologies which did not exist a few years ago are now worth many billions of dollars each year in economic activity.

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.

Race Discrimination

Site navigation

Centuries ago a great many of the inhabitants of this beautiful island were wiped out by colonization and its aftermath. The disappearance of so many is a solemn reminder of the injustice done to the first peoples of this land. Their violent absence is a presence that calls for us to reflect on injustices, suffering and reconciliation in the broadest sense. To them I pay my respects.

Legal

Law Seminar 2008: Homelessness and Human Rights by Sue Cripps

Paper presented at the Homelessness and Human Rights Seminar Australian Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission 12.30 – 2pm, Monday 7 August 2008 133 Castlereagh Street, Sydney, NSW

Rights and Freedoms

Police Checks - A Human Rights perspective

Acknowledgments I acknowledge the traditional owners of the land on which we meet. I'd also like to thank the Aged and Community Services Association for inviting me to speak about police checks today. Introduction I suspect the average person in the street associates police checks with high-security jobs, such as airport security, or, on the other hand, with jobs working closely with children. However, police checks are required for an increasing number and variety of occupations and industries in Australia, including those providing aged and community services.

Rights and Freedoms

"The rights of the child and international human rights law"

This morning I am going to talk to you about unaccompanied child migrants in the wider context of current world trends. In so doing, I have taken full account of the lessons to be learned from the experiences of the victims of British child migration schemes.

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

Enhancing Equality: Reforming Anti-Discrimination Laws to Make Australia Fairer

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

Commission – General

President speeches: Protecting the human rights of Indigenous people and communities

I would like to acknowledge the Kaurna peoples, the traditional owners of the land on which we meet today, and pay my respects to their elders past and present.

Commission – General

Human Rights Education for Life

Thank you for inviting me here today, to speak about a topic which in my view receives too little attention yet is one of critical importance not only to the way we live but to the kind of society we live in – the topic of human rights education.

Commission – General

Why we need an Australian Bill of Rights - a Joint Forum

The first is that HREOC has been suggesting for a considerable time that there needs to be renewed public debate on whether Australia should have a charter of human rights of some sort. It seems that the launch of the New Matilda campaign will give momentum to such a debate. A lot has changed, both nationally and internationally since the unsuccessful attempts of the 1970s and the 1980s to interest Australians in a bill of rights. As is so often said, Australia has now become the only major Western democracy that does not have a bill of rights.

Commission – General

National Human Rights Institutions

The Australian Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission (hereafter the Australian Human Rights Commission) is one of the oldest National Human Rights Institutions in the Asia Pacific region. It was originally established in 1981 as the Human Rights Commission and then restructured in 1986 to become the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission. It is a founding member and a strong supporter of the Asia Pacific Forum of National Human Rights Institutions.