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The Australian Human Rights Commission visited the immigration detention facility in Leonora, Western Australia from 23 to 26 November 2010. This statement contains a brief overview of the key observations and concerns arising from the Commission’s visit. It focuses on conditions as they were at that time.

Commissioner Pru Goward’s appointment to the position of Sex Discrimination Commissioner was announced on 29 June 2001. She commenced her term on 30 July 2001.

In those States in which ethnic, religious or linguistic minorities … exist, a child belonging to such a minority … shall not be denied the right, in community with other members of his or her group, to enjoy his or her own culture, to profess and practise his or her own religion, or to use his or her own language.

The failure in Australia to perceive native title and land rights as the basis on which to address Indigenous economic and social development has been evident at legal, policy and administrative levels. Legally, the increasingly narrow interpretation of native title by the High Court has, as Noel Pearson has pointed out, stripped native title of much economic meaning or benefit.

CARAD is a group of volunteers, supporters and donors formed from January 2000, in an attempt to meet some of the range of essential and urgent needs of refugees who reach Perth, following assessment of their claim while in a detention centre. We have now met in excess of 2,000 refugees, not all of whom remain in WA, and have provided them with compassionate, practical assistance. We estimate that there are about 1000 individual volunteers, supporters and donors affiliated with CARAD.

2.1 Introduction 2.2 What the Australian community told us 2.3 Responding to conflicts in paid work and caring responsibilities 2.4 Paid and unpaid work and the national interest: Prosperity and social wellbeing 2.5 Conclusion

WORKability I: Barriers noted that one of the main impediments to the employment of people with disability lies in employer concerns about increased exposure to legal and financial risks related to occupational health and safety, disability discrimination and unfair dismissal laws. [1]

Despite the High Court’s landmark decision, Australian courts, governments and non-Indigenous people have struggled to accept fully the rights of Indigenous peoples to their lands, waters and territories. In successive court decisions, our cultures have been viewed through a non-Indigenous lens, with our rights separated and eliminated one by one.

Along with its human rights education and promotion function, the Commission undertakes a monitoring role in relation to human rights standards. This monitoring role ranges across the work of the individual Commissioners who examine and report issues of race, sex and disability discrimination and human rights, to the assessment of legislative proposals and presentation of submissions through the Parliamentary Committee process.