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Reports | 31 JAN 2022

Selling Out: How powerful industries corrupt our democracy

Selling Out: How powerful industries corrupt our democracy exposes how the powerful fossil fuels, gambling and tobacco industries are taking advantage of Australia’s weak integrity laws and distorting our democratic processes to put their profits ahead of our wellbeing.

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Reports | 1 DEC 2021

Still left behind: Stranded refugees and residents on temporary visas must be part of Australia’s re-opening plan

As Australia begins to reconnect with the world, this paper highlights the restrictions that continue to prevent travel for many members of the Australian community and for refugees whose resettlement has been delayed, and proposes a pathway for the federal government to ensure no one is left behind.

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Reports | 19 NOV 2021

Global Warning: the threat to climate defenders in Australia

Global Warning: the threat to climate defenders in Australia by the Human Rights Law Centre, Greenpeace Australia Pacific, and the Environmental Defenders Office, reveals how the unregulated political influence of the fossil fuel industry is driving political inaction on climate change and the repression of those calling for action.

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Reports | 1 SEP 2021

Together in Safety: A report on the Australian Government’s separation of families seeking safety.

The Australian Government is deliberately and systematically separating family members and preventing them from reuniting where one family member has sought asylum at Australia’s borders. Refugees are forced to make an unthinkable choice between their safety, their health and being with the ones they love.

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Reports | 31 AUG 2021

After the mine: Living with Rio Tinto’s deadly legacy

Mining giant Rio Tinto is responsible for multiple human rights violations caused by pollution from its former mine in Bougainville. For 45 years, the Panguna copper and gold mine on the island of Bougainville was majority-owned by the British-Australian mining company, but in 2016 Rio Tinto divested from the mine, leaving behind more than a billion tonnes of mine waste.

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Reports | 23 JAN 2020

Talking about a Human Rights Act: Our messaging guide

This messaging guide seeks to help people and organisations who are advocating for a an Australian Charter of Human Rights and Freedoms to craft their public messages in a way that will energise supporters and convince neutral audiences about the many benefits a Charter will provide to the whole community.

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Reports | 3 JAN 2019

Nowhere to Turn: Addressing Australian corporate abuses overseas

This report shines a spotlight on ten cases of human rights violations involving Australian multinationals. The cases cut across countries and industries, from ANZ’s involvement in financing land grabs in Cambodia to BHP’s role in the Samarco dam disaster in Brazil and Broadspectrum and Wilson Security’s responsibility for alleged sexual assaults on refugee women and children held in offshore detention on Nauru.

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Reports | 13 DEC 2018

Say it Loud: Protecting Protest in Australia

This report outlines ten principles guiding how protest should and can be protected and regulated. These principles are rooted in Australia’s Constitution, international law, common law, and general democratic principles. They also draw on international and domestic best practice. They provide a blueprint for a democracy in which the freedoms of expression and assembly are respected and protected.

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Reports | 13 DEC 2018

End the Hate: Responding to hate speech and violence against the LGBTI community

This report discusses three facets of hate which cause physical, psychological and emotional harm not only to individuals, but to members of the targeted group and other minority communities and damages our community as a whole.

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Reports | 29 OCT 2018

Preventing Harm, Promoting Justice: Responding to LGBT conversion therapy in Australia

A major report confirms that religious conversion therapy and related practices are pervasive in many faith communities in Australia and causing real harm to lesbian, gay, bisexual and trans people.Preventing Harm, Promoting Justice: Responding to LGBT conversion therapy in Australia calls for action by governments, the health sector and religious communities to better respond to people experiencing conflict between their gender identity or sexual orientation and their beliefs.

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Reports | 12 JUL 2018

Hear our voice: Equal rights for women and girls in Australia

The UN Committee on the Convention on the Elimination of all forms of Discrimination Against Women is an international treaty adopted in 1979 by the UN General Assembly. On 3 July, Australia was examined by the Committee about whether it is complying with its obligations. The Human Rights Law Centre presented an overview of the gaps in protections for women and girls to the Committee.

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Reports | 7 DEC 2017

Total Control: Ending the routine strip searching of women in Victoria’s prisons

Each year thousands of strip searches are conducted on women in Victoria’s prisons. Strip searches are invasive, humiliating and, in many cases, re-traumatising. They require women to strip naked in front of two prison officers. The Human Rights Law Centre reviewed six months of recent Victorian strip search register entries obtained through freedom of information laws from the two women’s prisons in Victoria.

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