Tammy Tyrrell (Tasmania, Independent) Share this | Hansard source

It's crazy to think this country doesn't have a human rights act. We need to legislate an Australian human rights act to ensure our rights are properly protected by law at the national level. Right now, we have a piecemeal approach to human rights in Australia. Only some rights are protected under national law, and some rights are protected in some states, and others are not. Then we have different legislation for states and territories which protect human rights in some states and territories but not in others. Australians' human rights protections shouldn't differ because of which state they live or work in.

We also have an Australian human rights commission, but they don't have a national human rights framework to use. The president of the commission has described our protections as 'patchy' and said that 'our human rights safety net has holes in it'. This is so messy for something so important. We need to take a national approach to protecting our human rights. A human rights act would ensure the values we all share, like fairness, respect, dignity and compassion, are always at the heart of all government decisions, laws and policies. It would mean every person in Australia knows their rights and understands what we value and prioritise as a community.

This approach is not just backed by experts; it has been effectively adopted by other countries around the world. We already have a draft for it thanks to the inquiry into Australia's human rights framework. Experts think this is a great draft to work from and that it would work well to protect our human rights and bring all our patchwork existing laws together. Yes, an Australian human rights act will take some time to get right, but we need to get on with it now.