Australia's Universal Periodic Review 2014 Progress Report

21.1National framework

22Australia has limited legislative protection of human rights at a federal level. The protection available is largely confined to broad protections against discrimination. ACHRA notes that the ACT and the state of Victoria have legislative protection of human rights.¹²

23Last year’s UPR Progress Report recorded that the previous Australian Government released exposure draft legislation to consolidate anti-discrimination law and address technical, definitional and operational differences between existing federal anti-discrimination laws. Due to significant public concern on several matters including the grounds of discrimination covered and changes to the onus of proof, the bill did not proceed beyond the draft exposure stage. Accordingly, significant technical and operational differences between the four existing federal discrimination laws remain. ACHRA encourages the Australian Government to consider options to reduce this complexity and create better consistency between the laws. This would not only assist the general community but also the business community, particularly small business.

24The President of the Commission has described the Australian approach to the protection of human rights as a form of ‘exceptionalism’:

By this I mean that relative to comparable common and civil law systems, Australia has adopted a multifaceted and unique regime for human rights protection. We have few constitutional or legislative protections for our traditional freedoms such as freedom of speech or protection from arbitrary detention without trial. We have no Charter or Bill of rights, unlike all other common law countries; for most legal systems, all domestic laws are viewed through the prism of the rights defined in either the relevant Constitution or legislative Charter or Bill of Rights; Australia has no regional court like the European Court of Human Rights or similar courts in Latin America, Africa and the Middle East.

The consequence is that Australia is increasingly isolated from evolving jurisprudence and from the legal systems with which we share common values.¹³

25ACHRA is concerned that the Australian Government has not yet implemented outstanding recommendations from the 2008 Senate Inquiry into the effectiveness of the Sex Discrimination Act 1984 (Cth) in eliminating discrimination and promoting gender equality, and encourages the Australian Government to implement these amendments.

26The Australian Government has continued to support a number of initiatives under the Human Rights Framework,¹⁴ in particular, the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Human Rights (PJCHR). The PJCHR has quickly established itself as an important mechanism to implement Australia’s international human rights obligations at the domestic level and has continued its role to:

Scrutinise all bills and legislative instruments for compliance with human rights

Require the production of statements of compatibility of bills and legislative instruments with the seven main human rights treaties to which Australia is a party.

27Since its establishment the PJCHR has produced 35 reports to Parliament scrutinising hundreds of bills and legislative instruments and highlighting those bills which it considered to either raise human rights concerns or to be incompatible with human rights. In 2014 the PJCHR’s reports have included thematic examinations of three particular policy areas which were of concern: counter-terrorism legislation; migration and border protection; and social security.¹⁵ The PJCHR has continued to be concerned about the Stronger Futures measures directed towards Aboriginal communities in the NT and is currently undertaking a 12 month review to consider the evidence and test the continuing necessity for the Stronger Futures measures. The PJCHR intends to table its report in mid-2015.¹⁶

28ACHRA welcomed the release of the National Human Rights Action Plan (NAP) in December 2012. The Australian Government then commented that all UPR recommendations accepted or accepted in-part were referenced against specific actions in the NAP.¹⁷ The NAP included a monitoring arrangement that involves progress reporting to coincide with the Australian Government’s next UPR report planned for 2015.¹⁸

29Disappointingly, many of the measures committed to in the Australian Human Rights Framework and in the NAP have not occurred or have dissipated. For example:

Grants for human rights education activities were discontinued after the first round of funding

A proposed review of the compatibility of all existing legislation with human rights was not completed, nor any results published

Implementation of the NAP to date has been slow and many of the actions included will not be achieved within the agreed timeframe

No review of the Human Rights Framework has been conducted despite the commitment to complete this in 2014.

30Human rights education is foundational to the realisation of human rights and fundamental freedoms. Accordingly, human rights education must remain as a key priority and commitment for the Australian Government. The Commission has continued to host the Australian Public Service Human Rights Officer’s Network in order to support Australian Public Service employees to understand how human rights relate to their work. The Commission has also developed a suite of resources, to be launched in February 2015, which will assist businesses to understand, promote and protect human rights. The Victorian Equal Opportunity and Human Rights Commission has also established a Victorian Public Sector Human Rights Network for those working in the Victorian Public Sector.

31The Commission has continued to work with the Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority to mainstream human rights education in the national school curriculum. In December 2014, the Commission released a suite of resources as part of the RightsEd series that have been mapped to the Australian Curriculum. The resources focus on the topics of anti-racism and disability rights, and are linked to the History, Geography and Health and Physical Education curricula. The Commission has also developed a mapping resource for teachers called Human Rights Examples for the Australian Curriculum. This mapping resource is designed as a guide for teachers to provide human rights related examples that are consistent with key learning area content descriptions.

32Additionally, the Commission has worked in partnership with ABC Splash to create an interactive educational website called Choose Your Own Statistics. The content of this website has been closely mapped to the Australian Curriculum for Mathematics and is designed to assist children and young people in years 5 to 8 to analyse data in order to understand important human rights issues in Australian society.

33The ACT celebrated the tenth anniversary of the Human Rights Act 2004 (ACT). To mark the occasion the ACT Human Rights Commission and the Australian National University jointly presented a symposium on the Human Rights Act 2004 (ACT).¹⁹ In Victoria, the Charter of Human Rights and Responsibilities Act 2006 (Vic) is scheduled for a review after eight years of operation in 2015. ACHRA notes that a number of issues arising from the Charter’s four year review remain outstanding. ACHRA calls on the Victorian Government to ensure that any future amendments to the Charter do not reduce human rights protections.