The HRLRC has prepared a comprehensive submission, Towards a Tasmanian Charter of Human Rights, which recommends that a Tasmanian Charter have the following key features:

• The Charter should promote a dialogue about human rights between parliament, the executive, the courts and the community.  (The Proposed Model is a dialogue model.)
• The Charter should only recognise and protect the human rights of human beings.  (The Proposed Model only protects the rights of human beings.)
• The Charter should enshrine all civil, political, economic, social and cultural rights recognised by the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights.  (The Proposed Model does not adequately enshrine economic, social and cultural rights.)
• The Charter should balance rights, responsibilities and other interests.  It should recognise that certain rights are absolute, such as the right to protection from torture and cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment.  All other human rights should be subject to such reasonable limits as can be demonstrably justified in a free and democratic society.  (The Proposed Model provides appropriately for limitations of human rights.)
• The Charter should establish robust pre-legislative human rights scrutiny mechanisms.  New bills introduced into parliament should include a statement as to their ‘human rights compliance’ and a Joint Committee on Human Rights should review the human rights compatibility of all bills.  (The Proposed Model includes Statements of Compatibility but does not establish a Joint Parliamentary Committee.)
• The Charter should bind ‘Tasmanian public authorities’, including Ministers, bodies created by Tasmanian laws and undertaking public functions, and private entities that perform public functions on behalf of Tasmanian public authorities.  (The Proposed Model binds bodies ‘funded or controlled’ by government, but it should bind all bodies who ‘exercise functions of a public nature’ on behalf of the government.)
• The Charter should require that public authorities act compatibly with rights and give proper consideration to human rights in decision making.  (The Proposed Model requires public authorities to act compatibly, but only provides a limited requirement for the proper consideration of human rights.)
• The Charter should require courts to interpret all Tasmanian law compatibly with human rights, but only so far as is possible consistent with statutory purpose.  The Act should not empower courts to invalidate legislation.  (The Proposed Model does both these things.)
• Where legislation cannot be given a human rights-consistent interpretation, the Supreme Court of Tasmania should have the exclusive power to make a Declaration of Incompatibility.  Such a declaration would not affect the validity of the legislation but would require that parliament reconsider that legislation within a specified period.  The decision as to whether to amend, repeal or leave the legislation untouched would be entirely a matter for parliament.  (The Proposed Model provides for this dialogue between the courts and parliament.)
• The Charter should provide people with effective judicial and non-judicial remedies where their human rights are breached by a Tasmanian public authority.  There should be a stand alone cause of action and all relevant relief, including compensation, should be available.  (The Proposed Model does not contain a stand alone cause of action and expressly states that damages will not be available.  It currently has a confusing regime of judicial and non-judicial remedies.)
• The Charter should contain recognition of the human rights of Aboriginal People in the Preamble, in particular their distinct role and place as the First Peoples of Tasmania.  (The Proposed Model does not currently include this reference.)

The HRLRC further recommends that the Tasmanian Charter be accompanied and complemented by a comprehensive program of human rights education, both for the public and community sectors, and that legal and advocacy services be adequately resourced to enable people to understand and vindicate their human rights.

On 28 July 2010, the HRLRC made a Submission to the APSC setting out the reasons for which the APS Values and Code of Conduct should be revised to require that the APS ‘actively respects, protects, promotes and fulfils human rights’, and the other educational and cultural measures and strategies that would support the entrenchment and realization of this value. 

On 5 November 2010, the HRLRC made a further Submission to the APSC in response to a ‘Proposed New Set of APS Values’ released by the APS on 3 November.

In summary, the Human Rights Law Resource Centre recommends that:

• the APS Values and Code of Conduct should be revised to require that the APS ‘actively respects, protects, promotes and fulfils human rights’;
• for the purpose of the APS Values and Code of Conduct, ‘human rights’ should be defined to include all of the human rights and freedoms enshrined in all of the core international human rights treaties to which Australia is or may become a party;
• the scope, content and application of ‘human rights’ within the APS Values should be understood and informed by reference to ‘international human rights law and the judgments of domestic, foreign and international human rights courts, bodies and tribunals’;
• the revision of any APS Values to incorporate consideration of human rights should be accompanied by a comprehensive, integrated, well-resourced, targeted and ongoing human rights education program for the APS and related entities;
• federal departments and agencies should develop human rights action plans and report on human rights compliance in their annual reports; and
• the APS should develop a range of other mechanisms and measures, such as those adopted by public authorities in Victoria and identified by the Victorian Equal Opportunity and Human Rights Commission as being useful and effective in the development and entrenchment of a human rights-based approach to public service. 

