Our new major report, Together in Safety, exposes the Australian Government’s deliberate and systematic approach to keeping refugee families apart.
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The Human Rights Law Centre is expanding our work fighting for climate and environmental justice. Using our srategic litigation and advocacy expertise, this new program area will push governments and companies to set more ambitious climate targets, protect human rights and secure the reforms needed for a sustainable future.
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The freedom 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.
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No one should be subjected to abuse in prisons and places of detention. Yet cruel and degrading treatment is all too common in prisons and police cells across Australia. The UN’s anti-torture treaty, the Convention Against Torture and the Optional Protocol to the Convention Against Torture (OPCAT), are designed to end the mistreatment of people behind bars.
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Strip searching is carried out routinely in Australian prisons, despite the availability of non-invasive alternatives. Strip searches rob people of their dignity and can be traumatising for survivors of abuse. The Human Rights Law Centre advocates for an end to the use of routine strip searching in Australian prisons.
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For 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
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The Human Rights Law Centre is advocating to change regressive bail laws across the country that are driving up the number of unsentenced people in prison. These dangerous laws are not making the community safer, instead, they are increasing the overrepresentation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people in prisons and targeting women experiencing disadvantage.
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The Human Rights Law Centre is supporting the North Australian Aboriginal Justice Agency (NAAJA) in their intervention in the coronial inquest into the police-shooting death of Warlpiri and Luritja teenager Kumanjayi Walker. The Human Rights Law Centre is assisting NAAJA to highlight systemic injustices experienced by Aboriginal people in the Northern Territory, including systemic racism in policing.
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Children do not belong behind bars. Yet across Australia, children as young as 10 can be charged by police and locked up in prison. Due to systemic injustice, this is disproportionately impacting Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander children. The Human Rights Law Centre is a founding member of the #RaisetheAge campaign which seeks to raise the age of criminal responsibility from 10 to at least 14 years old Australia wide.
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The Victorian Aboriginal Legal Service, the Human Rights Law Centre and proud Wakka Wakka man Dennis brought a legal challenge in the Federal Court. The case called for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people to be able to access the age pension earlier, to account for the gap in life expectancy.
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Join the Human Rights Law Centre’s national campaign to create an Australian Human Rights Act to ensure human rights are properly protected in law at the national level.
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This report from the Migrant Justice Institute and the Human Rights Law Centre proposes new whistleblower protections to enable migrant workers to address exploitation.
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The 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.
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A new report exposes the failure of the Federal parliament in the 2019 –22 term to fulfil its promise to properly consider human rights before voting on legislation. 60% of legislation with human rights concerns was made into law with no review completed by the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Human Rights.
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Big corporations shouldn’t be allowed to manipulate politicians to put their profits ahead of our wellbeing. The Human Rights Law Centre advocates for changes to laws and policies to end the cycle of corporate influence in our political system.
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The Australian parliament must reform public and private sector whistleblowing law and establish a whistleblower protection authority, according to this report by Griffith University, the Human Rights Law Centre and Transparency International Australia.
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Broken Promises: Two years of corporate reporting under Australia’s Modern Slavery Act examines the second year of corporate statements submitted to the Government's Modern Slavery Register by 92 companies sourcing from four sectors with known risks of modern slavery: garments from China, rubber gloves from Malaysia, seafood from Thailand and fresh produce from Australia.
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A 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.
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Enshrining the right to a healthy environment in law is one way we can hold governments to account for the benefit of future generations. In November 2022, we secured a win when the ACT Government announced that in 2023 they will introduce the right to a healthy environment into the ACT Human Rights Act.
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In 2004, the Australian Capital Territory became the first Australian jurisdiction to establish a Human Rights Act. At present, however, people have to take legal action in the complex and expensive Supreme Court, which is out of reach for most people. In 2022, the Human Rights Law Centre called on the Australian Capital Territory to remove these needless barriers from the Act to make it easier for people to uphold their human rights.
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The Human Rights Law Centre has developed an online resource that shows 101 examples of how Charters of Rights that exist in the ACT, Victoria and Queensland are making peoples lives better.
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Every day these other prosecutions remain alive, democracy in Australia suffers. The cases send a chilling message to prospective whistleblowers: don’t speak out or you will pay the price.
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For years – to justify spending billions of dollars on prison expansion – governments across Australia have parroted the line that prisons support “community safety”. This premise is false.
Read MoreWhistleblowers make our democracy stronger, but too often, people are afraid to come forward when they witness wrongdoing for fear of reprisal. The Human Rights Law Centre pushes for stronger whistleblower protections through advocacy and strategic litigation.
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The Human Rights Law Centre has adopted an equitable briefing policy for the new financial year.
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The Human Rights Law Centre has run a competition calling on high school students to write an essay explaining how a Charter of Rights would benefit Australians. The competition aimed to find the best introduction to an Australian Charter of Human Rights.
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Everyone should be able to access quality education, regardless of their postcode or bank balance. People living in remote and rural areas, First Nations people and children from migrant backgrounds often lack equitable access to education. The Human Rights Law Centre co-hosted a webinar on the right to education with the UTS Centre for Social Justice & Inclusion in February 2022.
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The recent change of government in Australia represents a much-needed opportunity to revitalise Australia’s approach to corporate respect for human rights, including to reorientate the Modern Slavery Act by requiring companies to undertake effective human rights due diligence aimed at preventing harm.
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Every day these other prosecutions remain alive, democracy in Australia suffers. The cases send a chilling message to prospective whistleblowers: don’t speak out or you will pay the price.
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It was hard to watch the bureaucratic machine perpetrating injustice – Mark Dreyfus must now intervene in the other two cases
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Access to abortion is a matter of life and health for all people who experience pregnancy.
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At the election, Australians told its leaders two things: we want decisive action to help stop the climate crisis, and greater integrity in our political system. With the most progressive Parliament seen in decades, there is now a once-in-a-generation opportunity to achieve both.
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Human rights laws in Victoria, the ACT and Queensland are making concrete improvements to people’s lives, particularly by preventing homelessness and promoting health.
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Truth and honest public debate are vital during an election campaign. But experience in Australia and around the world shows that elections are precisely when some candidates and media platforms choose to spread disinformation for their own financial and political gain.
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On the first day of March this year, Scott Morrison declared his commitment to democratic principles. ‘My government will never be backward when it comes to standing up for Australia’s national interests and standing up for liberal democracy in today’s world,’ the prime minister told reporters.
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The freedom to protest – to gather, to object, to call for change – is an indispensable component of our democracy. Social change has never been inevitable.
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A new report, Paper Promises? Evaluating the early impact of Australia’s Modern Slavery Act, examines statements submitted to the Government's Modern Slavery Register by 102 companies sourcing from four sectors with known risks of modern slavery: garments from China, rubber gloves from Malaysia, seafood from Thailand and fresh produce from Australia.
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Selling Out: How powerful industries corrupt our democracy exposes how the powerful fossil fuels, gambling and tobacco industries are taking advantage of Australia’s weak integrity laws and distorting our democratic processes to put their profits ahead of our wellbeing.
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The only people brought before the courts over illegal spying and war crimes are the people who helped expose them.
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In early October, the ACT Court of Appeal refused to allow the trial of whistleblower Bernard Collaery to go ahead in secret, behind closed courtroom doors. A one-page summary said secret trials erode public confidence in the court and open the door to political prosecutions.
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