ACEM is honoured to have Professor Tom Calma AO deliver the ACEM Foundation Lecture at this month’s Annual Scientific Meeting (ASM) in Perth. Professor Calma is founder of the Close the Gap campaign and a prolific campaigner of social justice, particularly for the rights and wellbeing of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities.
Professor Calma has been involved in Indigenous affairs at a local, community, state, national and international level and worked in the public sector for over 40 years and is currently on a number of boards and committees focussing on rural and remote Australia, health, education, justice reinvestment, research, leadership, reconciliation and economic development.
Professor Calma was the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Justice Commissioner at the Australian Human Rights Commission from 2004 to 2010. He also served as Race Discrimination Commissioner from 2004 until 2009.
Register for the Foundation Lecture
Professor Calma will speak on Monday 19 November at 5pm.
Registration is required to attend this complimentary lecture.
Visit the ASM website to register for the lecture.
Constitutional recognition
In October, Professor Calma was one of many current and former social justice commissioners who called for systemic reforms to address concerns facing Indigenous communities, including the need for a representative voice for Indigenous peoples; constitutional reform, a truth-telling process and a framework for a treaty agreement.
Professor Calma was interviewed on the ABC’s RN program with current Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Justice Commissioner June Oscar AO.
Social Justice Report 2005
Through his 2005 Social Justice Report, Professor Calma called for the life expectancy gap between Indigenous and non-Indigenous people to be closed within a generation and advocated embedding a social determinants philosophy into public policy around health, education and employment in order to address Indigenous inequality gaps. This spearheaded the Close the Gap for Indigenous Health Equality Campaign resulting in COAG’s Closing the Gap response in December 2007.