Australia’s Human Rights Assessment - National Press Club

Hello and welcome to our inaugural Australian Human Rights Assessment.

Human rights are the key to living well.

Societies that protect human rights are stronger, healthier, safer and more prosperous.

It's in everyone's interest to protect people's rights.

Australia has achieved a lot on human rights.

We live in one of the safest, most stable and prosperous countries on the planet.

But that safety, stability and prosperity are not being shared equally.

There are gaps and failures.

And our success is fragile.

It is being threatened by major challenges including polarisation, division, rising racism, climate change, inequality and rapid technological change.

We have a strong foundation to respond but we must act now.

We need to strengthen our human rights and democratic foundations.

And we need to reaffirm our commitment to human rights - a commitment which I believe is at the heart of what it means to be Australian.

In this address I'll draw on two connected themes; trust and unity.

Trust - because trust in each other and in our democracy is essential to the wellbeing of all Australians.

And unity - because rising division and polarisation risk undermining our human rights progress.

I acknowledge the Ngunnawal people and their ancient and continuing connection to the land we're on. I acknowledge Selina Walker and all First Peoples here today.

Canberra is an Indigenous word, said to mean 'meeting place'.

The choice of this word for our nation's capital speaks to the potential for greater unity and healing and building a better shared future where the human rights of this land's First Peoples and of all Australians are realised.

Where do human rights come from and why do they matter?

Human rights are standards that governments around the world have agreed to meet so that everyone can live a safe, free and dignified life.

Human rights belong to all of us, no matter who we are or where we come from.

They are about being treated fairly and treating others fairly.

Human rights reflect values like equality, freedom, respect, dignity, kindness, thinking of others and looking out for each other. Australian values.

Human rights have a long history going back to the Magna Carta and earlier.

To the rule that no one is above the law, not even the king.

To rules that you can't be punished or imprisoned without due process.

In many ways human rights reflect the golden rule running through the world's major religions: treat others as you would want to be treated.

The modern human rights movement emerged from the horrors of World War 2.

During the war, Australia and our allies defined our common purpose as fighting for liberty, justice and human rights.

After the war and the atrocity of the Holocaust, the world came together and said, "Never Again".

To promote global peace, development and prosperity they created the United Nations and a suite of new international laws and institutions.

Australia played a leading role.

Critically - out of the mass slaughter and unimaginable human suffering - they produced a document that is one of humanity's greatest achievements.

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights

Its first article proclaims that all human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights.

These simple words speak to every one of us and say: you have value, you matter and you deserve dignity - because you are human.

The words are grounded in our common humanity.

They unite us in our difference.

No us and them.

We all bleed the same. We all love. We all suffer. We all experience hope, sadness, wonder and joy.

The Declaration rejected the idea that some humans are worth less than others - the poisonous idea that underpinned slavery, colonisation, eugenics and genocide.

The Declaration then lists 30 articles or rules to protect our rights including the right to life, to vote, to safety, expression, health, housing, education, work and social security.

These rights set a new global standard that governments must respect in dealing with us because of the mere and vital fact that we are human.

The Universal Declaration was followed by binding international human rights treaties which successive Australian Governments voluntarily committed to uphold.

Human rights in Australia

In Australia, many of us enjoy our human rights without thinking about them:

• When we go somewhere we use our freedom of movement.
• When we join a trade union, a sporting club or a community group we use our freedom of association.
• When we attend a protest we use our freedom of peaceful assembly and expression.
• When we attend a place of worship we use our freedom of religion.
• When we access public healthcare we enjoy our right to health.
• And when we get a job with fair and safe conditions we enjoy our right to work.

The fact that many of us don't often think about our rights reflects Australia's success.

But it also creates risks of complacency and inaction.

Thinking that human rights are things that matter to other people in other places - often overseas.

The reality is that for many people in Australia, human rights are not guaranteed.

They are part of a daily struggle for dignity, respect, freedom and equality.

