The coronial inquest into the death in police custody of Yorta Yorta woman, Tanya Day, commences today.

In the week before the inquest into Yorta Yorta woman Tanya Day’s death in police custody, the Andrews Government has announced that it will abolish the offence of public drunkenness and replace it with an Aboriginal-led, public health response.

Doctors, human rights lawyers and advocates have urged the Morrison Government to listen to expert advice about the need for doctors to be at the heart of medical assessments for sick refugees on Manus and Nauru, as the reporting deadline closes to the senate inquiry investigating the Medevac repeal bill.  

More than 70 health, legal, community and women’s organisations have joined together today to launch an open letter calling on members of parliament to be on the right side of history, and vote in support of the Reproductive Health Care Reform Bill 2019 that will be brought before parliament this week.

The New South Wales Parliament has a historic opportunity to bring its 119 year old abortion laws into the 21st Century.

Today, the Human Rights Law Centre welcomes the Federal Government’s appointment of Mr John Southalan as the first-ever Australian independent examiner charged with investigating reported instances of corporate misconduct by Australian multinationals.

The June 2019 AFP raids on Annika Smethurst’s home and the headquarters of the ABC should be the turning point to end law enforcement overreach and mass surveillance that damages Australia’s open democracy, the Human Rights Law Centre told a parliamentary inquiry.

Newly obtained data shows that in one month, 403 strip searches were conducted on children at two youth prisons in NSW. Only one item – a ping pong ball – was found as a result of these strip searches.

Amidst reports last week of the extraordinarily high rate at which the Australian Federal Police accessed the communications history of journalists, the Human Right Law Centre, Digital Rights Watch and Access Now have called on the Morrison Government to urgently reform metadata laws.

The Queensland Government’s decision to move kids out of police watch houses “as soon as humanly possible” is welcomed, but the Human Rights Law Centre calls on the Government to publicly commit to a long-term solution so that no child is warehoused in a police watch house again.

The Australian Government should repeal laws that strip Australian dual nationals of their citizenship and place them at an unacceptable risk of the statelessness, family separation and indefinite detention, the Human Rights Law Centre said in a submission to a Parliamentary committee.

The Human Rights Law Centre joined 14 other non-governmental organisations to express concern about the governments of Human Rights Council members attacking and discrediting UN experts when human rights abuses by Council members are called out.