Disability Rights
Let me first pass on regrets from Sev Ozdowski that he was not able to be here as planned. He very much wanted to attend this as the first major disability conference since he commenced duty as Disability Discrimination Commissioner at the end of last year - but he had surgery this week that meant he could not travel.
Disability Rights
Thank you for the opportunity to speak here today, World Mental Health Day. I am very pleased that World Mental Health Day this year is dedicated to the theme Human Rights and Mental Health. This theme recognises that mental health issues are human rights issues - a view argued strongly and consistently by our Human Rights Commission for many years.
Disability Rights
I'm sure I'm not the only one here that's excited that we're six days into a 44 day period in which there will be 25 days of ashes test cricket. I'm a happy man.
Disability Rights
Thank you for the opportunity to speak to you today. Whilst planning this speech, I was thinking that it was a long time since the first time that I addressed an NDS (then Acrod) conference. I was asked to give the Kenneth Jenkins memorial oration at the Acrod conference in the early 80s, as the first President of DPI Australia. The speech then was just the type that you would expect from the head of an advocacy organisation finding its feet, to the conference of the service provision organisation. It was brash, assertive and demanding.
Disability Rights
Some of us are women and some are men; some of us brought new names and accents in recent decades and some of us have Australian ancestry reaching back tens of thousands of years; and some of us have one or more disabilities.
Disability Rights
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.
Disability Rights
Dad's time with their daughters is special time, and I spent the afternoon last weekend watching a chickflick with Rachel. For me, the first five minutes consisted of the sound of waves on a beach, seagullls, the slam of a car door, and someone crying. In fact, the whole movie was a fine demonstration that there is much more to communication than speech.
Disability Rights
I'd like to start by acknowledging the traditional owners of the land on which we meet, the Ngunnawal people, in whose language Canberra means meeting place as you probably know.
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
Thank you for the chance to speak with you at your AGM today. AGMs are important formal processes in the corporate life of an organisation. But they also provide an opportunity to reflect on what the organisation has achieved over the last twelve months, and to look into the future at the challenges ahead. You - as members, directors, staff and supporters of Epilepsy Action - know the organisation much better than I do. So I'm not going to attempt a review of your past, or polish up my crystal ball for some future gazing.
Disability Rights
I recently returned from attending a United Nations meeting, where work is progressing on the development of an International Convention on the Rights of People with Disabilities.
Disability Rights
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.
Disability Rights
Address By Graeme Innes Deputy Disability Discrimination Commissioner to the Conference Of The Roundtable For People With A Print Disability 22 May 2000
Disability Rights
The Commission welcomes the opportunity to provide a written contribution ahead of the Committee’s consideration of Australia’s 2nd and 3rd periodic reports under the CRPD and to engaging with the Committee during its 22nd session.