If you're a woman living with a violent partner, human rights matter.

If you're an Aboriginal family living in overcrowded, substandard housing, human rights matter.

If you're a gay, lesbian or trans student bullied at school because of who you are, or if you're a person with cognitive disability, being restrained and mistreated in a residential facility, human rights matter.

And if you're an older person with the onset of dementia, facing the prospect of someone being appointed to make decisions about your money, your medical treatment, where you live and who you can spend time with, human rights matter.

For many people doing it tough in Australia, human rights matter deeply.

And for those living well, we are only an accident, serious illness or misfortune away from needing a human rights safety net.

Why we are launching this annual Human Rights Assessment

We're launching this annual Human Rights Assessment because good information on human rights progress and regress is essential to better protecting people's rights.

It helps Australians to see where we are doing well, where we need to improve and where action is needed.

It helps governments and civil society to identify risks, set priorities and respond more effectively.

It promotes transparency and accountability.

Australia's history includes profound human rights failures. The shameful mistreatment of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. The criminalisation of homosexuality. Entrenched sex discrimination. The White Australia policy and more.

Many of these failures still resonate today.

This Human Rights Assessment is focussed on today and how we can build a better future.

I'm going to cover 6 topics; democratic freedoms; social cohesion and racism; economic justice; First Peoples justice; safety and equality and technological change.

I can't cover everything but there's more detailed information on our website for those who want to dig deeper.

I'll end by talking about trust, unity and human rights as Australian values.

Democratic freedoms

I want to begin with democracy because it underpins so much of our success - and because it is under threat.

A healthy, thriving democracy is essential to ensuring all people in Australia can live well.

Democracy doesn't start and end on election day.

It is sustained by vital foundations including press freedom, protest rights, strong public institutions and the rule of law.

There is so much to like about Australia's democracy.

Free and fair elections.

Strong public trust in our elections.

A history of innovations like the secret ballot, compulsory voting, preferential voting and voting on Saturdays.

Peaceful transitions of power.

Independent media.

An independent judiciary.

Low corruption.

And we've seen important recent advances like establishing the National Anti-Corruption Commission and improving equality in our Parliament. Half of our MPs are now women - the highest level in Australia's history and almost double the number 2 decades ago.

But our democracy is fragile and under pressure.

We must actively defend it.

A decade ago, when I was at the Human Rights Law Centre we ran a project called Safeguarding Democracy.

We documented an unmistakeable trend of Australian governments eroding many of our vital democratic foundations including press freedom, protest rights and civil society advocacy.

This trend led global monitors to downgrade our democracy.

Some things have improved since then, but serious concerns remain and new challenges are arising.

Protest in Australia has been critical to so many advances that we often now take for granted, from protecting the Franklin River to securing marriage equality.

Yet governments continue to introduce laws that unnecessarily restrict peaceful protest with vague, poorly crafted offences and excessive penalties and police powers.

These laws are repeatedly being found by our courts to breach the freedom of political communication in our Constitution.

We must protect our protest rights.

On press freedom, Australia lags behind comparable democracies.

The weak protection of press freedom here was exposed by the 2019 police raids on the ABC and a journalist's home. Why were they raided? For their public interest journalism, including exposing war crimes.

The prosecutions of whistleblowers - journalist's sources - further highlighted this weak protection.

Since then, there has been some progress.

The government has taken some steps towards improving federal whistleblower laws but much more is needed to strengthen protections.

The government has also introduced a bill to repeal over 300 unnecessary secrecy offences to strike a better balance between confidentiality and open government.

Turning to trust in government, in wealthy countries globally there is a trend of low and stagnating trust in governments and public institutions.

Australia is faring better than many like countries but we are not immune to this trend.

The 2025 Australian Election Study reported that just 32 per cent of respondents trust people in government to usually or sometimes do the right thing.

Only 41 per cent think government institutions act in the best interest of society.

