• Foreign Minister urged to speak out against death penalty during PNG visit tomorrow

    2 May 2013

    Australia’s opposition to the death penalty should extend beyond its borders, the Human Rights Law Centre has said ahead of Foreign Minister Bob Carr’s visit to Papua New Guinea tomorrow.

    The PNG Government has recently announced plans to begin implementing the death penalty.

    HRLC Senior Lawyer, Daniel Webb, said Governments will not stop violence by perpetrating it themselves.

    “The Foreign Minister’s visit is an opportunity for Australia to show principled leadership in our region on this fundamental human rights matter. Minister Carr should leave his PNG counterpart in no doubt that Australia is opposed to the death penalty at home and abroad,” Mr Webb said.

  • Improved protections for Sex Discrimination Act welcomed by leading human rights organisation

    29 April 2013

    Long overdue legal protections for gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender and intersex people should be incorporated into Australia’s Sex Discrimination Act immediately, the Human Rights Law Centre has said in a submission today to the Senate’s Constitutional and Legal Affairs Committee currently examining the Government’s proposed amendments.

    The HRLC’s Executive Director, Hugh de Kretser, said many Australians would be surprised to learn that gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender and intersex Australians are not currently protected against discrimination under federal anti-discrimination laws.

  • You, Me, Us: Protecting LGBTI Australians from discrimination

    29 April 2013

    In a submission to a parliamentary inquiry, the HRLC has called for long overdue legal protections for gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender and intersex people to be incorporated into Australia’s Sex Discrimination Act. The Sex Discrimination Amendment (Sexual Orientation, Gender Identity and Intersex Status) Bill 2013 will, if passed, extend protection under the Sex Discrimination Act 1984 (Cth) to ‘gender identity’, ‘sexual orientation’, ‘intersex status’ and ‘relationship status’.

  • UK High Court of Justice holds 17 year olds should be treated as children in the criminal justice system

    25 April 2013

    The Queen on the Application of HC (a child, by his litigation friend CC) v The Secretary of State for the Home Department and Others [2013] EWHC 982 (Admin) (25...

  • Public housing residents’ political rights curtailed

    17 April 2013

    Victorian Government rules that prevent politicians from door knocking public housing estates and limit residents’ use of notice boards and common areas unlawfully limit human rights.

    The Human Rights Law Centre is currently acting for two residents of the Atherton Gardens public housing estate in Fitzroy and is urging the Department of Human Services to ensure that public housing residents’ rights to engage with the political process are not unreasonably restricted.

  • A great opportunity for modernising our ailing discrimination laws is lost

    10 April 2013

    University of the Sunshine Coast’s Professor Neil Rees, co-author of Australian Anti-Discrimination Law, looks at what might have been had the Government’s anti-discrimination reforms been referred Australian Law Reform Commission

  • Failed media reforms show new Parliamentary human rights scrutiny is working

    10 April 2013

    The Australian Human Rights Commission’s Professor Gillian Triggs takes heart from signs that the new Joint Committee on Human Rights has consolidated its scrutiny function