On 29 November 2024, the Australian Government passed a suite of harsh new migration laws which threaten refugee and migrant communities across Australia. These laws single people out for punishment and harsh treatment based purely on visa status, with no regard for the lives that people have built in Australia.
Read MoreThe Human Rights Law Centre’s explainer on the Albanese Government’s laws to give the Minister sweeping powers to ban almost any item, including everyday items like mobile phones, and give officers virtually unchecked powers to conduct searches with no basis.
Read MoreThe Prison to Deportation Pipeline, a new joint report from the Human Rights Law Centre and the University of Melbourne has found that visa cancellations on character grounds has increased tenfold in last ten years.
Read MoreThe Human Rights Law Centre’s explainer on the Albanese Government’s brutal laws to deport and punish refugees and people seeking asylum after the High Court of Australia ruled that ankle bracelets and curfews were punitive and unconstitiutional for people who were released from indefinite immigration detention.
Read MoreThe High Court handed down its decision in YBFZ v Minister for Immigration, Citizenship and Multicultural Affairs [2024] HCA 40 determining by majority that the Albanese Government’s imposition of punitive visa conditions is unconstitutional.
Read MoreThis explainer was created by the Human Rights Law Centre, WestJustice, and the Asylum Seeker Resource Centre to help you know your rights when interacting with the Australian Border Force.
Read MoreThe Human Rights Law Centre stands in solidarity with the refugee activists who have maintained a constant protest outside government and ministerial offices in Melbourne since 14 July 2024.
Read MoreThe Human Rights Law Centre welcomes the Albanese Government’s introduction of groundbreaking reforms to reduce widespread migrant worker exploitation.
Read MoreThe Albanese Government is trying to rush through dangerous new laws that will criminalise and punish people because of their visa status. Thanks to unrelenting community pressure, voting on the Bill has been delayed until at least 24 June.
Read MoreThe High Court allows indefinite detention of people who cannot be forcibly deported - but serious questions remain. The Human Rights Law Centre will not stop fighting to end cruel detention practices until the Albanese Government fixes this flawed system, and finally gives people the chance to rebuild their lives.
Read MoreAn explainer by the Human Rights Law Centre on the High Court’s decision in ASF17 v Commonwealth [2024] dismissing the appeal brought by ASF17 seeking his release from immigration detention.
Read MoreOur client, Ned Kelly Emeralds, was granted to leave to intervene in a High Court challenge that will determine whether our government can indefinitely detain people from countries that will not accept their forced return.
Read MoreThe Albanese Government is trying to rush through dangerous new laws that will criminalise and punish people because of their visa status.
Read MoreThe Migration Justice team have analysed the Albanese Government’s new preventive detention regime. Here is their analysis and explainer of the updated Migration Act.
Read MoreThis explainer responds to FAQs relating to the High Court’s judgment of NZYQ and what is likely to come next. It is not intended as legal advice.
Read MoreThe Bill amends the Migration Act 1958 (Cth) (the Act) and the Migration Regulations 1994 (Cth) to introduce a new regime for Subclass 070 (Bridging (Removal Pending)) visas (BVR).
Read MoreWe need to step back and ask ourselves: How did we get to this point, where both sides of parliament talk openly of flouting High Court judgments and subjecting migrants and refugees to lifelong punishment based solely on their legal status? And we need to ask ourselves: Who will be next?
Read MoreIn November 2023, the High Court ended this dark chapter when it ruled that it is unlawful and unconstitutional for the Australian Government to detain people indefinitely in immigration detention. This has life-changing consequences for people who have been detained for years without knowing if they will ever be released.
Read MoreThis week’s revelation of secret messages between Home Affairs Secretary Michael Pezzullo and Liberal lobbyist Scott Briggs tell us what we already knew: that, under Pezzullo’s direction, the Department of Home Affairs has grown into a vast, secretive and militarised force exerting extraordinary power over ordinary people seeking to make a home in Australia.