Low trust in government and our public institutions is a threat to our democracy.

We must address the forces that undermine trust and we must ensure our governments and parliaments earn the trust of Australians and respond to their needs.

Our understanding of democracy is also critical.

Yet civics education in schools is at an all time low.

We need to improve our civics, democracy and human rights education.

And we need to address rising division, polarisation and racism.

The threats to our social fabric - or social cohesion.

I want to turn to this now.

Social cohesion, racism and migration

Social cohesion can be a contested term.

So it's important to say what we mean if we use it.

It is often described as the glue that binds us together in society.

It is the belonging we feel; the trust we have in each other and in our institutions; our equality and inclusion, material wellbeing and our political participation.

Understood this way, social cohesion is a good thing.

Societies with higher cohesion tend to be healthier, more resilient to shocks and more prosperous.

But we also need to be clear about what social cohesion isn't.

It should never be a call for assimilation and erasing differences of culture, language and faith.

We can come from different backgrounds and be proudly Australian.

Similarly social cohesion must not come at the expense of talking about and achieving justice.

Justice and human rights strengthen social cohesion.

I want to focus on a key aspect of social cohesion - racism.

Racism is rising in Australia.

For First Peoples it rose with the failed Voice referendum.

For Jewish, Muslim, Arab, Palestinian and Israeli communities in Australia it surged after the October 7 attack and the war in Gaza.

We must not allow racism to be normalised.

We must not accept Jewish children attending schools which have to be protected by armed guards.

We must not accept Muslim women being spat at and abused when they go shopping.

We must not accept First Peoples parents fearing their children and grandchildren will be harmed by the police and justice systems meant to protect them.

And we must not accept people hiding their faith or culture when they go out in public because they fear for their safety.

Racism harms people.

It harms people's identity and self-esteem, their participation in public life, their opportunity to access to employment, education and housing and their health and wellbeing.

Left unchecked it can lead to violence.

December's antisemitic terror attack at Bondi was a horrific manifestation of prejudice and hatred.

15 people murdered including a 10-year-old girl while celebrating their faith and culture.

Then in January we had a homemade bomb thrown into a crowd of Aboriginal people and allies in Perth in an alleged terror attack.

And in February we had a man in WA arrested for an alleged terror plot to target mosques, police and the WA Parliament - apparently driven by white supremacist ideology.

These attacks send shockwaves through the affected communities.

When we fail to protect a minority group from harm, we fail as a nation.

Australian governments can't control global events like COVID or violence in the Middle East that drive racism.

But they can control how we respond here at home.

It's positive that the Australian Government funded the Australian Human Rights Commission to develop the National Anti-Racism Framework.

We launched the Framework in 2024 following extensive community consultations.

It has 63 recommendations across government and society to address racism in our nation across sectors including justice, health, education, workplaces, media and the arts.

The Framework enjoys strong support from civil society.

The Special Envoys against Antisemitism and Islamophobia support it.

Yet the Australian Government still hasn't agreed to implement any of its recommendations.

We are urging the government to set up a task force or similar body to progress implementing the Framework in a planned and prioritised way.

We stand ready to work with government on this.

Anti-migrant sentiment is also rising in Australia.

There's nothing wrong with sensibly debating migration policy.

But demonising migrants is unacceptable.

My family on my dad's side migrated from Sri Lanka to Australia in 1949.

They were lucky to avoid the injustice of the White Australia policy.

My dad arrived as a 9 year old boy with dark skin and thick accent.

He went on to be world leading medical researcher and Governor of Victoria.

Australia rightly binned the last vestiges of the White Australia policy in the 1970's.

Yet today we have people who seemingly want to bring parts of it back.

The March for Australia rallies targeted migration from India.

Others have targeted Muslims and migration from Lebanon and Palestine and scapegoated migrants for social problems including our housing crisis.

These attacks on migrants must stop.

They fuel racism, hate and division in our community.

