Zaneta Mascarenhas (Swan, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

On behalf of the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Human Rights I present the committee report entitled Human rights scrutiny report: report7of 2025.

Report made a parliamentary paper in accordance with standing order 39(e).

by leave—I am pleased to table report 7 of 2025 of the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Human Rights.

In this report, the committee considers 21 new bills and 111 new legislative instruments. It has commented on three bills, six legislative instruments and concluded its examination of five bills.

In this report, the committee concluded its consideration of the Social Security and Other Legislation Amendment (Technical Changes No. 2) Bill 2025. This bill retrospectively validates income apportionment as a lawful method for assessing employment income for certain social security entitlements and seeks to establish the income apportionment resolution scheme. As this bill validates earlier debt decisions that may limit a person's entitlement to social security, the measure engages and may limit the right to social security.

The committee considers that it is unclear whether there are adequate safeguards accompanying the measure to ensure that it constitutes a proportionate limit on the right to social security in all circumstances. It is also unclear whether the two remedies available, namely pursuing an action against the Commonwealth or accepting a resolution scheme payment, will be effective in practice.

To assist with proportionality, the committee has recommended that the bill be amended to include further safeguards to assist vulnerable individuals to understand the effect of income apportionment.

After the committee's initial consideration of this bill was tabled, a government amendment to the bill was agreed to that introduces a broader power to cancel a person's social security payments or concession cards if they are the subject of an arrest warrant in respect of a serious violent or sexual offence or if the person may prejudice the security of Australia or a foreign country.

While the committee acknowledges the importance of ensuring individuals charged with serious offences are arrested, the committee notes that any limit on the right to social security must solely be for the purpose of promoting the general welfare in a democratic society and must be compatible with the nature of the right. The committee notes that the explanatory materials do not provide any information or evidence that cancelling a person's social security benefits would facilitate their arrest. The committee further notes that a person cannot seek review of the decision to issue a benefit restriction notice. As such, the committee considers that it is unclear whether the measure pursues a legitimate objective, is rationally connected to the objective or is a proportionate limitation on the right to social security.

Further, the committee notes that cancelling an individual's access to social security in its entirety may go against the nature of the right and there is a risk that the measure may result in the non-fulfilment of Australia's minimum core obligation to ensure that minimum essential levels of benefits are provided to individuals. The committee also considers that it would limit other human rights, including the rights of the child, right to an adequate standard of living, right to health and may have implications for the right to life.

If a person's right to social security is impermissibly limited, effective remedies should be available. The committee considers that, in the absence of access to review or the ability to seek backpay or compensation if the person is found not guilty of the serious offence, there do not appear to be effective remedies available. Additionally, the committee notes that, if the cancellation of social security payments were to be considered a criminal punishment, criminal process rights should be afforded.

I note that this bill passed the Senate earlier today. The committee is strongly of the view that these matters should have been considered before the parliament determined its position on this bill. Members of parliament need to have the benefit of this committee's advice in order to be informed of the human rights implications. The committee is nonetheless seeking further information from the Minister for Social Services about the compatibility of this measure with these rights.

In this report the committee has also commented on the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Heritage Protection (Murujuga) Declaration 2025.This instrument makes it an offence to move, damage, deface or otherwise disturb an Aboriginal site or object in the Murujuga, Western Australia. The committee notes that the stated overall objective of the instrument is to preserve and protect the Murujuga and considers that protecting and preserving this area from injury or desecration promotes multiple human rights, particularly the rights to culture, privacy and equality and non-discrimination.

However, the instrument also provides that an Aboriginal site or object is taken notto be moved, damaged, defaced or otherwise disturbed by, or as a result of, industrial gaseous emissions, which may have the effect of limiting the rights to culture and privacy. The committee notes that industrial gaseous emissions are a key threat to the petroglyphs in the Murujuga. Excluding damage or disturbance caused by industrial gaseous emissions would therefore appear to frustrate the overall purpose of the instrument. Noting the profound cultural and spiritual significance of the petroglyphs, the committee considers that the measure represents a significant interference with the rights of culture and privacy and it is not clear that the measure is accompanied by any safeguards. As such, to the extent that the measure excludes industrial gaseous emissions from the offence to preserve and protect the Murujuga, it is not clear that it is compatible with the rights to culture and privacy.

The committee is seeking further information in relation to the compatibility of the Freedom of Information Amendment Bill 2025 with the right to freedom of expression. The committee notes that many measures in the bill would restrict individuals' access to information held by government, which limits the right to access information, a component of the right to freedom of expression.

Finally, I would like to thank the secretariat for all their hard work in bringing a largely new committee up to speed. I note we have two more meetings before the end of this year.

I encourage all members to consider the committee's report closely. With these comments, I commend the committee's scrutiny report 7 of 2025 to the House.