PROJECT | Democratic Freedoms

The right to protest is fundamental to our democracy, but for years, protest rights across Australia have been under a sustained attack. The Human Rights Law Centre is fighting attacks on our right to protest through advocacy and strategic litigation.

The freedom to protest is fundamental to our democracy. So much progress for people and communities – from Aboriginal land rights to achieving marriage equality – was made possible through public mobilisation.

Our 2024 report Protest in Peril found that over the last two decades, protest rights across Australia have been steadily eroded through insufficient human rights protections, the introduction of anti-protest laws, and the legitimisation of harmful narratives about protesters.

The failure to protect protest rights disproportionately impacts people with the least access to institutional power and who rely on peaceful assembly to have their voices heard. This includes marginalised groups such as First Nations people and climate defenders.

Together with Greenpeace Australia Pacific and the Environmental Defenders Office, in 2021 we released Global Warning: the threat to climate defenders in Australia. The report mapped the systematic repression of communities and organisations advocating for climate justice.

In 2023, we released a new advocacy tool — the Declaration of our right to protest. Grounded in human rights law, the declaration asserts the fundamental right to protest and offers ten practical steps to safeguard the right from further erosion.

In 2025, we continue to play a key role in defending the rights of people impacted by attacks on our right to protest, including anti-war protesters and university students. We influence law reform by providing an independent, expert human-rights based approach to the regulation of free speech and protest.