Crisis prone Human Rights Commission puts its head above the trench … Human Rights Act proposed for Australia … Years of pallid rights activity during Coalition reign … Unsuitable appointments … Out-of-step HR commissioner junks the Voice … Rights legislation mauled in the UK … Max Shanahan reports 

The proposal has received cautious support from Attorney General Mark Dreyfus, who ordered a 10-year overdue review of Australia’s Human Rights Framework, to assess whether “improvements could be made”. 

The Labor Party’s national platform includes a commitment to conduct such a review to “consider whether [the framework] could be enhanced through a statutory charter of human rights”. 

The 380-page position paper released by the AHRC will be followed by a final report to be tabled in parliament later this year, before the review reports in 2024. 

The AHRC has positioned its call for legislation as a fulfilment of the original purpose of the Commission. 

When established in 1986, the Commission was to have a complaints handling jurisdiction through an Australian Bill of Rights Act. A recommendation by the Rudd government’s National Human Rights Consultation Committee in 2010 to adopt a HRA was similarly overlooked, as was a commitment, scrapped by the Coalition government, to revisit the issue four years later. 

The call for enhanced human rights protections comes as the Commonwealth government attempts to rehabilitate Australia’s global image on rights, damaged by adverse reports on the independence of the AHRC and the farcical cancellation of the UN Committee Against Torture’s inspection visit. 

In its position paper, the AHRC said: 

“UN Treaty bodies have repeatedly concluded that core treaties have not been adequately incorporated into Australia’s legal system. Many of Australia’s commitments to human rights are confined to rhetoric …” 

The Commission further pointedly noted that “with a HRA in place, Australia would have better standing and credibility on the international stage, including when encouraging other countries to comply with human rights”. 

Pressure has also come from international organisations. The UN Human Rights Council’s periodic review of Australia recommended that “steps should be taken to ensure greater integration of human rights commitments into domestic law, including the implementation of a domestic Human Rights Act at the federal level”.  

Various UN committees have made similar comments since at least 2000. Australia’s implementation of its international human rights commitments has been described as “faltering, sporadic and inconsistent,” with the ICCPR said to have “a small and almost random presence in Australian law”. 

Appointments to the Australian Human Rights Commission without independent assessments or open applications have put its accreditation as an A-grade rights body under threat by the Global Alliance of National Human Rights Institutions. 

The current Human Rights Commissioner, Lorraine Finlay, appointed by former attorney general Cash, is from the hard right of the WA Liberal Party and is steadfastly opposed to the human rights agenda, including the Voice. 

She has been wrapped over the knuckles by former human rights commissioners for her recent “serious error” in an opinion piece critical of the Voice. 

The Commission’s president, Rosalind Croucher, flatly contradicts Finlay, saying the Voice is consistent with fundamental human rights principles and international conventions. 

Finlay’s appointment to the Commission was an expression of the Coalition’s contempt for its work and for human rights generally. 

A final argument from the international sphere proposed by the AHRC was that Australia has become “increasingly isolated” from shared legal standards developed by countries with domestic human rights legislation. 

A Human Rights Act, the Commission proposes, would restore Australia’s reputation as a significant, committed and trustworthy player in the development, implementation and enforcement of basic human rights standards. 

While a Human Rights Act would undoubtedly be a boon to Australia’s standing at the UN, its domestic birth faces a far more uncertain calculus. 

The Coalition, in opposition and in government, have historically opposed attempts to formalise rights regimes, fired-up by right wing opinionistas in the media. 

Tony Abbott, for example, described bills of rights as “left-wing tricks to allow judges to change society in ways a parliament would never dare”. If there is a desire from the government to spend political capital on an issue unlikely to garner passionate support, or even with unlikely bipartisan support for a HRA, any implementation could still be years into the future. 

The United Kingdom’s experience with its Human Rights Act does not augur well for Australia’s attempts at implementation. Moved by the Tories to repeal or water-down the Blair government’s European based Human Rights Act have been ongoing since its inception. 

On-again-off-again Justice Secretary Dominic Raab has led efforts to replace the Act with a “more British” Bill of Rights, which would: 

“… restore common sense to the application of human rights in the UK [and] reverse the mission creep that has meant human rights law being used for more and more purposes, and often with little regard for the rights of wider society.” 

Even the current Human Rights Act has not restrained the government from attempting to legislate outside its bounds, with Home Secretary Suella Braverman openly admitting that the government’s fetchingly named Illegal Migration Bill was “more than 50 percent” likely to breach human rights laws.

As the UK’s 25 year-old HRA continues to be fought by Conservatives, and Israel tears itself apart over attempts to reign in rights protections, it is clear that, even if an Australian HRA comes to fruition, rights will continue to be a contested area of law and politics.