On 6 July 2010, the Human Rights Law Resource Centre made a Follow-Up Submission on Implementation of the Human Rights Committee’s Concluding Observations on Australia.  The submission updates the Committee as to:

• the four Concluding Observations about which the Committee requested relevant information on implementation from Australia within one year (namely, counter-terrorism law and policy, the Northern Territory Emergency Response, violence against women and mandatory immigration detention); and
• the outcomes of the National Human Rights Consultation.

Further background information on each of these issues is contained in the comprehensive NGO Report, Addendum and fact sheets provided to the Committee in 2009, available at http://www.hrlrc.org.au/content/topics/civil-and-political-rights/un-human-rights-committee-review-of-australia-march-2009/.

The Human Rights Law Resource Centre welcomes these Bills and supports their expeditious passage.  On 9 June 2010, the Centre made a submission to the Committee entitled Parliamentary Scrutiny and the Promotion and Protection of Human Rights. 

The Human Rights (Parliamentary Scrutiny) Bill 2010 establishes a Joint Parliamentary Committee on Human Rights, to be comprised of five members of the House of Representatives and five Senators, with two primary functions:

1. first, to ‘examine’ Bills, legislative instruments and existing Acts ‘for compatibility with human rights and to report to both Houses of Parliament on that issue’; and
2. second, to ‘inquire into any matter relating to human rights which is referred to it by the Attorney-General, and to report to both Houses of Parliament on that matter’.

The Bill also introduces a requirement that each new Bill introduced to parliament be accompanied by a Statement of Compatibility which includes an ‘assessment of whether the Bill is compatible with human rights’  This requirement also extends to certain legislative instruments

For the purposes of both the Joint Committee and Statements of Compatibility, ‘human rights’ means those human rights and fundamental freedoms contained in the seven core international human rights treaties to which Australia is party.

In introducing the legislation, the Attorney-General stated the purpose of the measures is to ‘improve parliamentary scrutiny of new laws for consistency with Australia’s human rights obligations and to encourage early and ongoing consideration of human rights issues in policy and legislative development’.

The submission considers the features which each of the measures should possess in order to best fulfil this purpose. 

The Bill establishes a Joint Parliamentary Committee on Human Rights, to be comprised of five members of the House of Representatives and five Senators, with two primary functions:

• first, to examine Bills, legislative instruments and existing Acts ‘for compatibility with human rights and to report to both Houses of Parliament on that issue’; and
• second, to inquire into ‘any matter relating to human rights which is referred to it by the Attorney-General, and to report to both Houses of Parliament on that matter’.

The Bill also introduces a requirement that each new Bill introduced to parliament be accompanied by a Statement of Compatibility which includes an ‘assessment of whether the Bill is compatible with human rights’. 

For the purposes of both the Joint Committee and Statements of Compatibility, ‘human rights’ means those human rights and fundamental freedoms contained in the seven core international human rights treaties to which Australia is party. 

The legislation gives effect to the finding of the National Human Rights Consultation Committee that:

Greater consideration of human rights is needed in the development of legislation and policy and in the parliamentary process in general.  The primary aim of such consideration is to ensure that human rights concerns are identified early, so that policy and legislation can be developed in ways that do not impinge on human rights or, in circumstances where limitations on rights are necessary, those limitations can be justified to parliament and the community. 

Consistent with this finding, in introducing the legislation, the Attorney-General stated the purpose of the measures is to ‘improve parliamentary scrutiny of new laws for consistency with Australia’s human rights obligations and to encourage early and ongoing consideration of human rights issues in policy and legislative development’.  In order to fulfil this purpose, the measures should exhibit the following features. 

Joint Parliamentary Committee on Human Rights

The powers, proceedings and modalities of the Committee are to be ‘determined by resolution of both Houses of Parliament’.  In the view of the HRLRC, in determining the Committee’s powers and working methods, Parliament should have regard to the following considerations. 

First, the Committee should be given broad and permissive powers.  The broad mandate and modalities of the UK Joint Committee on Human Rights, recommended by the Council of Europe as an example of best practice in parliamentary human rights scrutiny, is one of its key strengths.

