News

Disability Rights

Making rights relevant

Thank you for the opportunity to speak to you today. Whilst planning this speech, I was thinking that it was a long time since the first time that I addressed an NDS (then Acrod) conference. I was asked to give the Kenneth Jenkins memorial oration at the Acrod conference in the early 80s, as the first President of DPI Australia. The speech then was just the type that you would expect from the head of an advocacy organisation finding its feet, to the conference of the service provision organisation. It was brash, assertive and demanding.

Disability Rights

Providing Access to All

Some of us are women and some are men; some of us brought new names and accents in recent decades and some of us have Australian ancestry reaching back tens of thousands of years; and some of us have one or more disabilities.

Disability Rights

Presentation toRound Table on Information Access For People with Print Disabilities

I've always had a yearning to be in the Guinness Book of Records, and so I decided, in preparation for today, to give the shortest presentation ever made by a staff member of the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission. My presentation thus consists of just seven letters: a question of 4 letters, and an answer of 3 letters. The question is SSDD, and the answer is DDA.

Commission – General

All under control? Recent issues in Australia’s legal response to counter-terrorism

13 November 2006 Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission Forum, Sydney I would like to acknowledge the Gadigal people of the Eora nation, the traditional owners and custodians of the land where we are meeting on today. I would also like to thank our distinguished guests, the Attorney General, the Honorable Philip Ruddock MP, and Professor George Williams for participating in this forum. BALANCING NATIONAL SECURITY AND HUMAN RIGHTS

Legal

Law Seminar 2008: The Importance of Australia’s engagement with International Human Rights Law: coming in from the cold? by Gillian Triggs

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:

Rights and Freedoms

Launch of Rights of Passage: Dr Sev Ozdowski (2005)

I would like to welcome everybody to the launch of Rights of Passage: A Dialogue with Young Australians about Human Rights. I thank you all for coming.

Rights and Freedoms

Association of Childrens Welfare Agencies Conference

I am delighted to be invited to speak today at the Biennial Conference of the Association of Childrens Welfare Agencies, in association with partner organisations dedicated to the wellbeing of children.

Commission – General

20 Years of Mandatory Immigration Detention: the imperative for community-based arrangements for those who seek Australia’s protection

Thank you for your kind introduction. I wish to start today by acknowledging the Kaurna People of the Adelaide Plains, the traditional owners of the land on which we are meeting. On behalf of the Australian Human Rights Commission, I pay my respects to their elders past and present.

Commission – General

President speeches: Speech at Annual UNAA Day Dinner

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.

Commission – General

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The topic for discussion is the role of human rights in good governance. Along the way I will touch on HREOC’s perceptions of cultural change at DIMA, legal roadblocks to cultural change, and the importance of human rights principles in the law and policy making process.

Commission – General

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Set against the wreckage and the unthinkable horror of the Second World War, the Declaration was something of a phoenix rising from the ashes, a document which sought to rekindle a human dignity which had been gravely debased in the preceding ten years.

Rights and Freedoms

Speeches on Human Rights Issues

Speeches on Human Rights Issues [ Year: 2011 : 2009 : 2008 : 2007 : 2006 : 2005 : 2004 : 2003 : 2002 : 2001 : 2000 : 1999 : 1998 : 1997 : 1996 ] For more recent speeches: see the speeches of the President of the Australian Human Rights Commission On 12 July 2009, the President took on the additional...

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Justice

Essentials for Social Justice: The Future

I begin by paying my respects to the Kaurna peoples, the traditional owners of the land where we gather today, I pay my respects to your elders, to the ancestors and to those who have come before us, And thank you, for your generous welcome to country for all of us.

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Justice

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I would like to begin by acknowledging all the traditional owners of the land where we meet, the Gadigal people of the Eora Nation. Thank you Megan Davis for your welcome and for inviting me to be here today.

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Justice

Native Title and Service Delivery

My presentation today will focus on the content of my Native Title Report 2005. I will outline the debates about economic development on Indigenous land - the possibilities and the challenges. At the conclusion of this presentation I will provide some challenge statements about the responsibilities of service deliverers on Indigenous land.