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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.

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…

Scarlett Finney was only six when she saw the brochures for the Hills Grammar School, set in park-like grounds in Sydney's outer suburbs.  She indicated her keenness to attend "the school in the bush".  Her parents were prepared to pay the fees, and saw the setting and curriculum as providing her with a great education.  But the school refused her enrolment due to the…

Chain Reaction Foundation Breakfast Cafe KPMG Level 15, 10 Shelley Street, SydneyTuesday 20 August 20137:45am (Check against delivery) Social Inclusion and Human Rights in Australia I would like to acknowledge the Gadigal People of the Eora Nation, the Traditional Owners of the land upon which we gather today. I pay my respects to your elders, past and present. Thank you KPMG and Paul Reid…

I would like to open today by reading you part of an e-mail that a work colleague of mine received recently from a young Australian woman in her early twenties, who recently completed her Bachelor of Communications degree from UTS in Sydney. As it happens she also holds Polish citizenship and is currently visiting her grandparents in Warsaw.

It is a great pleasure to deliver a Blackfriars Lecture. A few weeks ago I gave a speech to the Sydney Institute outlining the approach I plan to take to human rights as the Federal Commissioner titled ‘The Forgotten Freedoms’. In this speech I outlined that I have concerns about the key freedoms of expression, worship, association and property rights. Reasserting them will be the focus of my…