Disability Rights
Thank you for this opportunity to address your AGM. These events are important times for community organisations such as yours as they provide an opportunity to celebrate your achievements, refresh your organisation and recognise the hard work of staff, your Board and the membership in general.
Disability Rights
When I was invited to prepare this paper, Andrew Byrnes encouraged me to concentrate on drawing out strategic thoughts from the Australian experience which might be relevant in Hong Kong , and perhaps in other countries also. That is what I hope to do, rather than spending much time simply reciting that experience or the terms of Australia 's legislation.
Disability Rights
About six weeks ago I had a dream in which I was about to give this presentation. As I was walking up to the lectern, I suddenly realised that I had forgotten to include anything about the National Arts and Disability Strategy. Not only had I forgotten to include it in my notes, but I couldn't remember a single thing about it. I started to imagine boos and hisses from the audience, projectile tomatoes, and (the presenter's worst nightmare) loud snores. But then, in the dream, I somehow knew that I could end it all by waking myself up. And that's what I did.
Disability Rights
I am particularly pleased to join in opening this international conference on mobility and transport for elderly and disabled people and to be discussing accessible transport here in Western Australia. The Government of Western Australia deserves recognition for the commitment it is showing to making public transport accessible: a commitment adopted in principle, policy and plans and increasingly being delivered in practice.
Disability Rights
I also acknowledge Ministers with us here today; Ambassador Don Mackay joining us from New Zealand by video link; and many friends and colleagues from the disability and human rights community.
Disability Rights
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.
Disability Rights
I am sure I am not the first person to say it, but it seems to me that there are particularly important reasons for a telecommunications company such as Telstra to be interested in diversity.
Disability Rights
I am here today partly because Michelle Castagna was quick off the mark in organising me to come before I had accepted any of the numerous other possibilities for events for the international day.
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.
Disability Rights
I congratulate EOPHEA for organising this discussion. Although, of course, your focus is primarily on employment in the university environment, the conference program is clearly designed to address equal opportunity issues of much more general significance. I have approached my own paper in the same spirit: I hope it will be particularly relevant in your own context as equity practitioners in higher education, but I have taken the opportunity to raise issues of wider relevance.
Disability Rights
Thanks for the opportunity to speak to this conference today. You are embarking on this topic, in my view, at just the right time. Unemployment is the lowest it has been for over a decade. Our economy is strong and needing more employees, and our population is ageing, reducing the relative size of the workforce. In coming years, there will be fewer of us to support more of us, so as many people as possible need to be working and paying taxes rather than receiving welfare benefits. What better time to introduce employees with disabilities in larger numbers.
Disability Rights
One day a few years ago I went in to wake my son. I told him that it was good to get up in the morning, to which he grumpily replied, "yes, but dad, it's even better to stay in bed".
Disability Rights
I hope that you are not expecting from me a speech full of stirring rhetoric, to inspire you before you settle into detailed and practical discussions throughout the rest of this conference.
Disability Rights
Graeme Innes AM Deputy Disability Discrimination Commissioner Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission 15 October 1999 Note: This is the full version of Deputy Commissioner Innes' paper, which was presented in summary form at the convention for reasons of time.
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Justice
I would like to begin by acknowledging the Nganawal people, the traditional owners of the land where we meet today and to pay my respects to their elders. I would also like to thank the Australian Medical Students Association and Shayne McArthur for organising this National Leadership Development Seminar, and 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.
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