SYDNEY, AUSTRALIA - MARCH 15: An inflatable planet earth is bounced around the crowd during a Climate Change Awareness rally at Sydney Town Hall on March 15, 2019 in Sydney, Australia. (Photo by Don Arnold/Getty Images)
A Human Rights Act for Australia
Right now, Australia doesn’t have a federal law that protects everyone's fundamental human rights.
Why does Australia need a Human Rights Act?
Human rights are the fundamental freedoms and protections that belong to all of us. With a Human Rights Act, the government would need to respect human rights when making decisions, including our right to adequate housing, a healthy environment, education, health, and more.
Australia’s current laws are failing to protect our fundamental rights, and without a Human Rights Act, there’s almost nothing Australians can do if they suffer a human rights abuse. Because of this, powerful people continue to abuse human rights.
Australia is the only liberal democracy in the world without a Human Rights Act that protects human rights in law.
Which of our rights are protected?
Australia has Anti-Discrimination laws, but these only protect people’s right to live free from discrimination on the basis of their age, sex, disability, or race.
These laws don’t protect all our rights, including our right to access healthcare, to an education, to a healthy environment, and the rights of children.
What can you do if your rights are abused?
You can lodge a complaint to the Australian Human Rights Commission, who will then investigate the claim.
If your complaint isn’t resolved through a conciliation process, then complaints about discrimination may be taken to court under the Anti-Discrimination Acts.
If your complaint involves any other human right, there’s nothing more you can do. And there’s no consequences or accountability to those who abuse human rights.
This system is fundamentally flawed and is failing to prevent human rights abuses from happening.
What would a Human Rights Act do?
A Human Rights Act is a tool with which we can fight for the fundamental rights and freedoms that belong to all of us and hold those in power to account.
A Human Rights Act will:
Prevent human rights abuses by forcing the government to consider human rights when passing laws, making decisions about policies, and delivering services.
Provide an avenue for people to take action and challenge injustice when their rights are abused.
Provide remedies for people whose rights are abused.
With a Human Rights Act, we can create better lives for ourselves, our communities, and for those around us.
What does that look like?
The ACT, Victoria, and Queensland have their own state-based Human Rights Acts. They’re a good guide for a federal Human Rights Act, demonstrating how people can use it to challenge injustice and human rights abuses.
In Queensland, a single mother who had experienced domestic violence successfully challenged her eviction using the Queensland Human Rights Act. The woman’s former partner had damaged their rental, leading to an eviction notice. With the help of Tenants Queensland, she was able to transfer the tenancy into her name, securing the home for herself and her children.
Our friends at the Human Rights Act Coalition have compiled 101 cases that illustrate how ordinary people have used these laws as a tool to make their lives better.
But without a national Human Rights Act, there is nothing enshrined in law that protects the rights of everyone in Australia.Sign the petition calling for a Human Rights Act.
Pensioners are living in their cars, and single parents and their children are couch surfing as house and rental prices skyrocket. People can no longer afford to access healthcare. Bushfires, floods, and droughts wreak havoc on Australians across the country.
The right to housing is enshrined in the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. However, this right is not protected in Australia’s laws.
Without a Human Rights Act, government policies don’t need to to respect human rights. It’s one reason why today’s Australian housing policies aren’t focused on the fact that housing is a human right. Instead, they’re designed to promote investment.
With an enforceable right to housing embedded in our laws, we could challenge forced evictions so that nobody is left out in the cold.
Healthy environment
In August 2024, the ACT became the first and only place in Australia where the right to a healthy environment is protected. We should all be able to challenge climate injustice, no matter where we live. However, due to Australia’s fragmented human rights laws, the protection of your rights varies depending on where you live.
A healthy environment is crucial for our wellbeing and happiness. Protecting this right in our laws means we can create a future where our rights are realised – with clean air, safe waters and climate, and healthy biodiversity and ecosystems.
Robodebt
The Robodebt scheme was an unlawful scheme that the Morrison government implemented to collect alleged overpayments from welfare recipients. This flawed system forced many people to pay debts that they never owed. The government unjustly demanded repayment and shifted the burden of proof onto the accused.
