A Human Rights Act for Australia

Amnesty International Parliamentary Friendship Group event

Parliament House, Canberra, 20 August 2024

Thank you –  it’s great to join you here tonight.

Thank you to Amnesty for hosting this event and thank you to those MPs here who are supporting the push for a Human Rights Act.

I acknowledge the Ngunnawal and Ngambri peoples and their ancestors and elders.

Human rights are of special importance to First Nations people.

First Nations people have endured terrible rights abuses from colonisation to now. The theft of land, the violence, the massacres, the denial of culture and the stolen generations.  The ongoing injustice of child removal, mass imprisonment, deaths in custody, inadequate housing, education, healthcare and more.

A Human Rights Act will help First Nations people and it will help all people in Australia.

Human rights are the blueprint for a decent, dignified life for all.

Human rights are the key to creating the kind of society we all want to live in.

When human rights are respected, our lives are better and our communities are stronger, healthier, safer and more prosperous. 

The Australian Human Rights Commission, under Professor Croucher’s leadership, made significant progress in advancing the case for a Human Rights Act and modernised, comprehensive and effective national anti-discrimination laws. 

The Commission’s landmark Free and Equal Report highlights the inadequacy of existing protections and provides a roadmap for reform.

While Australia has promised to protect the human rights set out in the major international treaties, these treaties are not directly enforceable in Australia. 

Our promises to the world are not backed up effectively.

Our national human rights protections are patchy.

Our human rights safety net has holes in it.

We live in one of the most safe, stable and prosperous countries on the planet but that safety, stability and prosperity has not been shared equally. 

There are countless examples in our history of human rights failings. From the white Australia policy, to the criminalisation of homosexuality, entrenched sex discrimination and more. 

Sadly, there are many contemporary examples also.

Our experience with Royal Commissions into Robodebt and the abuse experienced by people with disability and in aged care, have exposed serious human rights breaches, and show how our existing systems are just not adequate.

Other examples include the criminalisation of Australian citizens attempting to return from India during COVID and the police raids on the ABC and a journalist’s home for their role in exposing potential war crimes.

A Human Rights Act will help to change this.

A Human Rights Act will protect the rights of all people in Australia and help ensure that everyone is treated with dignity and respect.

It will promote better understanding of rights.

It will help to prevent rights abuses from occurring – by requiring Australian Government bodies, like government departments, the Federal Police, Medicare, Centrelink and more, to properly consider and act compatibly with human rights when developing laws and policies and delivering services. 

It will force them to think about human rights before they act. 

The experience from Victoria, the ACT, Queensland and places like the UK and NZ is that this is where a Human Rights Act has the biggest impact - in developing better laws, policies and services. 

Most of this work is done quietly, as part of the normal business of government by requiring governments to ask - What’s the goal we’re seeking to achieve with this law? Will it restrict rights? If so, is it justified? Is there are less restrictive way to achieve that goal? 

This is human rights in action delivering good, human-focused law and policy making.

But importantly, to ensure rights are taken seriously, a Human Rights Act must give people the power to take action if their rights are breached. 

Across the country, support for a national Human Rights Act is strong. 

It grew under COVID when there was a deeper appreciation of the lack of protection afforded to rights in Australia.

We have the Commission’s Free and Equal Report and an excellent Parliamentary Joint Committee on Human Rights Report pointing the way forward.

Now is the time to make a national Human Rights Act a reality.