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Commission – General

Rights, hearts and minds: Towards a national culture of Human Rights (2012)

I wish to start this evening by acknowledging the Kaurna people of the Adelaide plains. On behalf of the Australian Human Rights Commission, I pay my respects to their elders past and present and extend a special welcome to any member of the Kaurna people present at this event held on their traditional lands.

Category, Speech
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Justice

Historical Justice and Memory Conference (2012)

With respect and gratitude I acknowledge that we sit on the lands of the Wuradjuri people of the Kulin nation. Thank you for your generous welcome to country for all of us.

Category, Speech
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Justice

The Power of Identity: Naming Oneself, Reclaiming Community

Thank you Peter for your kind words of introduction and thank you Krystelle (Jordan) for your welcome to country. Krystelle, can I begin by acknowledging and paying my respects to the your people, the traditional owners of this place upon which we sit and talk here tonight. I honour your Elders that have come before us, those Elders who are here tonight and I await in optimistic anticipation of those Elders, like you, who are yet to emerge. My people are the Gangulu from the Dawson Valley in Central Queensland.

Category, Speech
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Justice

Constitutional Reform: Creating a Nation for all of us (2011)

I also acknowledge my Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander brothers and sisters here today, Mr Mark Nolan (Chair of the Eidos Institute) and Professor Bruce Muirhead (CEO of the Eidos Institute), Institute Board Members, University representatives, distinguished guests.

Category, Speech
Rights and Freedoms

Don Dunstan Oration (2008)

People often ask me why I feel so strongly about human rights. Perhaps it is fate - both the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and I were born 60 years ago. But I think it is simpler than that - I want to feel proud of the Australia that I live in.  

Category, Opinion
Rights and Freedoms

A question of human rights (2008)

As the Government points out on its Australia 2020 Summit website, the new century has thrown up enormous challenges, as well as breathtaking opportunities to us all.

Category, Opinion
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Justice

Over-coming discrimination against Indigenous people

From the moment Australia was colonised Indigenous peoples have suffered discrimination at the hands of a legal system imported into this land. Not only were our own laws cast aside, but the new laws discriminated against us - and did so because of our race. In 1997, while there has been movement away from former policies of assimilation, removal and protection, the dominant legal system still discriminates against us.

Category, Speech
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Justice

Creating Futures 2010 Conference (2010)

I begin today by thanking Granny Alice Yeatman for her warm welcome to Yarrabah and paying my respects to the Traditional Owners, on whose land we meet. Good morning ladies and gentlemen, my Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander brothers and sisters, distinguished guests.

Category, Speech
Disability Rights

Equality by degrees

I'm honoured to give this address. I completed my law degree at this university, and well remember the December day in 1977 when I received it. It was the culmination of four years of hard work, experiencing the pleasures and trials of campus life, and acquiring - as well as a reasonable amount of legal knowledge - a much broader appreciation of the world around me, warts and all.

Category, Speech

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