They increase the risk of violence.

Migration has made Australia stronger, socially and economically.

Australians know this - over 80% of us consistently support multiculturalism. We know diversity makes our nation better.

Refugees - people who have fled war and persecution seeking safety - are part of this diversity.

We should be proud to have welcomed more than a million refugees through our humanitarian program since World War 2.

Yet Australia's treatment of people seeking safety by sea remains among the harshest in the world.

We should abandon harmful policies like offshore processing and mandatory detention and promote safe pathways for people fleeing harm.

Economic justice

I'll now speak about our economy.

Australia is a wealthy country. This is good. It gives us the power to ensure people can live well.

But how we share our wealth is critical.

Wealthy nations which have lower income inequality do better on a range of things we all care about such as health, education, social mobility, violence and child well-being.

It's in everyone's interest, including the wealthy, to share prosperity more equally.

On this issue there are warning signs.

Income and particularly wealth inequality in Australia is too high.

There are increasing concerns around intergenerational inequity.

Only 22% of Australians believe the next generation will be better off.

Unemployment is currently low - but we have major gaps in workforce participation.

We need make our workplaces more inclusive for people with disability and older workers.

We need to make it easier for skilled migrants to work in the fields they were trained in.

We need redesigned employment services that genuinely help people to get paid work and get rid of punitive compliance frameworks that harm people.

The Australian Government has taken some positive steps to address cost of living pressures and inequality.

Improving access to Medicare and reducing the cost of medicines.

Improving childcare affordability, reducing HECS debts and making TAFE more accessible.

These are positive reforms. They are human rights reforms.

But too many people live in poverty in Australia and safety net payments for those out of work remain far too low.

We need a national plan to eradicate poverty, with robust measurement and clear targets.

Our housing affordability is declining.

Home ownership is increasingly out of reach for younger people.

We having rising homelessness. Older women have particularly been affected.

The Australian Government has made significant investments to increase the supply of housing including new social and affordable homes.

More is needed including greater investment in social housing, strengthening renter's rights and tax reform. Treating housing as a human right, not as a commodity, would help to spur the right actions.

We also need to address the human rights divide between our cities and the bush particularly in relation to education, health, jobs and exposure to climate change.

On climate change, the Australian Government has made important improvements including committing to reduce climate pollution by 62-70% by 2035 and to reach net zero by 2050.

But it's not enough. We need to accelerate our transition to renewables to avoid massive climate impacts on people's lives in Australia and globally.

The pace at which we cut fossil fuel pollution now will determine how dangerous our, and our children's future is.

First Peoples justice

It was a privilege to work at the Yoorrook Justice Commission - the first formal truth telling inquiry into historic and ongoing injustice against First Peoples in Victoria.

It changed me profoundly.

It deepened my understanding of the connection between culture and identity - and health and wellbeing.

And it taught me how injustice has reverberated across generations for First Peoples.

Truth telling isn't about assigning blame or guilt today for the actions of the past.

It's an invitation. An invitation to grow our shared understanding of our history and how it shapes the present.

To grow our shared commitment to build a better future together in this land we all call home.

A future where First Peoples families have equal access to quality education, housing and healthcare.

Where First Peoples communities are prosperous, where country is healthy and where culture and language is thriving.

Where First Peoples have power and control over the issues that affect them.

The Closing the Gap targets measure inequality between First Peoples communities and the rest of Australia.

I acknowledge the presence of the great Tom Calma here today - whose work at the Australian Human Right Commission led to the Closing the Gap initiative.

There has been positive progress on some of the Closing the Gap targets, particularly early childhood education, jobs and land rights.

Other measures like year 12 and tertiary education completion are improving but not fast enough to meet targets.

Don't lose sight of these gains.

It's happening too slowly but there is positive change - more education, more jobs, more wealth.

When I was at Yoorrook, I saw so much excellence reflecting this change - from business entrepreneurship, to leadership in the public service, to creative and sporting excellence.