If we had a Human Rights Act, the government would have been forced to consider people’s human rights before rolling out robodebt.
Aged care
The horrifying findings of the Aged Care Royal Commission laid bare the abuses that too many older people face; abuse and neglect, sexual abuse; the use of chemical restraints to name a few.
The recommendation was a new aged care system, based on human rights. But how do you create this system, when our human rights are not even protected in our laws?
Religious Discrimination Bill
In 2021, the Morrison government proposed the Religious Discrimination Bill supposedly protecting religious people from discrimination. In reality, it would give religious people the right to discriminate against others.
That Bill threatened LGBTQIA+ people, women, people with disabilities, and even other people of faith -an example of how Australia’s fragmented human rights laws don’t protect all our rights.
Australia’s anti-discrimination laws don’t protect people from discrimination on the basis of their religious beliefs.
A Human Rights Act, by contrast, would protect people against discrimination based on their religious beliefs, as well as protect the rights of LGBTQIA+ people, people with disabilities, and women. It would allow rights to be balanced – one group’s rights would not take priority over another.
The time to protect human rights is now.
Together, we can make Australia a place where human rights are protected, where people can challenge human rights abuses, and where there is justice for those whose rights are abused.Sign the petition calling for a Human Rights Act.
The good news is that after almost a decade of inaction, we’re closer than ever to protecting our human rights in law.
The Labor-led Parliamentary Joint Committee on Human Rights has recently recommended the government legislate a Human Rights Act to protect all our human rights in our federal laws.
Now, we need the Albanese government to agree to the inquiry recommendation and commit to legislating a Human Rights Act.
There is widespread support for a Human Rights Act:
75% of Australians support a Human Rights Act, and only 3% of Australians actually oppose one.
Australia doesn’t have a federal law protecting our human rights. Now more than ever, we need a Human Rights Act to prevent human rights abuses and so we can challenge injustice when their rights are abused. With a Human Rights Act, we can create better lives for everyone. pic.twitter.com/4MORDjxNHV
— Amnesty International Australia 🕯 (@amnestyOz) May 20, 2024
In May 2024, a Labor-led Parliamentary inquiry recommended the government legislate a Human Rights Act. The Albanese government now has to accept or reject the recommendation.
In February 2022, when the Morrison government tried to pass the Religious Discrimination Bill, many Labor MPs spoke out about the need for a Human Rights Act.
The Attorney General, Mark Dreyfus, has publicly expressed his support for Human Rights Acts.
Together, we can pressure the Australian government to adopt a Human Rights Act that forces the federal government to consider human rights and gives people a tool to take action.
A single, national Human Rights Act would benefit all of us. Take action.
We are really close to making a national Human Rights Act a reality.
Right now, the government needs to hear from people like you as they decide whether to legislate a Human Rights Act. A groundswell of public support is needed to get the Albanese government to legislate a Human Rights Act, so everyone in Australia can enjoy their rights and freedoms.
With a powerful legacy of over 60 years of human rights advocacy, a global movement of 10 million people – and 500,000 people in Australia – Amnesty International has the people power to build public support for a Human Rights Act. Our collective voices have a real opportunity to make a massive difference.
Join us in calling for a national Human Rights Act so the government is forced to put human rights first:
Sign the petition calling on the Albanese government to legislate a Human Rights Act
Ensure Australia is a place where human rights are protected, where people can challenge human rights abuses, and where there is justice for those whose rights are abused.
Resources to support the campaign for a Human Rights Act
We already have laws protecting the human rights of people in the ACT, Victoria, and Queensland. Now, we need one to protect the human rights of everyone in Australia.
First Nations peoples are the continuing custodians of the lands, waters and skies of this continent, of which sovereignty was never ceded.
We recognise the strength and intergenerational resilience of Elders, and honour the culture and wisdom that they have passed on to future generations.
We continue to fight for Indigenous Rights and stand in solidarity with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities, acknowledging the ongoing impacts of colonisation and human rights abuses which disproportionately impact on First Nations peoples.
