Human Rights and Corporate Social Responsibility (2009)
In our new strategic plan we commit to 'motivating big business to incorporate human rights into their everyday business practice'.
In our new strategic plan we commit to 'motivating big business to incorporate human rights into their everyday business practice'.
Thank you Mr Wishardt for your invitation and kind introduction. I would like also to acknowledge Ms Wendy McCarthy, under whose stewardship PLAN is sure to go from strength to strength.
Ladies and Gentlemen I am very pleased to be at the Catholic Independent Schools Employment Relations Committee Conference. Occasions such as this one allow me, as President of the Australian Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission, to share with a very influential group my thoughts about how we can all better manage the complexity and diversity of today’s working environments.
I would like to begin by acknowledging the Elders and Traditional Owners of Darwin, the Larrakia People, and to thank them for the opportunity to visit this beautiful part of the country. After that very heartfelt welcome to country, I feel very privileged to be here this morning.
Explore a speech that highlights an international human rights convention that sets out the fundamental human rights of people with disability.
I was pleased to get this invitation to make a contribution to this forth and final workshop on the development of Disability Action Plans organised by the Office for Disability.
My congratulations to the organisers for organising this forum and opportunity to discuss a potential mechanism to protect the rights of people with mental illness and enhance the delivery of mental health care.
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".
Most of you here today would know that it is not trite to say that local government is the closest level of government to our communities, and as such plays a key role in building and reinforcing the fabric of those communities.
I have to admit that two months ago when I took the title " The Disability Discrimination Act and the continuing battle for equal rights for people with a disability" for my paper today I was not attaching great importance to the precise words of that title.
The Australian HR protection system is a direct result of the history and development of white settlement in this country. If you compare us with the United States, we Australians had no free settlement, no War of Independence and little or no nation building by private entrepreneurship; rather it was done by way of British government fiat.
Over the past year I have travelled to about 30 communities in all States and Territories from large regional cities like Cairns and Bunbury to small towns like Bourke and Peterborough, to remote communities like Papunya and Yuendumu. Wherever I have gone I've heard of the hard work and commitment of rural nurses in their local communities.
To be honest, this is a rare occasion for me. Much of my career has been spent in the monastic cells of academic institutions teaching the young about different legal systems; their origins and growth, their strengths and weaknesses. Your world - the world of business and industry, finances, profit and loss, sales and marketing - is largely foreign to me in a practical sense.
I’d like to acknowledge the traditional owners of this country and pay my respect to Elders past and present. I’d like also to acknowledge my fellow panel members and thank Richard for inviting me to speak tonight.
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.
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