Second, the Committee should ‘screen’ all Bills that come before parliament, but, as with the UK Committee, focus its inquiries and reports on those Bills which raise prima facie human rights concerns (including those Bills or types of laws which have been identified as doing so by UN human rights bodies, the Australian Human Rights Commission and reputable human rights NGOs).  This will ensure that the work of the Committee is appropriately targeted.

Third, in assessing and reporting on the human rights compatibility of legislation, the Committee should consider Statements of Compatibility (together with other extrinsic materials), but should conduct its own independent analysis to ensure effective scrutiny of Bills.  It should also consider relevant international and foreign human rights jurisprudence. 

Fourth, the Committee must have the power to call for submissions, convene public hearings and examine witnesses. 

Fifth, the Committee must be given sufficient time to conduct inquiries and produce reports so as to actually inform parliamentary debate in a meaningful way.

Sixth, it is critical that the Committee have an adequately resourced secretariat with the requisite human rights law experience and expertise.

Seventh, the Committee should play a role in giving effect to the Government’s commitment to a ‘review of legislation, policies and practices for compliance with the seven core UN human rights treaties’.  In order to do this, it should be able to make recommendations and requests to the Attorney-General as to those matters which are referred to it for inquiry. 

Statements of Compatibility

While the Human Rights (Parliamentary Scrutiny) Bill 2010 specifies that Statements should include an ‘assessment’ as to the compatibility of a proposed Bill with the human rights in all seven core UN human rights treaties to which Australia is party, it is silent on the nature, scope and detail of this assessment.  If, however, Statements of Compatibility are to fulfil their purpose of ‘improving parliamentary scrutiny of new laws for consistency with Australia’s human rights obligations and to encourage early and ongoing consideration of human rights issues in policy and legislative development’, they should have the following features. 

First, human rights should be considered, and Statements of Compatibility prepared, early in the policy development process.  As the Australian Human Rights Commission has stated, ‘to be truly useful, these statements must assist policy and legislative development from the outset, rather than being treated as an administrative requirement that is simply added on at the end stage of preparing a Bill.’

Second, Statements must be reasoned and include discussion and rigorous analysis of the human rights issues raised by a Bill.  The Attorney-General’s media release accompanying the Bill contained useful guidance in this regard, stating that Statements should ‘assist in explaining the purpose and intent of legislation, to contextualise human rights considerations, and where appropriate, justify restrictions or limitations on rights in the interests of other individuals or society more generally’. 

Third, Statements should not be too long, legalistic or technical as this will detract from their utility in informing parliamentary dialogue about rights.  Keeping Statements of Compatibility succinct but adequately reasoned will be a particular challenge given that the compatibility analysis is to take account of the seven core human rights treaties, rather than, say, just civil and political rights as is the case under the Victorian Charter and the ACT Human Rights Act.  The best way to achieve this may be to confine the discussion to those rights which are actually limited by a Bill or a provision thereof, rather than to include a discussion of all those rights which are merely engaged by the proposed legislation. 

Fourth, Statements of Compatibility should consider and, where appropriate, explain limitations in a rigorous and evidence-based manner which demonstrably justifies the intrusion on rights.  This will be a challenge because the seven core human rights treaties do not include a general limitations clause unlike, say, s 7 of the Victorian Charter of Human Rights and Responsibilities or s 1 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.  The best approach as a matter of practice may be for Statements to set out (a) whether and how a Bill limits human rights and (b) where human rights are limited, whether and how such limitations are ‘reasonable limits under law which can be demonstrably justified in a free and democratic society’.  This formulation is very similar to that contained in s 1 of the Canadian Charter which requires that any impairment of rights (a) be for a ‘pressing and substantial’ purpose; (b) be proportionate and rationally connected to the purpose; and (c) impair human rights as little as possible (see R v Oakes [1986] 1 SCR 103). 

Fifth, given the extensive international and comparative human rights jurisprudence from which Australia can draw, it would be useful for guidelines on the preparation of Statements to specify that, in considering the scope and content of the seven core human rights treaties, ‘proper consideration be given to international human rights law and the judgments of domestic, foreign and international human rights courts, bodies and tribunals’.  Section 32(2) of the Victorian Charter contains a similar formulation.

Finally, to have the greatest impact and accessibility, Statements of Compatibility should be tabled with the Second Reading Speech of a Bill and also included in Hansard.  This will ensure that they meaningfully inform parliamentary dialogue and debate. 

