WEL has a long history of campaigning for anti–discrimination legislation and Human Rights so we particularly welcome the extensive inquiry report tabled by the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Human Rights on 30 May 2024.

The Committee made 17 recommendations, including that the government significantly improve Australia’s Human Rights Framework, which should include comprehensive and effective protection of human rights in legislation through the establishment of a Human Rights Act. The Committee report includes a draft Human Rights Bill prepared by the Human Rights Commission.

Despite some positive amendments to the 1984 Sex Discrimination Act in more recent times, Australia’s anti- discrimination legislation remains a patchwork of increasingly unwieldly acts at the state and federal level, with a focus on reactive models. The onus is on the individual victim to respond to discriminatory treatment and there is limited provision for intersectional discrimination. To add to the complexity Victoria, the ACT and Queensland have Human Rights Acts and the new NSW Government is committed to introducing a Human Rights Act in its first term.

Free+Equal Conference launches campaign for a Human Rights Act

WEL members were excited to participate in the recent Human Rights Commission Free +Equal Conference in Sydney.

The Conference was strategically timed to follow the publication of the Parliamentary Inquiry report. Expert speakers from a wide range of advocacy organisations, as well as businesses, canvassed ways in which a Human Rights Act would improve our access to fundamental rights such as those set out in the UN Convention to Eliminate Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW).

As an example of the power of a Human Rights Act to pre-emptively influence legal and public service practice, conference speakers suggested that an act setting out fundamental rights could have prevented ‘robo-debt’. 

Designers of the scheme would have had to consider up front the rights that might be infringed through its architecture and operation. Similar suggestions were made about pre-empting the Parents Next scheme, which obliged single mothers to undertake a range of activities to stay on parenting payment.

Women’s rights are of course human rights. Those especially relevant to women include rights to education, equal opportunities at work, equal pay, the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health (including reproductive health), housing, financial independence, and freedom from violence.

WEL will join the campaign for a Human Rights Act embodying the provisions of CEDAW as part of our 2025 Election Platform.  We would love to hear from you if you are passionate about this campaign and would like to contribute.