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We need a national picture of domestic violence homicides

Authors Sex Discrimination Commissioner Kate Jenkins and President of the Australian Human Rights Commission Professor Gillian Triggs In March 2010, shortly after making the decision to leave her abusive husband after more than 20 years of violence, Zahra Abrahimzadeh was stabbed to death in front of...

Category, Opinion
Sex Discrimination

Brigidine College Address - 2nd Wave Feminism

I start by acknowledging the traditional owners, the Gadigal people of the Eora nation. I am pleased to be here with you today, the day before International Women’s Day…and I wish you as young women all the best for that day, and all the best for the many life decisions that you will make as you...

Category, Speech
Rights and Freedoms

Another 'aberration' shows that 18C is the problem and must be changed

State and federal governments should reform laws that make offensive acts unlawful and refocus them on protecting free speech and stopping workplace and public harassment. This week a news story broke about a complaint made under section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act by a Queensland University...

Category, Opinion
Race Discrimination

Forty years of the Racial Discrimination Act

In October 1975, at a ceremony for the proclamation of the Racial Discrimination Act, then Prime Minister Gough Whitlam described the legislation as ‘a historic measure’, which aimed to ‘entrench new attitudes of tolerance and understanding in the hearts and minds of the people’.(1) The Act was...

Category, Opinion
Rights and Freedoms

Free speech is best medicine for the bigotry disease

THE proposed amendments to the Racial Discrimination Act provide the basis for correcting the legal limits of free speech, ­promoting pluralism, opposing reprehensible racism and highlighting the importance of ­responsibility. Arguably the most important change is assessing an 18C violation based on...

Category, Opinion
Rights and Freedoms

Freedoms versus anti-discrimination laws? A false debate

Responsibility, anti-discrimination laws, human rights and freedoms - these words have been at the center of an ideological debate about how to protect fundamental freedoms, including freedom of speech, freedom of association and freedom from detention without trial. But if we are serious about...

Category, Opinion
Sex Discrimination

The face of gender-based discrimination in Australian workplaces

UN Women 2013 International Women’s Day Panel: Implicit stereotypes, explicit solutions: overcoming gender-based discrimination in the workplace Conference Room 2, North Lawn Building, UN 1.15 – 2.30pm, Friday 8 March ** CHECK AGAINST DELIVERY** The different faces of gender discrimination in...

Category, Speech
Rights and Freedoms

Freedom of speech is not in danger in Australia (2013)

Freedom of speech is alive and well in Australia but, with respect to Voltaire, we will not defend to the death those who abuse this right by vilifying others in public on the ground of race.

Category, Opinion
Sex Discrimination

Commissioner appears before CEDAW Committee at the UN

Tuesday, 20 July 2010 The Sex Discrimination Commissioner, Elizabeth Broderick, has appeared before the United Nations Committee on the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women in New York this week. Enshrined within the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of...

Category, News

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