Phil Lynch is Executive Director of the Human Rights Law Resource Centre

The Dinner was addressed by Louise Arbour (President and CEO, International Crisis Group and former United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights) and The Hon Rob Hulls MP (Deputy Premier and Attorney-General of Victoria).

The Executive Director of the Human Rights Law Resource Centre, Phil Lynch, delivered a speech entitled ‘Human Rights at the Cross-Roads’. 

However, the Rudd Government’s failure to commit to a comprehensive, national Human Rights Act — a key recommendation of the Consultation which was supported by over 87% of a record 35,000 public submissions — is a missed opportunity to strengthen Australia’s democracy and build a fairer, more inclusive community.

A Human Rights Act deferred is human rights denied.  The Government’s deferral of a Human Rights Act until at least 2014 — when the new Human Rights Framework will be reviewed — is a denial of the many benefits which demonstrably accompany such an Act.  

Evidence and experience from Victoria and the Australian Capital Territory, both of which have their own Human Rights Acts, demonstrate that a national Act would promote more accountable government, improve public services, address poverty and disadvantage, and enshrine fundamental, unifying values.  Instead, the homeless, the elderly, people with mental illness and children with disability — all of whom have been beneficiaries of human rights laws in Victoria and the ACT — must now wait at least another 4 years before their human rights are adequately protected and promoted at the national level.

The deferral of a Human Rights Act aside, there are a number of significant and valuable commitments contained in the new “Human Rights Framework”.  These commitments include the establishment of a Joint Parliamentary Committee on Human Rights, which will be mandated to review legislation and conduct inquiries on human rights issues, and the development of a range of  scrutiny mechanisms to ensure that Australian laws and polices are compatible with human rights.  These measures will improve the development of laws, policies and practices and play an important role in ensuring that human rights are properly considered in both legislative and executive decision-making processes. 

The Government has also committed to invest much needed funds in human rights education – providing $2 million over 4 years to the community sector and $6.6 million over the same period to the Australian Human Rights Commission.  This reflects the recommendation of the National Human Rights Consultation Committee that “human rights education be the highest priority”.  The Government will also engage in more extensive consultation on both international and domestic human rights issues with civil society.  These are important initiatives and should not be discounted.  If properly implemented, they will assist in further developing a culture of respect for human dignity and human rights in Australia. 

Critically, however, the effectiveness of such measures will be substantially reduced without a robust enabling framework in the form of a comprehensive, judicially enforceable Human Rights Act.  Without such an Act, many vulnerable people are left without human rights remedies and Australians are forced to look to international human rights standards rather than have regard to local human rights laws.  As one homeless man said to me, ‘It is like icing without a cake’.  Under the Rudd Government, he’ll have to wait at least another 4 years for that.

In announcing the Framework, the Attorney-General was correct in stating that the “enhancement of human rights should be done in a way that unites us” rather than divides us.  Far from being divisive, however, a Human Rights Act would unite us through legal protection and institutional strengthening of those Australian democratic values we hold in common.  As demonstrated by the Apology to the Stolen Generations, political leadership and vision can unite people, even on controversial issues.  That is particularly the case when what is proposed is good, evidence-based policy that resonates deeply with our Australian commitment to respect, tolerance, fairness, freedom and the rule of law.

For the next 4 years at least, Australians will need to continue to look to international human rights laws and UN institutions in New York and Geneva for many of the human rights protections that should be enshrined in law here at home. 

The campaign for a Human Rights Act that befits, protects and unites us has only just begun.

Philip Lynch is Executive Director of the Human Rights Law Resource Centre

Background

On 21 April 2010, the Attorney-General launched the Federal Government’s response to the National Human Rights Consultation, entitled ‘Australia’s Human Rights Framework. 

The Government’s Framework fails to implement the key recommendation of the National Human Rights Consultation Report – supported by over 87% of a record 35,000 submissions – that Australia enact a federal Human Rights Act.

The Government’s Human Rights Framework does, however, contain a number of significant commitments to strengthen the promotion and protection of human rights in Australia:

• establishing a new Parliamentary Joint Committee on Human Rights to provide greater scrutiny of legislation for compliance with Australia’s international human rights obligations;
• requiring that each new Bill introduced into Federal Parliament is accompanied by a Statement of Compatibility with Australia’s international human rights obligations;
• reviewing legislation, policies and practice for compliance with the seven core international human rights treaties to which Australia is party;
• investing over $12 million over four years in various education initiatives to promote a greater understanding of human rights across the community;
• developing a new National Action Plan on Human Rights to ‘outline future action for the promotion and protection of human rights’;
• consolidating and harmonising federal anti-discrimination laws into a single Act; and
• creating a ‘Human Rights Forum’ to enable whole-of-government engagement with non-government organisations on annual basis.

