Disability Rights
I acknowledge the traditional owners of the land on which we meet and pay my respect to their elders past and present. I am delighted to be here today to deliver the 2016 Annual Costello Lecture. Last year, the President of the Australian Human Rights Commission, Professor Gillian Triggs, delivered...
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Justice
I was shocked but not surprised by the ABC’s Four Corners revelations last Monday night. Incontrovertible CCTV evidence of Aboriginal children subject to demeaning, debilitating and dehumanizing behaviour has galvanised the Australian community and prompted the creation of a Royal Commission with an...
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Justice
Thank you Galarrwuy for your warm welcome to Gulkula on your country. It is really wonderful to be here on the occasion the 40th anniversary of the Northern Territory Land Rights Act and another successful Garma Festival. I am a Gangulu man from the Dawson Valley in Central Queensland, I acknowledge...
Age Discrimination
“The ageing revolution is not over” - Last time I spoke here I called my address “the longevity revolution”, and asked, “crisis or opportunity?”. I intended that question as a challenge but it seems my challenge has not been met. We are as a community, still floundering on the crisis side of the binary. Our approach is still steeped in the language of “burden” and “deficits”. We are still failing to realise the opportunities that longevity can create for us.
Rights and Freedoms
Jessie Street Trust Annual Lunch - I am pleased to join you today to honour the work and annual birthday of Jessie Mary Grey Lillingston Street, a remarkable, and very modern Australian woman. Well before the First World War, she was an advocate for many of the social issues we care about today; equality for women, constitutional recognition of indigenous Australians, world peace and for disarmament.
Rights and Freedoms
I am honoured to have been invited to give this lecture at the Law School of the University of Canterbury, funded by the generosity of the Sir Eric Hotung Fellowship. While I had settled the subject matter of this lecture, I thought it would be helpful to know what other Hotung Fellows had discussed...
Rights and Freedoms
Check against delivery Female Genital Mutilation Conference A Human Rights Perspective I acknowledge the traditional custodians of the lands, the Gadigal people of the Eora Nation, and their elders past and present. May I welcome each of you to the Australian Human Rights Commission. Congratulations...
Legal
Human rights across the Tasman: a widening gulf. I am honoured to have been invited to give this lecture at the Law School of the University of Canterbury, funded by the generosity of the Sir Eric Hotung Fellowship.
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Justice
The recent death of a 10-year-old in the Kimberley is a tragedy and I pass on my condolences to her family at this particularly distressing time. This tragedy has heightened my conviction that the lives of all of our children in Australia are precious and should be protected at all costs. Nearly 20...
Age Discrimination
I start by acknowledging the Gadigal people of the Eora nation. To all of you here today at the OWN conference, happy International Women’s Day for 2016. It has always been my approach to International Women's Day to mark the things we as women have to celebrate. As older women in Australia at this...
Sex Discrimination
I start by acknowledging the traditional owners, the Gadigal people of the Eora nation. I am pleased to be here with you today, the day before International Women’s Day…and I wish you as young women all the best for that day, and all the best for the many life decisions that you will make as you...
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Justice
At the heart of this nation, there is a fundamental wrong in the relationship between the First Peoples and non-Indigenous people. We are divided between those who celebrate Australia Day without any thought of the implications of that day, and those who mourn Invasion Day and mark it as Survival Day...
Rights and Freedoms
State and federal governments should reform laws that make offensive acts unlawful and refocus them on protecting free speech and stopping workplace and public harassment. This week a news story broke about a complaint made under section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act by a Queensland University...
Asylum Seekers and Refugees
[Check against delivery] Thank you for joining us today. Over a year ago, the Australian Human Rights Commission produced The Forgotten Children Report. This Report examined the impact of prolonged mandatory, indefinite immigration detention on the mental and physical heath of children. The findings...
Rights and Freedoms
Daryush "Roosh" Valizadeh’s freedom of speech won’t be suppressed if the Immigration Minister, Peter Dutton, denies him a visa. In the past few days there have been increasing calls on the Federal Government to block so-called ‘neo-masculinist’ Valizadeh from entering Australia. Outraged politicians...
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