The Australian Human Rights Institute at UNSW Sydney has provided the following submission to the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Human Rights Inquiry into Australia’s Human Rights Framework
This submission supports the enactment of a statutory federal Human Rights Act broadly along the lines proposed by the Australian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) in its submission to the Committee and as developed more fully in its Free and Equal discussion paper on a federal Human Rights Act. Such an Act should include the rights proposed by the AHRC but should go beyond what the Commission has put forward
In this submission the Institute proposes three additions to what the AHRC has proposed:
- The inclusion of economic, social and political rights (ESCR) in a federal Human Rights Act with full equivalence to civil and political rights, which we illustrate by reference to the rights to culture and cultural heritage as an example of rights that should be considered in a more expansive fashion than is currently provided for in the AHRC model;
- The explicit inclusion of the human rights of older persons (or human rights in older age) in a federal Human Rights Act; and
- The inclusion of a more expansive guarantee of the right to a healthy environment that is currently contained in the AHRC proposal.
The Institute notes that while the right to culture and cultural heritage and the right to a healthy environment are to some extent included in the AHRC proposal, our submission suggests that these be expanded. The Institute notes that there is no specific reference to the human rights of older persons in the AHRC model.
The AHRC has also proposed that an Australian Human Rights Act impose a positive duty on federal public authorities to act compatibly with the human rights expressed in the Charter and to consider human rights when making decisions. (AHRC, Free & Equal, Position Paper, pp139-161) The Institute supports this proposal.
Read the Institute's full submission here.