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I also acknowledge Ms Jenny Merkus, President of the Local Government Community Services Association of Australia (LGCSAA). I would like to congratulate Jenny and other members of the conference planning committee who have put together a varied and exciting program of speakers. I also acknowledge Mayors, councillors and distinguished guests and speakers who have travelled from around Australia to…

Thank you for the opportunity to be here today. Can I begin by apologising for the Acting Disability Discrimination Commissioner Dr Sev Ozdowski. Sev has been following this inquiry very closely but had arranged to be away this week before the schedule for these hearings was settled.

Allow me to commence by acknowledging the traditional owners of the land on which we meet today, and by so doing remind ourselves that Australia's cultural traditions stretch back many thousands of years. I acknowledge also people with disabilities here together with advocates and other conference participants.

Dr Sev Ozdowski OAM Human Rights Commissioner and Disability Discrimination Commissioner Human Rights & Equal Opportunity Commission, Sydney, Australia

I am sure I am not the first person to say it, but it seems to me that there are particularly important reasons for a telecommunications company such as Telstra to be interested in diversity.

I've always had a yearning to be in the Guinness Book of Records, and so I decided, in preparation for today, to give the shortest presentation ever made by a staff member of the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission. My presentation thus consists of just seven letters: a question of 4 letters, and an answer of 3 letters. The question is SSDD, and the answer is DDA.

I always like to begin my presentations with a humorous anecdote or joke of some kind. For one thing, it lets me know that someone is actually listening, and it also lulls the audience into a false sense of security for the dry parts to follow. So as part of my preparation for this morning's discussion of disability discrimination law in Australia, I decided to find an answer to the important…

Good morning everyone. I'm actually thinking of developing a theory of corporate management based on reactions to that introduction. For example, when I say good morning to first year university students, they echo "good morning" back to me; when I say good morning to politicians, they remain silent, lest they be misquoted; when I say good morning to management consultants, they write…

I also acknowledge representatives here of the disability community and the telecommunications industry. Also of course I acknowledge Telecommunications Industry Ombudsman Mr John Pinnock and his staff.

I'm sure that I'm not the only person with a disability who has experienced the lonely path of advocacy. As we find it necessary to advocate for our right to be able to read the same information as the rest of society, or to enter a building through the same door, or take a guide dog to the same restaurant, we can also find ourselves agreeing with the next line of the song, "two can be as…

(These are speaking notes used by the Commissioner at a series of events in all Australian capitals as well as Alice Springs through March 2003. Speeches as delivered included acknowledgement of State and Territory anti-discrimination colleauges co-hosting forums in each case as well as guests from the disability community including those presenting personal accounts of use of the DDA.)

I also acknowledge distinguished guests, representatives of State and local government, members of access advisory committees, and my colleague Mr Mike Taggart who has been a central figure in the achievement we celebrate today.

In addition to this year's Human Rights Awards, to be announced later today, the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission has decided to confer an award to mark ten years of achievements under the Disability Discrimination Act.

Perhaps it's just because I'm getting older, but I increasingly have the feeling that Australia is becoming a more sentimental and nostalgic nation. We have a Prime Minister whose vision for us is to be relaxed and comfortable. And many of us spent last night - after watching the final stages of the Australian cricket juggernaut's comprehensive winning of the ashes for the eighth time in a row -…

I hope that you are not expecting from me a speech full of stirring rhetoric, to inspire you before you settle into detailed and practical discussions throughout the rest of this conference.

Most of you here today would know that it is not trite to say that local government is the closest level of government to our communities, and as such plays a key role in building and reinforcing the fabric of those communities.

Thank you for this opportunity to address your AGM. These events are important times for community organisations such as yours as they provide an opportunity to celebrate your achievements, refresh your organisation and recognise the hard work of staff, your Board and the membership in general.

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…

Much of my mis-spent youth involved listening to rock bands. At that time the internet hardly existed, as opposed to the ubiquitous role it now plays in our lives. That's a shame for many reasons, one of them being that had it done so, I could have justified my time by contributing to www.kissthisguy.com . This is a site which lists what people thought were the words of rock songs, and then what…