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This page provides access to over 200 speeches and papers on disability issues from members (current and past) and senior staff of the Australian Human Rights Commission. All major speeches since 2000 are included, as well as a selection of earlier speeches and papers as far back as 1989.

I'm very pleased to be speaking to you today. I'm especially encouraged that so many young people have put aside a weekend to think about, and talk about, human rights.

As lawyers who work every day with ordinary people, you will all have first hand experience of the value that we, in Australia, place on human rights. You will also be acutely aware of the significant gaps in human rights protection in Australia.

Co-chairs of the Close the Gap Campaign for Indigenous Health Equality - Dr Tom Calma, National Coordinator Tacking Indigenous Smoking, and Mr Mick Gooda, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Justice Commissioner

I would like to begin by paying my respects to the Dharawal people, the traditional owners of the land where we gather today. I am a Gangulu man from Central Queensland. Gangulu country takes in what is known as the Dawson Valley area and extends to just east of the Carnarvon Gorge. So, as is our practice, can I pass on from the Gangulu peoples to the Dharawal peoples our greetings and acknowledgements for your continued resilience and determination to keep your culture alive and thriving over the last 220 years?

It is never too early to start educating children about their rights. Supporting child rights education and advocacy, a speech by Megan Mitchell

Megan Mitchell National Children’s Commissioner National Child Protection Week Breakfast Launch Tuesday 9 September Introduction Thank you, Charlie and Zac, and good morning everyone. I’m delighted to be here this morning to help launch National Child Protection Week and to present the NAPCAN Play Your Part Award. Can I start by acknowledging the traditional owners of the land on which we are ...

I thought I might begin today by sharing with you the words of a few of the young people I heard from during my national listening tour last year.

I always like to begin my presentations with a humorous anecdote or joke of some kind. For one thing, it lets me know that someone is actually listening, and it also lulls the audience into a false sense of security for the dry parts to follow. So as part of my preparation for this morning's discussion of disability discrimination law in Australia, I decided to find an answer to the important question, "how many audiologists does it take to change a lightbulb". Fortunately there is a website devoted to lightbulb jokes, and so I duly consulted it.

I would like to begin this morning by acknowledging the traditional owners of the land on which we meet, the Wurundjeri People of the Kulin Nation. I pay my respects to their elders past and present.

I begin by acknowledging the Gadigal people of the Eora nation, the traditional owners of the land where we meet today, and pay my respects to their elders. I would also like to thank the LIME conference organisers -- and Gregory Phillips and Lisa Jackson-Pulver in particular -- for inviting me to speak tonight and for organising this event and for ensuring that Indigenous health – so often overlooked in the ongoing debates about health and health reform in Australia – receives the attention it deserves in this context.

It would clearly test to destruction the tolerance of the ordinary red-blooded Australian to have a Pom getting off the plane from London and telling them how to run their country. So I shall not presume to say how the current human rights debate in this country should be resolved. But perhaps I may contribute some thoughts, prompted by our own experience in the United Kingdom, acknowledging as I do so that the Australian context, while in some ways similar, is in others significantly different.