Pod Rights

Following his address at the National Press Club last week, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Justice Commissioner, Mick Gooda, talks to Race and Disability Discrimination Commissioner, Graeme Innes about his agenda and the issues associated with it.

The right to health includes the right to mental health. Mental ill health is a subject which features more in the media today than it did some years ago. This should be a good thing. But in the case of mental ill health, the major thrust of the coverage deals with the chronic under-resourcing of this area. There are few - if any - Australians better qualified to discuss this topic than Professor Pat McGorry, who was named Australian of the year in 2009, and has devoted his time in that position to raising the profile of mental ill health issues. Specialising in mental health reform, he is a professor of youth mental health at the University of Melbourne and Executive Director of the Origin Research Centre. He has authored more than 250 articles, five books, and over 40 book chapters in this area. In this instalment of PodRights, Professor McGorry talks to Disability and race Discrimination Commissioner, Graeme Innes, about the challenges faced by the mental ill health system in Australia today.

It seems that unlawful age discrimination and ageism are unnoticed, invisible and accepted in our society. Recently, the Commission released the Age discrimination - exposing the hidden barrier for mature age workers paper, which sought to expose and raise awareness about this issue. In this instalment of PodRights, Race and Disability Discrimination Commissioner, Graeme Innes talks to the Commission's age discrimination expert, Priya SaratChandran about ageism, unlawful age discrimination and the barriers that they create for mature age workers who are in or seeking employment in Australia today.

Sexual harassment has never been more in the headlines than it is today, with the high profile David Jones case playing out on the national stage.Yet, almost thirty years since the passage of the Sex Discrimination Act, its prevalence has not diminished. Research has shown that there is significant confusion as to what actions constitute sexual harassment in the workplace, where the 'workplace' can be deemed to begin and end and what organisations can do to eliminate it. In this week's PodRights, Sex Discrimination Commissioner, Elizabeth Broderick discusses these issues with Peter Wilson, national president of the Australian Human Resources Institute, who has labelled sexual harassment 'a corporate cancer'.

Dr. Garth Japhet is a world leader in edutainment. He uses mass media as a means of education, advocacy and the promotion of public health and, in the process, has created popular TV and radio series attracting huge audiences. Soul City is one such series that has rated in the top three shows in South Africa with an audience of over 30 million people and sales to over 38 countries. Soul City has run since 1994 with a companion radio serial drama and multimedia campaign and Garth has created a children's series The Soul Buddyz plus 8 feature films. His shows reach over 45 million people annually. To understand more about this successful approach to promoting human rights and social issues, and associated solutions, through entertainment, Race and Disability Discrimination Commissioner, Graeme Innes spoke with Dr Japhet while he was in Australia recently.

On Human Rights Day - December 10 - every year, the Australian Human Rights Commission announces the winners and highly commended nominees for the annual Human Rights Medals and Awards. High profile winners in the past have included Associate Professor Fed Hollows AC (1990), The Hon. Justice Michael Kirby AC, CMG (1991), Eddie Mabo (deceased) (1992), Rt Hon. Malcolm Fraser AC CH (2000), Phillip Adams AO and Father Chris Riley AM (2006). With this years nominations closing at 5pm on Monday 4 October 2010, race and Disability Discrimination Commissioner, Graeme Innes took this opportunity to discuss the significance of the medal and awards, their history and the categories that are open to entry with the Commission's Director of Public Affairs, Paul Oliver.

Recent media reports of violence against international students have seen concern through the halls of learning and the community. Are there factors that make international students more at risk in Australia, and why do these students face difficulties in employment, housing and public transport?  To hear more on these issues, Race Discrimination Commissioner, Graeme Innes, spoke to Tammi Jonas, the President of the Council of Australian Postgraduate Associations (CAPA).

After three years of consultations around the country with over 2500 African Australians, the Commission recently completed a review of their experiences as they settle in Australia. In our own words- African Australians: A review of human rights and social inclusion issues was launched in North Melbourne on 18 June 2010 (see www.humanrights.gov.au/africanaus/review/index.html). It presents issues, solutions and best practice initiatives, identified by African Australian people themselves, as well as observations and suggestions from over 150 government and non-government stakeholders and service providers. This podcast is a recording of the panel of five African Australian representatives who spoke at the launch about their experiences and the experiences of their communities. 

