In 2021, in response to a human rights complaint brought by 170 local community members, represented by the Human Rights Law Centre, Rio Tinto agreed to fund an independent human rights and environmental impact assessment of the Panguna mine. Communities in Bougainville have just received the draft results from the investigation, which focused on the most serious areas of concern.

Instead of reining in social media giants, the government’s new law is letting them police themselves. We know what happens when we ask the fox to guard the henhouse.

Misinformation is poisoning our democracy by distorting public debate, threatening peoples’ online safety, and causing real world harm to people and communities. This is because Australia has weak laws that allow digital platforms to regulate themselves. Digital platforms profit from amplifying misinformation and hate speech. They will never fix the problem without government intervention. 

No child should ever grow up in a prison cell. Children belong in schools and playgrounds. Funnelling children into prisons does not make communities safer, it undermines them.

The Human Rights Law Centre's Whistleblower Project has turned one. Find out about our first year of impact protecting and empowering whistleblowers.

It is neither fair nor just to continue caging children in youth prisons.

What don’t we know because potential whistleblowers are too scared to raise concerns? What scandals remain hidden?

The Human Rights Law Centre stands in solidarity with the refugee activists who have maintained a constant protest outside government and ministerial offices in Melbourne since 14 July 2024.

The Human Rights Law Centre welcomes the Albanese Government’s introduction of groundbreaking reforms to reduce widespread migrant worker exploitation.

There is one crucial resource this country hasn’t yet fully appreciated and nurtured in pursuit of a safer climate: the whistleblower.

Our right to protest is under threat. That’s why we are launching our new report Protest in Peril.

Sweeping, unnecessary and disproportionate secrecy laws are bad for democracy. Not only do they prevent the public having a proper understanding of what is done in their name, but they allow wrongdoing to go unchecked.