Rights and Freedoms
Speech given by Dr Sev Ozdowski OAM, Human Rights Commissioner at the 2nd Public Health Association of Australia Incarceration Conference. Wednesday 2 April 2003 at the Mercure Hotel Brisbane
Rights and Freedoms
I am pleased to be participating in the opening of the Futures Victorian Rural Health Forum. I would also like to thank Neil Roxburgh and the Country AIDS Network (CAN) for inviting me to speak.
Commission – General
First, may I acknowledge the traditional owners of the land on which we meet, the Ngunnawal people, and pay my respects to their elders, both past and present.
Commission – General
The right to non-discrimination on the basis of sex and immigration regulations: Abdulaziz, Cabales and Balkandali v The United Kingdom (28 May 1985) Eur Court HR
Commission – General
I speak to you now, not as the Chancellor of this University, but as the President of Australia’s national Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission. And while my remarks are addressed primarily to today’s graduands, I suspect what I am about to say will resonate among parents and friends.
Commission – General
When I was invited to give this address, my first thought was to talk about unlawful discrimination in the context of higher education and, in particular, disability discrimination.
Commission – General
In May last year I stepped down from my position as a Judge of the Federal Court to accept the role as President of HREOC. It has been a time of new challenges, such as the need to balance the legislative and administrative responsibilities that the Commission has been given by the federal government, with the important role of advocating for the rights of those on the margins of Australian society.
Commission – General
I am very pleased to have been asked to open the 9th Conference of the International Student Advisers Network of Australia (ISANA). I am pleased to welcome those who come from abroad, to exchange ideas and thoughts with a variety of people and across a range of disciplines and institutions.
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Justice
I would like to begin by acknowledging the Gadigal people of the Eora nation, the traditional owners of the land on which we meet and pay my respects to their elders past and present.
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Justice
I would like to begin by acknowledging the Noongar people on whose land we are today and pay my respects to their elders. The recent recognition of the Noongar as traditional owners of this land sets a significant context for the launch of the Western Australian Law Reform Commission Report on Aboriginal Customary Laws. The recognition of Noongar native title through Australian law is the most powerful confirmation possible that as a society they possessed, and continue to possess, well-developed systems of law and custom.
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Justice
At the outset, I would like to extend my warmest thanks for the invitation addressed to me to present my views concerning on timing and important subject entitled: "the participation of Indigenous Peoples in the political institutions of the United Nations system."
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Justice
It is a very great honour for me to be invited to give this third lecture in commemoration of the great Aboriginal mathematician and scientist, David Unaipon.
Disability Rights
I would like to acknowledge the Ngunnawal People , the traditional owners of the land on which we stand, and pay my respects to their elders past and present.
Disability Rights
A very big thank you, in particular, to our colleagues from the Australian Attorney-General's Department and theDepartment of Foreign Affairs and Trade. Mostly, of course, for their work with us, over many years, in advancing the human rights of people with disability, internationally and domestically. But also, for being (as far as I know) the first in the world to refer, officially, to the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities not by its unappealing acronym of CRPD, or as the Disability Convention, but as the "DisCo".
Disability Rights
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.
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