The Government has committed to review the Framework in 2014 to ‘assess its effectiveness in the promotion and protection of human rights in Australia’. 

A copy of the ‘Human Rights Framework’ is available at www.ag.gov.au/humanrightsframework. 

Further information about the National Human Rights Consultation, including the outcome of the Committee’s report, is available at /www.hrlrc.org.au/our-work/focus/national-consultation/.

An HRLRC opinion piece on the new Framework, published on ABC Online, is available at www.abc.net.au/unleashed/stories/s2879605.htm.

Notwithstanding Australia’s international legal obligations, however, the Commonwealth has not established formal domestic mechanisms to ensure comprehensive parliamentary scrutiny of human rights.

On 5 March 2010, therefore, the Centre made a Submission to the Inquiry into the future direction and role of the Senate Scrutiny of Bills Committee, entitled ‘Parliamentary Committees and the Promotion and Protection of Human Rights’. 

The Centre’s submission focuses on Terms of Reference 1(c) and 2, namely:

1. what, if any, additional role the Committee should undertake in relation to the human rights obligations applying to the Commonwealth; and
2. the role, powers and practices of similar committees in other jurisdictions. 

As an overarching proposition, the HRLRC considers that parliamentary committees should play a more significant role in the promotion and protection of human rights in Australia. 

This should occur in two primary ways:

1. the mandates of all relevant parliamentary committees should require that the committee give proper consideration to the Commonwealth’s human rights obligations, including Australia’s obligations under all international human rights treaties to which it is party; and
2. the Parliament should establish a Joint Committee on Human Rights to lead parliamentary engagement with and understanding of human rights issues. 

The proposed Joint Committee on Human Rights should be mandated to:

1. scrutinise all Bills and subordinate legislation for compatibility with human rights;
2. conduct thematic inquiries into human rights issues;
3. monitor and report on the implementation of the Concluding Observations, Recommendations and Views of UN treaty bodies and the Recommendations of the Special Procedures and the Universal Periodic Review of the UN Human Rights Council; and
4. monitor and report on government responses to Declarations of Incompatibility (under any Australian Human Rights Act) and other relevant court and tribunal decisions and judgments. 

The report aims to ‘identify and explore best practice processes for developing a new Bill of Rights for the UK’.  The report analyses evidence from related domestic and international experiences (including the ACT, Victoria and Australia) and identifies key principles to underpin the development of a Bill of Rights, regardless of which political party is in power.

The Human Rights Law Resource Centre was interviewed for the research and is extensively and positively cited through the report. 

The key finding and recommendations as to the process of creating a Bill of Rights include that it be:

• Non-regressive: Any future UK Bill of Rights should not dilute existing protection provided by the HRA, either in relation to the specific rights protected, or by weakening the existing machinery for the protection of Convention rights.  Any process that starts from a premise of going backwards would set a damaging precedent internationally.  
• Transparent: Politicians should be transparent about the purpose of a Bill of Rights and the terms of reference and methods of the process by which they propose to create it.  This entails a clear procedural commitment to act on the results of public consultation and deliberation within clearly articulated parameters.
• Independent: The body running the process should be demonstrably non-partisan, independent of government and have no vested interest in the outcome.
• Democratic: For the outcome to be seen as having democratic legitimacy, the process must also be democratic.  This principle recognises that Bills of Rights are not only a constraint on the exercise of arbitrary power; they are also a positive instrument to enable relatively powerless groups to have an effective say in the democratic process.
• Inclusive: The process should place the highest premium on eliciting the views and experiences of groups whose human rights are most vulnerable to being breached, and should give those voices an elevated status in the assessment of responses and in the final outcome.
• Deliberative and participative: The process should be an exercise in building citizenship, not merely ‘market research’.  It should provide multiple opportunities for participation and, ideally, properly constructed forum(s) for deliberation which should be used to educate and invigorate the wider consultation.
• Educative: The public should be informed to the greatest extent possible about existing human rights protections and options for building on them, and about their duty to respect the rights of others.  A minimum requirement is the provision of accessible and impartial information and the correction of myths and misperceptions about human rights and the HRA.  
• Evidence-based: Actors concerned with the protection and promotion of human rights should advocate for a concordat that would bind all parties that signed it to certain rules of engagement; principally, an agreement not to use language or bring stories into the public domain that knowingly distort the purported impact of human rights and the HRA.  This would help to ensure that all parties commit themselves to a process which is avowedly educative and non-partisan and does not trade in myths or seek to use the Bill of Rights as a proxy for unrelated issues.
• Reciprocal: The process should be a two-way dialogue in which the government, too, is educated.  The imprint of the process must be visible and acknowledged in the final outcome.
• Timed: Any process should have a clear timeframe with, at a suitable juncture, a momentum-building phase.  It should not be indeterminate.
• Political commitment:  The process should be adequately resourced and there should be a political commitment to act on the outcome of consultation.

