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Countering bullying and addressing self-harm challenges, a speech by Megan Mitchell, National Children's Commissioner.

I want to start, though, by talking for a few minutes about the broader legislative context under the Disability Discrimination Act and about what all of this is for in terms of achieving access and inclusion.

Western Sydney Open Forum CHECK AGAINST DELIVERY Acknowledgements • Traditional Aboriginal owners: the Darug Nation • Dr Sev Ozdowski AM If you’ve read the papers or seen the news in the last few weeks, you might be forgiven for thinking that human rights are somehow radically incompatible with religion, or at least with ‘religious freedom’. This couldn’t be further from the truth. In fact,…

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.

For those of you unfamiliar with Australia’s Human Rights Commission, it’s an independent government body that protects and promotes human rights. My role as Human Rights Commissioner is to check that human rights in Australia are being respected including the human rights of children and young people.

I follow this custom wherever I go to speak in public. I think recognising Australia ' s indigenous peoples and their prior ownership of this land in this way is more than just good manners. It is an important part of recognising our diversity as a nation.

26 years ago, on this day in 1973, the first call was made on a mobile phone other than a car phone, when Martin Cooper, a Motorola executive shocked New Yorkers by walking down the street talking into a shoe-shaped handset. We've moved a long way since then, when there are more mobile phones in Australia than people, and phone calls are just one of the many things that they now do.

Read a speech by former Commissioner, Dr William Jonas AM about achieving justice for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children.

It is an honour and a pleasure to be here today to share with you, Graduands, your families and friends, the joys of today, a day that represents the culmination of much work, learning, striving and not a little occasional frustration and anxiety. I add my very good wishes to the many that others have already conveyed.

In our new strategic plan we commit to 'motivating big business to incorporate human rights into their everyday business practice'.

In coming here today, we celebrate 40 years of hard work and dedication by the Network of Community Activities, to the promotion of children’s rights in Australia.

I begin by paying my respects to the Kaurna peoples,  the traditional owners of the land where we gather today, I pay my respects to your elders,  to the ancestors and to those who have come before us, And thank you,   for your generous welcome to country for all of us.