Not giving adequate protection to human rights, particularly to the most vulnerable people in our country, when the government has the political financial and legal resources to do so is a national disgrace. We need a Human Rights Act.
The arguments advanced by John Menadue and the current president of the Human Rights Commission, Dr.Hugh de Kretser, on why Australia needs a Human Rights Act are both comprehensive and compelling; indeed they are irrefutable. This is simply a footnote on two historical and comparative examples illustrating what happens when rights are not protected by effective federal legislation.
I had the privilege of being Australia’s first Federal Human Rights Commissioner, from 1986–1994. For seven years I conducted major national inquiries, ‘Our Homeless Children’ and ‘Human Rights and Mental Illness’. After these reports were tabled in federal parliament (in 1989 and 1993 respectively) the overwhelming evidence gathered, under oath, from thousands of our most vulnerable citizens in every state and territory, led to urgently needed improvements in federal and state policies and programs, dozens of changes in federal and state legislation and hundreds of millions of dollars in additional funds.
It also established, beyond question, the need for a national Human Rights Act, something frequently advocated by my colleagues on the Commission and myself decades ago – and documented then by many of our leading human rights lawyers and academics, including Professor Philip Alston. But many of the improvements we achieved have not withstood the test of time.
In the last 35 years I have kept closely in touch with the increasingly widespread violations of the human rights of homeless. Not giving adequate protection to human rights, particularly those of the most vulnerable people in our country – when the government has the political financial and legal resources to do that – is a national disgrace in one of the wealthiest countries in the world.
When I chaired the national inquiry on mental illness we had over 500,000 Australians affected by serious mental illness. By the time I opened the national conference on psychosis three decades later we had over 800,000 Australians affected – many of whose most basic rights are violated every day. I originally opened the national conference on homeless children in the Melbourne Town Hall. When I opened it much more recently we were meeting in a Melbourne football stadium! We still have at least 25,000 homeless children and young people, about 10,000 of whom are under 12. These are just two of the most vulnerable groups of people in our country.
There are thousands of human rights violations in Australia every day, many the result not of any unlawful act but of omission or neglect, about which our courts are unable to do anything. A national Human Rights Act, along the lines already recommended in 2009 and, similarly, in 2024 could substantially change that.
I had the privilege of advising two of our former Labor leaders, Gough Whitlam (in opposition) and Lionel Bowen (in government). Both vigorously supported human rights and the reforms necessary to ensure they are protected. It is inexcusable that the current Labor Prime Minister will not take advantage of the opportunity he has to entrench these rights – rights we have solemnly promised to protect in all the relevant international treaties Australia has ratified – in a National Human Rights Act.
Not giving adequate protection to human rights, particularly to the most vulnerable people in our country when the government has the political, financial and legal resources to do that is a national disgrace.
Brian Burdekin
Professor Brian Burdekin AO was the first Federal Human Rights Commissioner of Australia, from 1986-1994. From 1995 to 2003, as Special Adviser on National Institutions, Regional Arrangements and Preventive Strategies to the first three United Nations High Commissioners for Human Rights, he conducted over 200 missions to countries in Africa, Asia, Europe and Latin America where governments or civil society wanted to create an independent Human Rights Commission. In the past 25 years he has helped to establish such Commissions in over 70 countries and has been international advisor to many National Human Rights Commissions in Asia, Africa and Central and Eastern Europe. He is generally considered to be the leading international expert on the subject. Brian is currently Visiting Professor at the Raoul Wallenberg Institute in Sweden. He was, until recently, Professorial Visiting Fellow at the University of New South Wales Law Faculty and has previously taught at Melbourne University and many universities in Europe, Asia and the United States.