The Albanese Government can create a lasting legacy by introducing an Australian Charter of Human Rights to ensure that dignity, equality and respect guide all government laws and decision-making, the Human Rights Law Centre has told a Joint Parliamentary Committee.

In a submission to the Parliamentary Inquiry into Australia’s Human Rights Framework, the Centre emphasised the urgent need for a federal Charter and how it would work in practice to:

• Ensure everyone in Australia is treated with respect by government authorities

• Ensure people can seek justice when their rights are breached

• Implement the international legal protections Australia has agreed to and expects of others

• Provide a holistic framework for balancing competing rights fairly and transparently

• Improve law-making and government policy to be consistent with human rights standards

• Improve the fairness of public service delivery and outcomes

• Raise public awareness and knowledge of human rights as an integral part of Australia’s democratic and civic culture

The research details a series of recent case studies in which Australian government actions have breached people’s human rights. The people featured, and many more like them, could have avoided this harm or obtained redress if we had a strong federal Human Rights Charter.

Read the submission by the Human Rights Law Centre here