Solitary confinement must not be used as a response to COVID-19
The Human Rights Law Centre has made a submission to the Royal Commission into Violence, Abuse, Neglect and Exploitation of People with Disability raising concerns about the use of harmful practices like solitary confinement on people living with disability in prisons. Solitary confinement is a fundamentally cruel practice that is known to inflict long term and irreversible harm, with international human rights law prohibiting the use of solitary confinement on people with disability when their condition would be exacerbated by such measures.
The submission calls for the practice of solitary confinement of people in prisons to be prohibited. It also highlights that the use of solitary confinement as a primary means to prevent the spread of COVID-19 in prisons is inappropriate especially when safer alternatives, like reducing the number of people detained in prisons, exist.
Read the Human Rights Law Centre’s submission to the to the Royal Commission here.

Submission to Inquiry into the Whistleblower Protection Authority Bill 2025
The Albanese Government is being pushed take the opportunity to enact stronger legal protections for whistleblowers and establish a Whistleblower Protection Authority.
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Joint submission against expansion of the Making Queensland Safer Act 2024
The Human Rights Law Centre and Change the Record have are strongly opposed to the Crisafulli Government's laws that will sentence even more children to adult-length terms of imprisonment. The laws will lock up children for even longer, and harm kids, families, and communities.
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Submission to 2025-26 Federal Budget consultation
The Human Rights Law Centre has put forward recommendations to the 2025-26 federal budget submissions across a range of issues, including campaigning for an Australian Human Rights Act, migration justice, prisoners’ rights, whistleblower protection and modern slavery.
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