There's been mixed progress on treaty, truth telling and representative bodies across the country.

The failed Voice referendum was a major setback as was the Queensland Government's decision to abolish its treaty and truth telling process.

But we've seen significant progress in jurisdictions like Victoria and South Australia.

I think people sometimes misunderstand why treaty and representation are important.

We know that affected communities are best placed to design and implement the solutions to the challenges they face.

They need to be supported and empowered to do so - rather than having inflexible policies imposed on them from afar.

Only 4 of the 19 Closing the Gap targets are on track. Some are worsening.

The Productivity Commission has emphasised that this inequality affecting First Peoples won't properly shift until they have power and control over the issues that affect them.

Representative structures and treaty agreements help to deliver this.

They should be supported. They are the pathway to a brighter future together.

I want to especially call out two areas where things are getting much worse for First Peoples: over-imprisonment and removal of children from families and communities under child protection systems.

These outcomes are a result of choices by governments.

Choices to prioritise populist, blunt and harmful law and order policies over community safety policies that have been proven to work.

Choices to under invest in supporting struggling families and communities and instead focus on the wrong end of the child protection system - child removal.

Mandatory sentencing, sentencing children as adults, abolishing the principle of detaining children as a last resort - these are lazy non-solutions.

At the same time as we are banning children under 16 from having social media accounts, the age of criminal responsibility in most of the country is 10.

This means that primary school age children can be arrested, prosecuted and locked up.

And it's First Peoples communities who are hit hardest by these laws.

Only the ACT and Victoria have raised the age of criminal responsibility. The ACT raised it to 14 with some exceptions. Victoria raised it to 12 but walked back on a promise to go further. The NT recently lowered the age from 12 to 10.

It's good that the Australian Government has established a National Commissioner for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Children and Young People.

It should now show national leadership on this issue by raising the age of criminal responsibility under federal criminal law to 14 and then work with the other jurisdictions to follow suit.

The way forward on First Peoples' justice is set out in the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples which Australia endorsed 17 years ago.

The Australian Government should develop an Action Plan to implement it - as recommended by the Australian Parliament's own Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Affairs Committee 2 and half years ago.

Safety and equality

Safety is a human right.

Ensuring all people in Australia are safe is one of the core human rights obligations of Australian governments.

On family violence we have come a long way.

The National Plan to End Violence against Women and Children was a positive step forward - as is the specific plan to end family, sexual and domestic violence against First Peoples women and children.

There are signs that attitudes are improving and the rate of family violence is dropping.

But we still have a way to go - in particular for groups like First Peoples women and children and women with disability who experience higher rates of violence.

The picture in relation to sexual violence in Australia is worse.

Rates are not dropping.

I started working in community legal centres over 20 years ago.

Our small legal centre in Melbourne's outer west helped women who were victim survivors of sexual assault.

Their experiences, the profound harm they suffered, remain with me two decades on.

Sadly, our justice system still fails many victim survivors.

The vast majority of sexual assaults are not reported to police.

When reports are made, most of those cases do not proceed to criminal prosecution.

Of those that do, very few result in a guilty finding.

There have been some positive changes and rates of reporting to police are improving. But significant reform is still required including to increase support for victim survivors and to create more pathways to justice. The Australian Law Reform Commission's recent report outlines the way forward.

There is better news on the gender pay gap which is narrowing, helped by improvements in gender equality reporting.

Successive Australian governments have also implemented the Australian Human Rights Commission's Respect@Work reforms to address sexual harassment and sex discrimination in workplaces.

There is now a positive duty in workplaces to eliminate sexual harassment, sex discrimination and other unlawful conduct. This shifts the focus from responding to a complaint after the harm has occurred, to stopping harm before it happens. This is better for everyone.

We need the positive duty replicated across all federal discrimination laws - including the Disability Discrimination Act which is currently being reviewed in response to the Disability Royal Commission's recommendations.

