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Asylum Seekers and Refugees

Protecting refugees

As recent reports allege asylum seekers are being removed from Manus Island and returned to their place of origin, Commission President, Professor Gillian Triggs, reflects on the nation's responsibilities.

Category, Opinion
Race Discrimination

The AHRC and the Racial Discrimination Act: setting the record straight

Federal racial hatred legislation and the complaints-handling processes of the Australian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) are currently the subjects of an inquiry by the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Human Rights. The Committee’s ‘Freedom of speech in Australia’ inquiry, due to report by 28...

Category, Opinion
Rights and Freedoms

Striking the right balance on free speech

Discover how a former Human Rights Commissioner was asked whether the Racial Discrimination Act impinges on freedom of expression under international law.

Category, Opinion
Rights and Freedoms

National Faith and Civil Marriage Equality Forum

National Faith and Civil Marriage Equality Forum Hosted by Australians 4 Equality Main Committee Room, Parliament House, Canberra Edward Santow, Human Rights Commissioner, Australian Human Rights Commission Check against Delivery Introduction My late father used to talk about our family’s motley...

Category, Speech
Rights and Freedoms

Peering through human rights-tinted glasses

Annual Lecture, Castan Centre for Human Rights Law. Given at the State Library of Victoria on 7 October 2016. This year, we celebrate (or mourn, according to your perspective) the 60th anniversary of the first computer to defeat a human in chess. It occurred, predictably enough, in Los Alomos, and...

Category, Speech
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Justice

Indigenous Property Rights: Land, Business and Governance

Thank you Galarrwuy for your warm welcome to Gulkula on your country. It is really wonderful to be here on the occasion the 40th anniversary of the Northern Territory Land Rights Act and another successful Garma Festival. I am a Gangulu man from the Dawson Valley in Central Queensland, I acknowledge...

Category, Speech
Rights and Freedoms

Jessie Street Trust Annual Lunch 2016

Jessie Street Trust Annual Lunch - I am pleased to join you today to honour the work and annual birthday of Jessie Mary Grey Lillingston Street, a remarkable, and very modern Australian woman. Well before the First World War, she was an advocate for many of the social issues we care about today; equality for women, constitutional recognition of indigenous Australians, world peace and for disarmament.

Category, Speech
Rights and Freedoms

Human rights across the Tasman: a widening gulf

I am honoured to have been invited to give this lecture at the Law School of the University of Canterbury, funded by the generosity of the Sir Eric Hotung Fellowship. While I had settled the subject matter of this lecture, I thought it would be helpful to know what other Hotung Fellows had discussed...

Category, Speech
Legal

Hotung Fellowship Public Lecture 2016

Human rights across the Tasman: a widening gulf. I am honoured to have been invited to give this lecture at the Law School of the University of Canterbury, funded by the generosity of the Sir Eric Hotung Fellowship.

Category, Speech
Asylum Seekers and Refugees

New report reveal alarming impact of detention on children

[Check against delivery] Thank you for joining us today. Over a year ago, the Australian Human Rights Commission produced The Forgotten Children Report. This Report examined the impact of prolonged mandatory, indefinite immigration detention on the mental and physical heath of children. The findings...

Category, Speech
LGBTIQ+

Genuine marriage equality is more than overdue

Imagine seeing the words "never married" on your new husband's death certificate. As if the grief of losing your husband while honeymooning wasn't traumatic enough. Marco Bulmer-Rizzi's husband, David, died after falling down stairs at a friend's place in Adelaide. Because South Australia doesn't...

Category, Opinion
Commission – General

The future of human rights in Australia

AHRC Awards 2015 Thank you Craig for your generosity, for the 4th time, in guiding us through the awards. Well done for your very funny and successful Media Circus. Your honours, distinguished guests, colleagues, ladies and gentlemen. I acknowledge the traditional owners of the land, the Gadigal...

Category, Speech
Rights and Freedoms

Tony Blackshield Lecture

HUMAN RIGHTS AND THE OVERREACH OF EXECUTIVE DISCRETION: CITIZENSHIP, ASYLUM SEEKERS AND WHISTLEBLOWERS It is a special pleasure for me to speak in honour of Professor Blackshield, who is a long time colleague of mine in the law. He is a constitutional law scholar of the highest order and one of the...

Category, Speech
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Justice

Universal Periodic Review Reception Address 9 November 2015

Thank you Ambassador Quinn for your warm welcome and thank you for generously hosting us here today. I would like to begin by acknowledging all Ambassadors and Excellencies with us this evening. I acknowledge the grandfather of our Parliament, the Hon Mr Philip Ruddock MP, Special Envoy for...

Category, Speech

Pagination

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