Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Justice
My thanks to the Human Rights Law Resource Centre, in particular to Phil Lynch, for inviting me to address this important gathering of human rights advocates and supporters about what I consider vital for the implementation and promotion of human rights in Australia.
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Justice
May I begin by acknowledging the Larrakeyah people – the traditional owners of the land where we meet today. I pay my respects to their elders and those who have come before us.
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Justice
Thank you to Jon Altman and Boyd Hunter for the opportunity to speak at this important conference. It has provided an excellent opportunity for researchers, bureaucrats and policy-makers to discuss the adequacy of current collection methods for socio-economic data relating to Indigenous people, how such data might be improved and how it might be better utilised.
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Justice
Both are written by Dr William Jonas, who is here today. As you would know he is the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Justice Commissioner.
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Justice
To all of you who work with and for Indigenous children and families - my deepest congratulations. Many of you have spent years decrying the treatment of Indigenous children.You have written and spoken, cajoled and attempted to convince and then lobbied some more - just trying to get the people of this country to open their eyes. Your energy has been boundless. Your patience infinite.
Disability Rights
I congratulate the Probation and Parole Officers' Association for their initiative in organizing this conference on Mental Health, Criminal Justice and Corrections.
Disability Rights
Acknowledgment of where we stand and where we are is, it seems to me, an essential precondition to good decisions about where we want to go, and how we might get there.
Disability Rights
I'd also like to acknowledge, as I have done at similar conferences previously, what I have owed personally to people in education in NSW. Education with the support of many great education professionals together with support from family and friends to achieve my goals is why I am in the position I hold now. I compare that to the position of many blind and vision impaired people, facing over 80 per cent rates of unemployment or underemployment.
Disability Rights
Can I also acknowledge Blake Dawson Waldron lawyers for providing the venue and facilities, and the NSW Disability Discrimination Legal Service for their initiative in organising this forum.
Disability Rights
It is my custom to make this acknowledgement at public events because I think recognising Australia's indigenous history is an important element in recognising the truth of our diversity as a people.
Disability Rights
I will not speak in detail about human rights conventions and disability because this topic is addressed by my co-speaker in this session, Karl Lachwitz. I will say though that international human rights law and human rights debate has not yet acknowledged adequately or sufficiently clearly that people with a disability are part of what the "human" in human rights means. Equally, there has not always been enough attention to human rights dimensions in disability discourse.
Disability Rights
I have to admit that two months ago when I took the title " The Disability Discrimination Act and the continuing battle for equal rights for people with a disability" for my paper today I was not attaching great importance to the precise words of that title.
Commission – General
I would like to acknowledge that we are meeting on the traditional country of the Girringun people and pay my respects to their elders past and present.
Legal
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
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 the aftermath of war. So today, children can literally travel across the world undetected and unprotected. And Australia, as part of this global system, has its share of these children.
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