Site navigation
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.
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.
Thank you for the opportunity to speak today. It is honour to be here today to help recognise the people who try to make a difference to some of the most vulnerable and marginalised people in our community.
We would like to begin by emphasising the limited role of discrimination law - that is, we agree to some extent with comments by ACCI that equality cannot be achieved solely by providing stronger antidiscrimination legal provisions.
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.
A picture paints a thousand words, but most Australians gave up watching silent movies in the first half of the last century. However, for 1.7 million Australians who are Deaf or hearing impaired this is a historic day. For them it marks the beginning of access to the soundtracks of movies - access that most of us have enjoyed for all of our lives.
Paper delivered by Elizabeth Hastings Disability Discrimination Commissioner 1993-97 at the Creating Accessible Communities Conference Fremantle, 12 November 1996
The Australian Human Rights Commission supports a Human Rights Act for Australia. It would set out in a single document the human rights that all people in Australia are entitled to enjoy, and the responsibilities we have to respect the rights of others.
The promotion of human rights and education go hand in hand. At the international level human rights education is an essential function of the work of the UN and its many agencies. And it is fundamental to the work of a National Human Rights Commission.
Let me start by saying that Australia is a culturally diverse society with 23% of Australians being born overseas. Amongst others, there is a sizeable Japanese community and, as you may hear from my accent, I myself was born in Poland.
Families, and those who support them, play a vital role in the protection of human rights. Accordingly, I am very pleased to address this conference, and I commend all of you for your work in preserving and strengthening families.
I would like to begin by acknowledging the traditional owners of the land on which we meet, the Wurundjeri People of the Kulin Nation, and pay my respects to their elders past and present.
I would like to acknowledge that we are meeting on the traditional country of the Gadigal people of the Eora nation and pay my respects to their elders past and present.
I would like to thank Professor Larissa Behrendt, Professor Martin Nakata, the Jumbunna Indigenous House of Learning, and the Reconciliation Working Party at the UTS, for hosting this event. And I acknowledge my distinguished fellow speakers.
To set the scene for my presentation this afternoon, I want to share two autobiographical fragments with you, both of them having to do with my experience at university.
Thank you for the opportunity to speak here today, World Mental Health Day. I am very pleased that World Mental Health Day this year is dedicated to the theme Human Rights and Mental Health. This theme recognises that mental health issues are human rights issues - a view argued strongly and consistently by our Human Rights Commission for many years.
Visit our media centre for up to date contact details for all media enquiries.