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Rights and Freedoms

59th Session of the Commission on Human Rights

Read a statement about the history of the Australian Human Rights Commission, which was presented at the Commission on Human Rights in Geneva in 2003.

Rights and Freedoms

Mission Australia National Management Team Meeting

Speaking notes for a presentation to the Mission Australia National Management Team Meeting in Sydney on 22 August 2001 by Dr Sev Ozdowski OAM, Human Rights Commissioner

Commission – General

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By way of preamble, it is clear the current climate of terrorism obviously requires governments to put in place measures that can effectively deal with a serious terrorist threat or event as soon as it is detected. Parliament cannot wait until potential dangers eventuate. It is understandable – indeed it is necessary in advance - to put in place measures that can deal with the worst case scenario that could arise.

Commission – General

President speech: Australian Psychological Society (Sydney Branch) AGM

I would like to begin by acknowledging the traditional owners of the land on which we meet, the Gadigal people of the Eora nation, and pay my respects to their elders, past and present.

Commission – General

President speeches: The Potential Role of National Human Rights Institutions in the Pacific

This paper advocates that National Human Rights Institutions (NHRIs) have a very valuable role to play in the Pacific, and that the promotion and protection of human rights in the Pacific would benefit immensely by Pacific nations each establishing a NHRI.

Commission – General

Human Rights and Human Security

Firstly, I must applaud Amnesty International Australia’s campaign to secure a fair trial for David Hicks. I hope you take some heart from the recent US Supreme Court ruling that the military commissions set up to try prisoners at Guantanamo Bay are illegal and must be abandoned.

Commission – General

Seventh International Conference for National Human Rights Institutions

Torture and various forms of terrorism have been practiced throughout history, though never on the scale we are now confronted with. The first visual records of police interrogation were discovered in a four thousand year old tomb in ancient Egypt. Since the pharaohs there have been many refinements in methods of inducing physical pain and gathering intelligence, most notably during the Spanish Inquisition, but more recently in the modern totalitarian state.

Commission – General

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As the world awaits the birth of the new millenium with a level of anxiety we come to associate with expecting parents, I am pleased to note that the United Nations, in nominating 1999 the International Year of Older Persons, has not, at the last, forgotten the grandparents.

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Justice

Conference: Realising the Rights to Health and Development for all

I’d like to begin by acknowledging the conference organisers: the Central Commission for Popularization and Education of The Communist Party of Vietnam, and The University of New South Wales Initiative for Health and Human Rights, and particularly Professor Daniel Tarantola.

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Justice

Essentials for Social Justice: Close the Gap

Between December 2007 and July 2008 the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Justice Commissioner, Tom Calma, will deliver a series of key speeches setting out an agenda for change in Indigenous affairs.

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Justice

Speeches 2007: 40 years on: what does the ‘Yes’ vote mean for Indigenous Australians?

Anglicare, Tasmania Annual Social Justice Lecture 22 August, 2007 TOM CALMA Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Justice Commissioner National Race Discrimination Commissioner Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Justice

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I’m sorry that I can’t be with you in person to deliver these remarks, but through my voice for the day, Mr Glenn Pearson, I am very pleased to be invited to talk about my perspectives on the new arrangements in Indigenous affairs. Glenn – I owe you one!

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Justice

Achieving Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander health equality

Tom Calma, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Justice Commissioner, ‘The Right to Health of Indigenous Australians’ seminar, University of Melbourne Law School, 16 March 2006.

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Justice

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On 14 May 2002 the Attorney-General tabled the Social Justice Report 2001, my annual review of the exercise of human rights by Indigenous Australians, and the Native Title Report 2001, my annual review of native title developments, in federal Parliament.

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Justice

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It is a very great honour for me to be invited to give this third lecture in commemoration of the great Aboriginal mathematician and scientist, David Unaipon.