Sex Discrimination
This paper considers national and international legislative and other provisions regarding equality for women in the labour market. Australia ranks second to Sweden in terms of pay equity. It is argued that over the last two decades of global shifts to labour market decentralism and deregulation, Australian women have fared relatively well. Three fundamental reasons stand out:
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Justice
I begin by acknowledging the Gimiy Walubara Yidinji people, the traditional owners of the land where we meet today, and paying my respects to their elders. I also thank the National Indigenous Environmental Health Forum, the Conference Organising Group and Queensland Health for organising this event and inviting me to open this conference. And thank you to Shane Nicolls for his opening words and introduction.
Disability Rights
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.
Disability Rights
Thanks for the opportunity to speak to this conference today. You are embarking on this topic, in my view, at just the right time. Unemployment is the lowest it has been for over a decade. Our economy is strong and needing more employees, and our population is ageing, reducing the relative size of the workforce. In coming years, there will be fewer of us to support more of us, so as many people as possible need to be working and paying taxes rather than receiving welfare benefits. What better time to introduce employees with disabilities in larger numbers.
Commission – General
I would like to begin this morning by acknowledging the traditional owners of the land on which we meet, the Wurundjeri People of the Kulin Nation. I pay my respects to their elders past and present.
Rights and Freedoms
Firstly, HREOC is charged with: "promoting an understanding and acceptance of human rights in Australia". Young people obviously form a very, very important part of that task.
Commission – General
Many years ago, when I was a very young solicitor anxious to be taken seriously by my employers, I needed to do some banking in my lunch hour. When I arrived at my bank, I was confronted by a long queue. I assessed the pace at which it was moving and decided that I could get served and still make it back to the office on time. You can imagine my astonishment when, arriving at the front of the queue, the teller asked if I would mind stepping aside so that she could serve the men behind me who would need to get back to work!
Commission – General
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
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Justice
I acknowledge the traditional owners of the land where we are meeting tonight, the Gadigal peoples of the Eora nation. I pay my respects to your elders and to those who have come before us. And thank you to Chicka Madden for your generous welcome to country. Chicka and I spent a term together on the Board of Aboriginal Hostels.
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Justice
I would like to begin by acknowledging the traditional owners of Cairns, the land where we meet today, and to pay my respects to their elders. I would also like to thank the Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Psychiatrists and Professor Ernest Hunter for organising this event and inviting me to open this very important conference.
Disability Rights
Allow me to begin by acknowledging the traditional owners of the land on which we stand [the Nyoongar people] and pay my respects to their elders both past and present.
Legal
I am very pleased to be here talking about Human Rights and Climate Change in the first of HREOC’s seminar series celebrating the 60th Anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (the ‘Declaration’).1
Rights and Freedoms
I am very pleased to be here tonight at the Rural Ageing Seminar dinner. Thank you, to Dame Roma and the Rural Ageing Seminar Reference Group, for inviting me to attend an event that (for once) takes place where it counts - in rural South Australia.
Commission – General
I would like to begin by acknowledging the traditional owners of the land on which we meet, the Wurundjeri People of the Kulin Nation, and pay my respects to their elders past and present.
Commission – General
I have been asked to speak today about the contributions made to Australia by women from diverse cultures. A topic difficult for its breadth, depth and complexity - like our cultures and identities themselves. Made more difficult by the variety of women's experiences and the way we choose to define 'contribution.'
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