Joint Submission to the Australian Human Rights Commission Consultation: OPCAT and Civil Society
The Australia OPCAT Network welcomes the opportunity to provide a submission to the Australian Human Rights Commission (AHRC)’s Consultation on the Optional Protocol to the Convention Against Torture (OPCAT) and Civil Society.
In preparing this submission, we have responded to the questions posed in the discussion paper. Rather than prescribing the ‘ideal’ National Preventive Mechanism (NPM) for Australia, this submission seeks to elucidate key principles to guide the design and implementation of a NPM in Australia.

Joint submission against expansion of the Making Queensland Safer Act 2024
The Human Rights Law Centre and Change the Record have are strongly opposed to the Crisafulli Government's laws that will sentence even more children to adult-length terms of imprisonment. The laws will lock up children for even longer, and harm kids, families, and communities.
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Submission to 2025-26 Federal Budget consultation
The Human Rights Law Centre has put forward recommendations to the 2025-26 federal budget submissions across a range of issues, including campaigning for an Australian Human Rights Act, migration justice, prisoners’ rights, whistleblower protection and modern slavery.
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Submission to Surveillance Legislation Amendment (Identify and Disrupt) Act 2021 review
The Human Rights Law Centre is calling for stronger safeguards for the right to privacy and warned that these powers enable the AFP and ACIC to undertake significant invasions of privacy, encroach on the right to privacy, and threaten to have a chilling effect on the work of journalists and their sources.
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