Covenant

• Australia is the only Western democracy that does not have a national Human Rights Act, but this may be about to change.
• After an inquiry lasting more than a year, the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Human Rights has just delivered its report to parliament.

A ‘patchwork quilt’ approach

• Australia has a notoriously “patchwork quilt” approach to protecting human rights.
• Our existing anti-discrimination laws do not provide adequate protection against government conduct that violates human rights.
• A federal Human Rights Act in Australia would go a long way to fixing our current unequal and lopsided approach to protecting human rights.

International broken promises

• It’s more than 40 years since Australia ratified the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR) and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR).
• When the government committed to these two landmark international treaties (along with more than 170 other countries), it promised to implement these human rights laws in Australia.

What would a Human Rights Act look like?

Helpfully, the parliamentary committee’s report includes a model Human Rights Act the government can use as a draft bill. The model legislation includes important fundamental rights, currently not well protected in Australia, such as,
protection of children
protection of families
freedom of thought, conscience and religion
rights to culture
right to health
right to adequate standard of living
right to a healthy environment.

What difference would laws like this make?

• Having a national Human Rights Act will not fix every human rights problem we have in Australia.
• Having a Human Rights Act will make government more attuned to respecting human rights and more accountable for the consequences if it acts contrary to human rights.
• This is because the proposed Human Rights Act allows reasonable and justifiable limits to be placed on rights.

So, will it actually happen?