PARLIAMENTARY JOINT COMMITTEE ON HUMAN RIGHTS
INQUIRY INTO AUSTRALIA’S HUMAN RIGHTS FRAMEWORK
AUSTRALIAN HUMAN RIGHTS INSTITUTE, UNSW SYDNEY
OPENING STATEMENT FOR HEARING ON 27 SEPTEMBER 2023
We welcome the opportunity to appear before you today. The Australian Human Rights Institute is a cross-disciplinary research institute based in the Faculty of Law and Justice at the University of New South Wales. The Institute - and its predecessor the Australian Human Rights Centre – has worked for more than 30 years researching ways to better protect human rights in Australia and overseas. Its research has consistently engaged with the implementation of international human rights norms in our domestic law and practice, including the desirability of adopting an Australian bill of rights, as well as how better to protect economic, social and cultural rights, the rights of persons with disabilities and of older persons, among many other topics.
The Institute calls on the Australian Government and the Australian Parliament to enact a federal human rights act that will enhance the protection of all human rights. We support in principle the proposed framework put forward by the Australian Human Rights Commission in its submission to this inquiry and in its Free and Equal discussion papers. This includes above all a federal statutory human rights charter that builds on but goes beyond the statutory human rights acts in the ACT, Victoria and Queensland, as well as strengthening the role of this Committee.
However, we consider that the content of the Commission’s proposals falls short of what a modern human rights statute should include. We submit that there are at least three important areas where a federal human rights act should be more ambitious and inclusive.
The first is in relation to economic, social and cultural rights. These are a well-established category of human rights, but often not included in bills of rights in the countries with which we commonly compare ourselves. However, many countries do include such rights in constitutions and legislation. We welcome the inclusion by the Commission of certain economic, social and cultural rights in their proposal. However, we note that the Commission has tended to adopt narrower, less generous formulations of these rights than those that international law provides for. We give the examples of the rights of culture and cultural heritage and propose a wider formulation of those rights.
The second is in relation to the human rights of older persons or human rights in older age. We agree with the submissions of other organisations that both existing Australian law and practice and many of the models proposed (including that of the Commission) fail to adequately protect our rights as we age. That is seen by the failure of the proposals to include explicit reference to older persons or older age that correspond to the specific guarantees relating to children, women, persons with disabilities, and indigenous peoples. In the context of widespread and largely accepted ageism and institutional and systemic age discrimination and exclusion, a human rights act that does not explicitly include references to older persons’ human rights fails our community. Part of the reason for this silence is that there is no international convention on the human rights of older persons – unlike in the other areas – and we call on the this Parliament and the Australian Government to support the development of such a treaty.
Finally, the right to clean, healthy, and sustainable environment should be included in any human rights act and we welcome the inclusion of such a right in the Commission’s proposal. When Australia voted in favour of the UN General Assembly resolution in July last year, it recognised and affirmed the importance of this right to the enjoyment of all rights. The inclusion in a Commonwealth human rights act of this right - in the broad form adopted by the General Assembly - will provide valuable ‘guardrails’ to protect our most vulnerable communities and will support good governance in the climate era.
We welcome your questions on the matters raised in our submission or on other matters relating to how we can improve the protection of human rights in Australia.
You can read the Australian Human Rights Institute's full submission to the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Human Rights Inquiry into Australia’s Human Rights Framework here.