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I'm sure I'm not the only one here that's excited that we're six days into a 44 day period in which there will be 25 days of ashes test cricket. I'm a happy man.
I'm sure I'm not the only one here that's excited that we're six days into a 44 day period in which there will be 25 days of ashes test cricket. I'm a happy man.
Thank you for the opportunity to speak to you today. Whilst planning this speech, I was thinking that it was a long time since the first time that I addressed an NDS (then Acrod) conference. I was asked to give the Kenneth Jenkins memorial oration at the Acrod conference in the early 80s, as the first President of DPI Australia. The speech then was just the type that you would expect from the head of an advocacy organisation finding its feet, to the conference of the service provision organisation. It was brash, assertive and demanding.
Some of us are women and some are men; some of us brought new names and accents in recent decades and some of us have Australian ancestry reaching back tens of thousands of years; and some of us have one or more disabilities.
I've always had a yearning to be in the Guinness Book of Records, and so I decided, in preparation for today, to give the shortest presentation ever made by a staff member of the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission. My presentation thus consists of just seven letters: a question of 4 letters, and an answer of 3 letters. The question is SSDD, and the answer is DDA.
Dad's time with their daughters is special time, and I spent the afternoon last weekend watching a chickflick with Rachel. For me, the first five minutes consisted of the sound of waves on a beach, seagullls, the slam of a car door, and someone crying. In fact, the whole movie was a fine demonstration that there is much more to communication than speech.
I'd like to start by acknowledging the traditional owners of the land on which we meet, the Ngunnawal people, in whose language Canberra means meeting place as you probably know.
Acknowledgment of where we stand and where we are is, it seems to me, an essential precondition to good decisions about where we want to go, and how we might get there.
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.
I recently returned from attending a United Nations meeting, where work is progressing on the development of an International Convention on the Rights of People with Disabilities.
I also acknowledge representatives here of the disability community and the telecommunications industry. Also of course I acknowledge Telecommunications Industry Ombudsman Mr John Pinnock and his staff.
Address By Graeme Innes Deputy Disability Discrimination Commissioner to the Conference Of The Roundtable For People With A Print Disability 22 May 2000
Take a piece of canvas, some chicken wire, paint and plastic, and put them together so that they resemble a potato cooked in its jacket. Mount the whole thing on a block of wood, add a label that says "baked potato with butter" and what have you got? You've got a famous example of Pop Art. The collector who bought it is alleged to have remarked, "pop is the art of today, tomorrow and all the future". Human nature being what it is, I imagine they said much the same thing after they'd put the final touches to those prehistoric cave paintings.
I am particularly pleased to join in opening this international conference on mobility and transport for elderly and disabled people and to be discussing accessible transport here in Western Australia. The Government of Western Australia deserves recognition for the commitment it is showing to making public transport accessible: a commitment adopted in principle, policy and plans and increasingly being delivered in practice.
Last year a blind colleague of mine decided he needed a pet dog to be company for him and his teenage daughter. After checking various pet rescue websites and talking to various people, he found an 18-month-old German Shepherd / red Cattle dog cross that this bloke was giving away. He even brought the dog over in his car.
Over the past year, the Human Rights Commission has enjoyed a very productive relationship with Deafness Forum and other groups, including the Australian Association of the Deaf, and Media Access Australia . We've worked on a number of projects: TV, DVD and Cinema captioning, as well as the UN Convention on the Rights of people with Disability.