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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.

Thank you for the opportunity to speak with all of you, and sleep with some of you. As you will have noticed, Vinnies was good enough to let my eleven-year-old daughter Rachel join me as my guide tonight, and she'll be the only one getting any of my cuddles. The rest of you have to make your own arrangements.

As lawyers who work every day with ordinary people, you will all have first hand experience of the value that we, in Australia, place on human rights. You will also be acutely aware of the significant gaps in human rights protection in Australia.

In our new strategic plan we commit to 'motivating big business to incorporate human rights into their everyday business practice'.

Good morning. 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 their elders both past and present.

I would also like to acknowledge the presence of Members of Parliament - Mike Reynolds (Speaker of the Legislative Assembly), Linda Lavarch, Dean Wells, Evan Moorhead; Christine Smith, Desley Scott, Kate Jones, Dianne Reilly and Vicky Darling.

First, it's great to celebrate our national day with such a large, diverse and - as we've seen - talented group of Australians. And may I particularly congratulate those who've chosen to join us as Australians today.

I 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.

I’d also thank the Human Rights Week Organising Committee here in Tasmania, and congratulate them on their 20th Anniversary. Human Rights Week has been successfully and continuously marked with a number of events each year over the past 20 years in Tasmania. And that in itself, is a remarkable achievement.

For those of you unfamiliar with Australia’s Human Rights Commission, it’s an independent government body that protects and promotes human rights. My role as Human Rights Commissioner is to check that human rights in Australia are being respected including the human rights of children and young people.

I also want to thank the conference organisers for the opportunity to speak today. conferences such as this are great opportunities to discuss some of the pressing human rights issues in Australia. I'm particularly pleased to be talking about queer rights in the workplace, as fair employment conditions are some of the most fundamental of all human rights. Trade unions have a long history of…

It's great to be here today. I can't think of a better time to be taking stock of developments in human rights law and policy in Australia, or a better place to be doing this than Victoria. As a Sydney-sider I have to admit I haven't always been fully appreciative of the number plates down here, which proclaim: ‘Victoria: The Place to Be!’ But there's no doubt that Victoria is the…

I'm very pleased to be speaking to you today. I'm especially encouraged that so many young people have put aside a weekend to think about, and talk about, human rights.

Homelessness has, I'm sure, been on your agendas for many years. More recently, both Parity and the Rudd federal government (if I can put you both in the same league) has given it a much increased focus. Today, I want to identify the many human rights issues raised in the context of homelessness, and suggest how a human rights framework would help address what is an ever-increasing problem in our…

The globalisation of the world economy, including much improved communication and transportation, has increased flows of people across borders.  This includes the movement of children, both with their family and unaccompanied.  Separated children crossing borders may be refugees, humanitarian asylum seekers, trafficked girls who will be forced to work as prostitutes, or simply children lost in…

Diversity in Health is a conference about health. Multicultural Mental Health Australia is a multicultural health service.  Vision Australia deals with issues and needs of people with print disability. What have these services and issues got to do with human rights, and why am I launching them? I'd like to reflect on these questions, and strongly argue that there is a fundamental connection…

Good morning, and thank you for the opportunity to speak at this conference. I'm very pleased to be here.  Firstly as a senior Commonwealth public servant not based in Canberra I immediately warm to this forum. The challenges of interacting with, and learning from, our colleagues are increased greatly by the fact that we aren't located in the city viewed by most commonwealth public servants as…