Business and Human Rights
A diverse group of leaders from the Australian business community, civil society, the religious community and academia has released a Statement of Support for the development of legislation to combat Modern Slavery.
Rights and Freedoms
Western Sydney Open Forum CHECK AGAINST DELIVERY Acknowledgements • Traditional Aboriginal owners: the Darug Nation • Dr Sev Ozdowski AM If you’ve read the papers or seen the news in the last few weeks, you might be forgiven for thinking that human rights are somehow radically incompatible with...
Rights and Freedoms
Lecture Theatre 9, University of Tasmania, Newnham Campus, Newnham Drive, Launceston CHECK AGAINST DELIVERY Acknowledgements Traditional owners: Panninher and the Leterrermairrener People. Moderator: Professor Richard Eccleston, Director of the Institute for the Study of Social Change, University of...
Rights and Freedoms
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...
Rights and Responsibilities: Creating Better Workplaces for all Australians
Rights and Freedoms
Introduction Thank you. It is a great pleasure to attend the Australian Libertarian Society’s Third Friedman Conference. I’d like to acknowledge the outstanding efforts of Tim Andrews and John Humphrey for bringing this important conference together. I’d also like to acknowledge the previous speaker...
Commission – General
It is a great honour to be invited to speak tonight at this special celebration for the Jewish people. Passover is a celebration of the journey of the Hebrews from slavery in Egypt to freedom. It is a journey that represents taking responsibility for oneself, one’s community and the world.
Commission – General
I would like to begin by saying how delighted I am to be here speaking this evening about the work of the Australian Human Rights Commission. I hope also to learn more about the protection of human rights in Japan and about your proposal for a national human rights institution in Japan. This is my first time to Japan and I am thrilled to be here. I am grateful for all the work that has gone into the preparation for this session and for my visit. And I thank those who have looked after me so well since I arrived in your country.
Commission – General
In the age of globalisation there has been a massive increase in international migration and, as the number of international migrants has grown, so too has the problem of irregular migration. Many states have tried to stem irregular migration by introducing new border control measures and tougher criminal sanctions for people smugglers.[1] However, while effective border control is a legitimate objective of all sovereign states, state responses to the issue of irregular migration have often failed to protect the human rights of irregular migrants.[2]
Commission – General
In the newspapers of recent weeks we seem constantly confronted with similarly miserable and distressing events – a mortar attack on CARE Australia’s office in Baghdad; attacks on a synagogue and the British consulate in Istanbul; more suicide bombings in Israel.
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Justice
Moving forward - from 'practical reconciliation' to social justice Speech by Dr William Jonas AM, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Justice Commissioner, Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission Moving Forward: Achieving reparations for the stolen generations University of New South...
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Justice
From the moment Australia was colonised Indigenous peoples have suffered discrimination at the hands of a legal system imported into this land. Not only were our own laws cast aside, but the new laws discriminated against us - and did so because of our race. In 1997, while there has been movement away from former policies of assimilation, removal and protection, the dominant legal system still discriminates against us.
Rights and Freedoms
I should add, at this point, that my work over the past few years and my inquiry on children in immigration detention (CIDI), in Australia, the report of which "A last resort?" was tabled in the Australian Federal parliament in May of 2004, has made me even more keenly aware of the fragility of child asylum seekers. But more on that later!
Commission – General
To be honest, this is a rare occasion for me. Much of my career has been spent in the monastic cells of academic institutions teaching the young about different legal systems; their origins and growth, their strengths and weaknesses. Your world - the world of business and industry, finances, profit and loss, sales and marketing - is largely foreign to me in a practical sense.
Commission – General
Human rights are said to be universal and indivisible. This paper explores how far that universality introduces human rights principles into the functions and work of the Administrative Appeals Tribunal (AAT). The answer, I think, could be “further than you realise”.
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