On 17 July 2010, an agreement was announced whereby, by 2014, the major cinema chains (Hoyts, Village, Event and Reading International) would provide captioning and audio description at every one of the 132 cinema complexes they operate in Australia, across 242 screens. This is a fantastic improvement on the 12 screens around the country that currently provide captioning for three sessions per week. (See media releases: http://www.humanrights.gov.au/about/media/media_releases/2010/76_10.html) But what is audio description and captioning? And how does it aid and enhance the cinema experience for the large number of people who are deaf, have hearing impairment, are blind, or have low vision? To find out more, Disability Discrimination Commissioner, Graeme Innes spoke to Mr Alex Varley, CEO of Media Access Australia, about this important announcement, the technology involved and the way it works.

Work/ life balance, especially for people raising a family, is one of the eternal questions when it comes to reforming the workplace and addressing the competing pressures of working and raising children. How do we value the time people, mainly women, carry out as unpaid caring work? How do men fit into this equation? In this instalment of Pod Rights, Race and Disability Discrimination Commissioner, Graeme Innes, talks Dr Lyn Craig, an ARC QEII Fellow from the Social Policy research Centre at the University of New South Wales, about her research entitled, Work and Family Time: Australia in Comparative Perspective. It compares the time demands of parenthood and the gender division of care in the United States, Australia, Italy, France and Denmark, and includes an overview policies in those countries that are designed to promote better division of unpaid care.

Mia Northrop is a digital media professional from Flemington in Melbourne, and the brains behind the Vindaloo Against Violence campaign, which took place in February this year. Vindaloo Against Violence urged people around Australia to show their support for Indian communities by dining out at Indian restaurants as a statement against the spate of violent attacks on Indian people - mainly students - which had been taking place. Mia used her skills with and understanding of digital media, gained over 10 years' experience marketing website and designing digital user experiences, to create and promote the event through facebook, initially, then a dedicated website. In this instalment of PodRights, Mia talks to Race and Disability Discrimination Commissioner, Graeme Innes, about cyber racism and the ways digital media can be used as a tool against racism.

UNiTE is the current United Nations Campaign to prevent violence against women. The United Nations and many international human rights advocacy groups have suggested that violence against women and girls is one of the most widespread violations of human rights in the world today. In this week's instalment of PodRights, Sex Discrimination Commissioner. Elizabeth Broderick, talks to UN Assistant Secretary-General, Special Adviser on Gender Issues and Advancement of Women, Rachel Mayanja, about the implications of violence against women and the goals of the UNITE campaign.

Language is an integral part of culture. And with more and more people living in places that are not their country of origin, language protection has become an important human rights issue. As this week is Samoan Language and Culture Week, Race and Disability Discrimination Commissioner, Graeme Innes, took the time to talk to the Samoan High Commissioner, Mr Lemalu Samaustate, about the kind of strategies that might best protect the languages of linguistic minorities in a country like Australia.

On 27 April this year, the Australian Human Rights Commission and the Internet Industry Association co-hosted a one day Summit to start a conversation about the issue of cyber-racism and the development of effective solutions. Among the delegates at the Summit was Mr Mozelle Thompson, a member of Facebook's Advisory Board. In this podcast, Race and Disability Discrimination Commissioner, Graeme Innes, talks to Mozelle Thompson about the ways that Facebook is addressing the issue of cyber racism, as well as the pros and cons of regulation and harnessing the power of internet communities to take action in social networking spaces.

In the media reporting of boat arrivals, Australia's 'International obligations' are often mentioned. But what are they? In this podcast, Race and Disability Discrimination Commissioner, Graeme Innes, talks to Professor Jane McAdam about what Australia's international obligations are at law. Jane is an Associate Professor in the Faculty of Law at UNSW and Director of the International Refugee and Migration Law Project at the Gilbert and Tobin Centre of Public Law.