We also need to expand federal protections against discrimination on the ground of religion while also fixing exemptions that allow discrimination by religious bodies against LGBTIQA+ students, teachers and others.

And we need protections against all forms of hate crimes.

This was underscored in February when the ABC revealed a string of targeted assaults on gay and bisexual teenagers in Sydney.

Technological change

The last trend I want to address is technological change.

The pace of change is outstripping the ability of governments and parliaments to regulate it properly.

Existing laws are piecemeal and largely reactive, leaving gaps where harm can occur without timely or effective accountability.

Regulation is needed to harness the benefits of new technology while avoiding the harms.

We need to do more to address the erosion of truth and the sewer of prejudice and hatred online.

We need to do more to regulate the rise of AI and to get ahead of new technologies like neurotechnology.

And we need to closely monitor the impact and effectiveness of the social media ban on children.

It's positive that the Australian Government has committed to introduce a digital duty of care to require social media platforms to take reasonable, proactive steps to prevent foreseeable harm arising.

Trust, unity and Australian values

To sum up - my key message today is that there are major challenges facing Australia that threaten Australians' human rights - our quality of life.

But we have a good foundation to respond if we act now.

Human rights principles help governments to make the right decisions in responding to challenges.

Australia has been a good contributor to the international human rights system that promotes global peace and prosperity.

With severe challenges facing that system, our global leadership is needed now more than ever, working with partners who share our values.

Leadership includes strengthening our human rights foundations at home.

I spoke earlier about how Australia has signed and ratified key international human rights treaties.

This is good but international law doesn't automatically become part of Australian law when Australia ratifies a treaty.

People in Australia cannot directly enforce the treaty rights Australia has agreed to comply with.

It's left to Australian governments and parliaments to implement the treaties by passing laws and taking actions to protect our rights.

And unfortunately, they haven't done a good enough job of this.

Our promises on the global stage are not properly backed up.

Our human rights safety net has holes in it.

This is why we need an Australian Human Rights Act.

A Human Rights Act would list all the rights of all Australians in the one place in Australian law and protect those rights.

It would require governments and public servants to properly consider and act compatibly with those rights when they make decisions, deliver services or develop policies.

It would foster a better understanding of rights and build a culture that prevents breaches of people's rights.

And it would give people the power to take action if their rights are breached.

To give just a few examples, a Human Rights Act with rights to a fair hearing and equality, would have helped to avoid the harm of the Robodebt program.

A Human Rights Act which protects freedom of expression would strengthen press freedom and make it less likely that law enforcement authorities would raid media organisations for public interest reporting or prosecute whistleblowers.

A Human Rights Act would help to avoid the injustice that sparked Royal Commissions into aged care and abuse against people with disabilities.

It's a long overdue missing part of the democratic foundations of this country.

The Australian Human Rights Commission proposed a model for a Human Rights Act in our Free and Equal report in 2023.

Under our model, it would be a normal piece of legislation passed by the Australian Parliament. Parliamentary supremacy would be preserved.

This is the model used here in the ACT and in Victoria, Queensland, the UK and New Zealand which all have human rights acts.

In 2024, the Australian Parliament's Human Rights Committee recommended establishing a Human Rights Act based on our model.

I started today by talking about trust and unity and I want to end there.

Establishing a Human Rights Act would strengthen trust in government and promote social cohesion.

It would essentially be a promise - backed by legal accountability - from the Australian Parliament and Government to the people of Australia to protect people's rights.

It would help to bring us together around a shared set of values that define what our nation stands for.

Human rights are Australian values.

Freedom, equality, respect, dignity, democracy and a fair go for all.

These are the shared values our citizenship booklet talks about.

This is what we ask new citizens and visa applicants to pledge to uphold.

We need to live up to these values.

If we do, we can meet the challenges facing us and bring us closer to a nation where everyone can enjoy their human rights and live in safety, freedom and prosperity.