Enhancing Equality: Reforming Anti-Discrimination Laws to Make Australia Fairer
I begin by acknowledging the traditional owners of the land on which we meet, the Wurundjeri people, and I pay my respects to their elders past and present.
I begin by acknowledging the traditional owners of the land on which we meet, the Wurundjeri people, and I pay my respects to their elders past and present.
In the second century AD, Marcus Aurelius, a Roman emperor and Stoic philosopher, thanked one of his brothers for teaching him to value "the conception of the state with one law for all, based upon individual equality and freedom of speech, and of a sovereignty which prizes above all things the liberty of the subject."1
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.
While Australia may have come in from the cold, the wind has been taken from my sails. The typical role of an international lawyer over the last few years, whether in Australia or in the UK, Europe and North America has been to berate their respective government ministers with numerous failings and to list the necessary reforms to policy. In Australia’s case these have been to persuade the Commonwealth government to:
I would like to begin by acknowledging the traditional owners of the land on which we meet, the Kaurna people, and pay my respects to their elders past and present.
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