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Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Justice

The Informa 3rd Annual Negotiating Native Title Forum (2009)

I begin today by paying my respects to the Wurundjeri 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.

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Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Justice

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I begin by acknowledging the Gadigal people of the Eora nation, the traditional owners of the land where we meet today, and pay my respects to their elders. I would also like to thank the LIME conference organisers -- and Gregory Phillips and Lisa Jackson-Pulver in particular -- for inviting me to speak tonight and for organising this event and for ensuring that Indigenous health – so often overlooked in the ongoing debates about health and health reform in Australia – receives the attention it deserves in this context.

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Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Justice

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We are on Aboriginal land – and as a mark of respect to the traditional owners of this country – I want to recognise their culture and their law because they are integral to what we now call Coogee.

Category, Speech
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Justice

The current challenges facing Indigenous people in Australia

The position of Social Justice Commissioner was created in 1993 in response to the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody and HREOC"s National Inquiry into Racist Violence. It was created to ensure an ongoing, national monitoring agency for the human rights of Indigenous peoples.

Category, Speech
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Justice

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I would like to acknowledge the Kaurna people, the traditional owners of the land on which we are meeting, and to honour their children. I thank them for the welcome they have extended to delegates of this conference.

Category, Speech
Disability Rights

Equal employment opportunity for people with disabilities: how to move from the theoretical to the actual

I congratulate EOPHEA for organising this discussion. Although, of course, your focus is primarily on employment in the university environment, the conference program is clearly designed to address equal opportunity issues of much more general significance. I have approached my own paper in the same spirit: I hope it will be particularly relevant in your own context as equity practitioners in higher education, but I have taken the opportunity to raise issues of wider relevance.

Category, Speech
Disability Rights

National Disability Strategies as tools for implementing the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities

Summary: Australia’s National Disability Strategy provides a framework for implementation of the Convention on the Rights of Persons and for means for enhancing reporting under the Convention. Further development and implementation of the NDS should be informed by the Committee’s reporting guidelines and by the dialogue between the Australian Government and the Committee in considering Australia’s reports. Some enhancements to the reporting guidelines may also be helpful.

Category, Speech
Disability Rights

Innes: Going for gold

I also acknowledge Ministers with us here today; Ambassador Don Mackay joining us from New Zealand by video link; and many friends and colleagues from the disability and human rights community.

Category, Speech
Disability Rights

Housing, human rights and sustainability

Thank you especially to Margaret Ward, the previous National Convenor of the network and Amelia Starr the current Convenor for the excellent debate you have nurtured over the past few years between Government, the housing industry and the community.

Category, Speech
Disability Rights

National Inquiry into Disability and Employment

While there were a range of factors that led the Commission to launch the Inquiry, the primary reason is that Australians with disability continue to be less likely to be employed than people without a disability.

Category, Speech
Disability Rights

Disability and human rights

Allow me to commence by acknowledging the traditional custodians of the land on which we meet, the Wallumattagal clan of the Eora peoples. Let me also acknowledge my fellow speakers, as well as other distinguished guests and friends.

Category, Speech
Disability Rights

Initiatives to achieve better access to the built environment

As you know, the Commonwealth Disability Discrimination Act, and equivalent laws in all States, make it unlawful to discriminate on the ground of a person's disability. One of the areas covered by the Act is access to premises. The only exception to this is where a building is already constructed not providing access, and alteration to provide access would cause unjustifiable hardship.

Category, Speech
Sex Discrimination

In the fast lane to gender equality

Let me start by acknowledging the traditional owners of the land on which we meet, the Gadigal people of the Eora Nation. I pay my respects to their elders past and present.

Category, Speech
Sex Discrimination

Speech to the LHMU Child Care Conference

1. ABS Cat. No. 6302.2 at May 2001. 2. ABS Labour Force Surveys July 1979 to June 2000 - quoted in ABS Australian Social Trends 2001 Cat no 4102.0. 3. Smith and Ewer ABS 6310. 4. ABS Cat No. 4402.0 Childcare June 2000 5. Ibid. 6. ABS Labour Force Surveys July 1979 to June 2000 - quoted in ABS Australian Social Trends 2001 Cat no 4102.0. 7. ABS Cat. No. 6302.2 at May 2001. 8. ABS Statistics, 'Australia Now: A Statistical Profile'. 9. ABS Cat. No. 6203.0 August 2001. 10. ABS 6303.0, May 1996 11. ABS 6302.0 May 2001. 12.

Category, Speech

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