The Australian Government has tasked the Australian Public Service Commission to revise the Australian Public Service Values (APS Values) to a ‘smaller set of core values that are meaningful, memorable and effective in driving change’. Among other considerations, this revision should seek to ‘affirm the importance of including consideration of human rights issues in policy making’.
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.
