17th Session of EMRIP in Geneva, Item 5 Statement
Statement from Katie Kiss at the 17th EMRIP session, focusing on Indigenous rights and participation.
Statement from Katie Kiss at the 17th EMRIP session, focusing on Indigenous rights and participation.
I would like to begin by acknowledging the traditional owners of the land we are meeting on tonight. I pay my respects to their elders past and present.
I speak as the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Justice Commissioner and National Race Discrimination Commissioner of Australia. I am a member of Australia’s national human rights institution.
I would also like to thank the conference organisers for two things: – firstly for inviting me to present today, and secondly, for developing a conference on such a critical but very marginalised theme on the national stage – Indigenous policy development – and how we can all do it better.
Thank you for the invitation to appear before the committee. I would like to acknowledge that we are meeting on Gadigal land, and pay my respects to the Gadigal people.
In championing the cause of universality (of human rights) I should emphasise that universality does not negate cultural diversity; on the contrary, I believe that it reinforces and protects cultural diversity.
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.
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.
In April last year, I was asked by the Minister for Defence to conduct an independent Review into the Treatment of Women - both in the Australian Defence Force Academy, or ADFA, and in the broader Australian Defence Force - on behalf of the ºÚÁÏÇ鱨վ.
It's great to be here today. I can't think of a better time to be taking stock of developments in human rights law and policy in Australia, or a better place to be doing this than Victoria. As a Sydney-sider I have to admit I haven't always been fully appreciative of the number plates down here, which proclaim: ‘Victoria: The Place to Be!’ But there's no doubt that Victoria is the place to be right now, when it comes to human rights developments.
The Australian HR protection system is a direct result of the history and development of white settlement in this country. If you compare us with the United States, we Australians had no free settlement, no War of Independence and little or no nation building by private entrepreneurship; rather it was done by way of British government fiat.
When the CWA started in 1923 about 40% of Australians lived in rural communities. Rural Australia was made up of small but functioning communities whose members had to work hard but could make a living from the land.
Acting Chancellor Mr Stephen Keim SC, Vice Chancellor Professor Peter Coaldrake, Professor the Hon. Michael Lavarch, Executive Dean of Law, other members of the official party, Faculty staff, graduates and your families and friends.
Thank you for inviting me here today, to speak about a topic which in my view receives too little attention yet is one of critical importance not only to the way we live but to the kind of society we live in – the topic of human rights education.
I was invited to pick my own topic for discussion. As an ex-judge being invited to speak to students of the law, I assumed that I was expected to speak on something related to the administration of the law from a judge's perspective. And as President of Australia's Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission (HREOC), I assumed I was expected to mention the role of human rights promotion in our legal system.
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