Read MoreThe Human Rights Law Centre is assisting Ned Kelly Emeralds in a series of legal challenges that could see people who have sought safety housed in the community, rather than in oppressive detention centres. Ned won the first appeal in the High Court – an important step to securing his freedom.
Read MoreReza Berati was just 23 years old when he was brutally murdered at the Manus Island Detention Centre. Until now, there has been very little justice or accountability. After years of fighting for some measure of justice, Reza’s family have finally settled their claim against the defendants on confidential terms.
Read MoreThe Migrant Workers Centre, Unions NSW, the Human Rights Law Centre, Immigration Advice and Rights Centre, and Migrant Justice Institute have set out the roadmap for strong and robust visa protections for migrant workers in a new report: Not Just Numbers: A Blueprint of Visa Protections for Temporary Migrant Workers.
Read MoreItem 2: Enhanced interactive dialogue with the Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Afghanistan and the Working Group on discrimination against women and girls
Read MoreTemporary migrants are not simply numbers on the national balance of payments. Nor are they passive victims who require law makers to step in and take responsibility for their lives. They are people who are an integral part of our community.
Read MoreThe Human Rights Law Centre is working to address systemic problems with Australia’s migration system that prevent migrants from becoming permanent residents or citizens.
Read MoreAustralia’s migration laws should aim to reunite people with their loved ones, not deliberately keep them apart. The Human Rights Law Centre advocates for an end to cruel migration policies that intentionally separate families.
Read MorePeople seeking safety in Australia should be treated with dignity and respect, not banished to a detention camp in another country. The Human Rights Law Centre continues to call for an end to this shameful policy.
Read MoreOur new major report, Together in Safety, exposes the Australian Government’s deliberate and systematic approach to keeping refugee families apart.
Read MoreFor almost five years, the Australian government refused to process Abdullah and Fatima’s family visa application, so the Human Rights Law Centre supported the family to challenge the delay in court
Read MoreThis report from the Migrant Justice Institute and the Human Rights Law Centre proposes new whistleblower protections to enable migrant workers to address exploitation.
Read MoreThe Albanese Government abolished Ministerial Direction 80, a policy which intentionally denied thousands of people fleeing persecution the basic human right to live in safety with their families.
Read MoreA new report by the Melbourne Social Equity Institute and Human Rights Law Centre, Labour in Limbo: Bridging Visa E holders and Modern Slavery Risk in Australia, casts a new light on the continued suffering of people who sought safety in Australia by boat.
Read MoreAs Australia begins to reconnect with the world, this paper highlights the restrictions that continue to prevent travel for many members of the Australian community and for refugees whose resettlement has been delayed, and proposes a pathway for the federal government to ensure no one is left behind.
Read MoreThe Australian Government is deliberately and systematically separating family members and preventing them from reuniting where one family member has sought asylum at Australia’s borders. Refugees are forced to make an unthinkable choice between their safety, their health and being with the ones they love.
Read MoreIt’s easy for many of us living in a country like Australia to take our human rights for granted. For most of us, most of the time, Australia is a great place to live.
Read MoreEveryone deserves to be safe in the face of COVID-19, but immigration detention facilities in Australia are creating unacceptable health risks.
Read MoreThe Australian Government has a duty of care to provide proper healthcare to the people it has held offshore on Nauru and Manus for six long years. Before the Medevac laws, it is clear that the Government was failing in its duty.
Read MoreToday marks an awful milestone. It is six years since then prime minister Kevin Rudd announced that anyone arriving in Australia by boat seeking safety would be deported to Manus Island in Papua New Guinea.
Read MoreThe medical and humanitarian crisis in Australia’s offshore detention camps in Nauru and Manus Island keeps escalating, with the bearers of our government’s harsh policies being the bodies of the people who have been held captive for nearly six years.
Read MoreThe government keeps playing politics with innocent people’s lives but the public mood has shifted. After almost six years of unmitigated cruelty to innocent people, Australia is finally rediscovering its moral compass. There’s a palpable sense that this has all gone too far, for too long.
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