The report is available at www.equalityhumanrights.com/legislative-framework/bill-of-rights/developing-a-bill-of-rights-for-the-uk-research-report/.  

Two years on, the Government’s response to the recommendations of the National Human Rights Consultation, in particular the enactment of an Australian Human Rights Act, present the Prime Minister with another opportunity to exercise responsible leadership and unite us around fundamentally Australian values. 

The Consultation Committee’s report was released following one of the most extensive exercises in participatory democracy in Australian history.  The independent committee received over 35,000 submissions and hosted 66 roundtables throughout metropolitan, regional and rural Australia.  The committee found that, ‘after 10 months of listening to the people of Australia, [there is] no doubt that the protection and promotion of human rights is a matter of national importance.’ 

On 26 January 2010, Gerard Henderson wrote that the report revealed that ‘a majority of Australians believe human rights are adequately protected now’.  This, however, tells only a small part of the story.  Yes, as Henderson wrote, most Australians may be ‘happy with their lot’, but most Australians are also informed, sophisticated and empathetic enough to recognise that their lot is not everyone’s lot.  Reflecting this, the report found that the patchwork of human rights protection is ‘fragmented and incomplete and its inadequacies are felt most keenly by the marginalised and vulnerable’.  There was a strong view that ‘we could do better in guaranteeing fairness for all within Australia and in protecting the dignity of people who miss out’.  This was corroborated by independent research commissioned for the report which demonstrated very strong support, up to 75 per cent, for further measures to protect the human rights of people with mental illness, the elderly, Aboriginal Australians and people with disability.  

Henderson further wrote that the push for a Human Rights Act ‘seems doomed’, citing the Attorney-General’s abundantly reasonable observation that ‘the enhancement of human rights should be done in a way that as far as possible unites a community rather than causes further division’.  Again, however, this only reveals a small part of the story.  The committee’s report demonstrated widespread public support for legislative and institutional action to promote human rights.  There was very strong support for a Human Rights Act.  87 per cent of submissions to the Committee which considered the issue supported a Human Rights Act, while the independent research demonstrated 57 per cent support and only 14 per cent opposition.  This compares very favourably with support and opposition pre-Apology. 

There is widespread public and political consensus on the implementation of many of the recommendations made by the National Human Rights Consultation Committee, including enhanced human rights education and strengthened parliamentary scrutiny of fundamental rights and freedoms.  The Government should move immediately on these. 

While it is true that there is less consensus regarding a Human Rights Act, the opposition to such an Act is often overstated, particularly that of religious groups.  Many religious groups, leaders and churches support a Human Rights Act, including the Anglican General Synod and the Uniting Church.  So do many past and present leaders from all sides of politics and all corners of the nation, among them Malcolm Fraser, Neville Wran, Gareth Evans, Fred Chaney, Steve Bracks, Michael Lavarch, Rob Hulls and Natasha Stott Despoja. 

The federal Attorney-General is correct in expressing a preference for the enhancement of human rights in a way that unites rather than divides us.  As demonstrated by the Apology, however, political leadership and vision can unite people, even on controversial issues.  That is particularly the case when what is being proposed is good, evidence-based policy that resonates deeply with our Australian commitment to respect, tolerance, fairness, freedom and the rule of law. 

Far from being divisive, political leadership on an already popular Human Rights Act would unite us through legal protection and institutional strengthening of those Australian democratic values we hold in common. 

Philip Lynch is Director of the Human Rights Law Resource Centre