Rights and Freedoms
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
Rights and Freedoms
Good morning. 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 their elders both past and present.
Rights and Freedoms
In so doing however I am confronted with the classic dilemma of many, namely what fresh insight can I bring to bear on this subject that has not already been canvassed.
Rights and Freedoms
Thank you, Megan McNichol, conference organisers and the Isolated Children's Parents' Association for inviting me to speak at your annual federal conference today.
Rights and Freedoms
Union, University and Schools Club * check upon delivery Introduction Thank you to the Union, University and Schools Club for inviting me to speak and to Dr Mary Forbes for reaching out to. This is a wonderful event. Full of pride, full of celebration—and full of women and supportive men! Let me...
Rights and Freedoms
I 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.
Rights and Freedoms
I would like to acknowledge the traditional custodians of the land on which we stand, the Eora People, and pay my respects to their Elders, both past and present, and by so doing:
Rights and Freedoms
Thank you to the Public Health Association for inviting me to deliver the Sax Oration this year. I am honoured to follow so many distinguished speakers who have delivered the oration over the years. I am honoured too to be able to commemorate the work of Sidney Sax, one of the most significant people shaping health care policy and practice in Australia.
Rights and Freedoms
I also want to thank the conference organisers for the opportunity to speak today. conferences such as this are great opportunities to discuss some of the pressing human rights issues in Australia. I'm particularly pleased to be talking about queer rights in the workplace, as fair employment conditions are some of the most fundamental of all human rights. Trade unions have a long history of fighting for justice in the workplace, and I encourage the unions here today to continue that fight for gay, lesbian, transsexual and intersex workers.
Rights and Freedoms
The Australian HR protection system is a direct result of the history and development of white settlement in this country. If you compare us with the United States, we Australians had no free settlement, no War of Independence and little or no nation building by private entrepreneurship; rather it was done by way of British government fiat.
Rights and Freedoms
Every suicide of a young person is not an isolated, individualised event. Certainly it robs the young person of his or her promised future. But it also traumatises the family, the friends, the school or workmates and, especially in a rural or remote community, the entire community. Every suicide of a young person speaks volumes of weeks, months, even years of confusion, alienation, hopelessness and despair leading up to the final and fatal event.
Rights and Freedoms
The Australian Human Rights Commission welcomes the opportunity to provide this submission to the United Nations Subcommittee on Prevention of Torture (UN SPT) consultation on its Draft General Comment on Article 4 of the Optional Protocol to the Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman...
Rights and Freedoms
Homelessness has, I'm sure, been on your agendas for many years. More recently, both Parity and the Rudd federal government (if I can put you both in the same league) has given it a much increased focus. Today, I want to identify the many human rights issues raised in the context of homelessness, and suggest how a human rights framework would help address what is an ever-increasing problem in our society.
Rights and Freedoms
In the contemporary world, and particularly amongst developed economies, many of us believed that the culture of civil liberties, freedoms and non-discrimination are reasonably well established and these precepts have clear links to innovation, creativity and the broader concepts of economic productivity and a well functioning civil society. Indeed, I believe that many of us had come to accept and expect this to be the situation, and that conferences like the one we attend here today could be built on this very premise.
Rights and Freedoms
Over the past year I have travelled to about 30 communities in all States and Territories from large regional cities like Cairns and Bunbury to small towns like Bourke and Peterborough, to remote communities like Papunya and Yuendumu. Wherever I have gone I've heard of the hard work and commitment of rural nurses in their local communities.
