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Speaker 1: Already and this is the daily This is the Daily Ours.

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Speaker 1: Oh now it makes sense.

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Speaker 2: Good morning and welcome to the Daily Ours. It's Monday,

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Speaker 2: the third of June.

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Speaker 1: I'm Sam, I'm billy.

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Speaker 2: For years, human rights advocates have called for stronger protections

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Speaker 2: and clearer legislation to ensure that the fundamental human rights

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Speaker 2: and freedoms of all Australians are upheld. A proposed act

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Speaker 2: by a parliamentary committee last week could mark a significant

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Speaker 2: turning point in how rights are recognized and enforced across

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Speaker 2: the nation. To help us navigate this quite complex and

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Speaker 2: crucial topic, we sat down with Professor Justine Nolan. She's

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Speaker 2: the director of the Australian Human Rights Institute and a

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Speaker 2: professor at UNSW. We're going to talk to Professor Nolan

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Speaker 2: to gain a bit of a deeper understanding of what

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Speaker 2: a federal Human Rights Act could mean for Australia. But first,

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Speaker 2: here's what's making headlines over the weekend. VIS President Joe

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Speaker 2: Biden outlined a proposal by Israel that would see an

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Speaker 2: immediate temporary ceasefire in its war against Hamas. Under the

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Speaker 2: three stage Plan, a six week ceasefire would pave the

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Speaker 2: way for a staged withdrawal of Israeli troops from Gaza

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Speaker 2: and the return of all remaining hostages. Speaking over the weekend,

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Speaker 2: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Nanyah, who said there would be

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Speaker 2: no permanent ceasefire until Hamas's military and governing capabilities have

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Speaker 2: been destroyed. Hamas also issued a statement in response to

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Speaker 2: the proposal, saying it was received quote positively.

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Speaker 3: The US government is doing Hyundai over child labour allegations.

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Speaker 3: The car manufacturer is accused of employing underage workers in

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Speaker 3: an Alabama facility, including a thirteen year old who allegedly

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Speaker 3: worked after sixty hours a week in the factory. The

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Speaker 3: US government is calling for Hyundai and a recruitment firm

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Speaker 3: to be made to pay back any profits related to

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Speaker 3: the use of oppressive child labour.

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Speaker 2: Rescue crews are continuing to search the site of a

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Speaker 2: large explosion believes to have been caused by a gas

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Speaker 2: leak in western Sydney, which injured five people on Saturday afternoon.

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Speaker 2: One woman is still unaccounted for, with emergency services telling

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Speaker 2: the media they have heard quotes, taps and noises from

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Speaker 2: the rubble, which is quote a good indicator that there

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Speaker 2: is still life underneath. The blast was heard from several

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Speaker 2: kilometers away.

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Speaker 3: And today's good news, NASA's James Webb telescope has captured

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Speaker 3: the first images of the most distant galaxy known to researchers.

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Speaker 3: It's believed to have formed within three hundred million years

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Speaker 3: of the Big Bane, making it one of the earliest

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Speaker 3: galaxies ever discovered. NASA said it could be hundreds of

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Speaker 3: millions of times the mass of the Sun based on

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Speaker 3: how luminous the galaxy appears.

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Speaker 2: Before we get into today's deep dive, here's a message

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Speaker 2: from our sponsor. Whether you're a legal professional, a human

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Speaker 2: rights advocate, or simply just to concern citizen, how our

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Speaker 2: human rights are enforced by law really matters. And last

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Speaker 2: week a parliamentary committee recommended the introduction of a Human

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Speaker 2: Rights Act and ultimately that would mean that human rights

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Speaker 2: are better integrated into all areas of policymaking and the

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Speaker 2: public service. There's kind of a source of truth for

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Speaker 2: human rights in Australia. And joining me on the podcast

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Speaker 2: this morning is Professor Justin Nolan. She's the director of

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Speaker 2: the Australian Human Rights Institute. Justin thanks for joining us

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Speaker 2: this morning.

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Speaker 1: Thanks Sam, great to be here.

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Speaker 2: I want to start this conversation just by setting out

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Speaker 2: the framework of what's currently there. Because where a liberal

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Speaker 2: democracy that doesn't have a Bill of Rights or any

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Speaker 2: sort of document with this kind of title, like a

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Speaker 2: human Rights Act? How are human rights protected by law

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Speaker 2: right now?

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Speaker 4: So we're the only Western liberal democracy without a human

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Speaker 4: Rights Act, and at the moment we have sort of

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Speaker 4: a patchwork system of rights protection. There's a few rights

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Speaker 4: in the constitution, but our constitution is nothing like you know,

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Speaker 4: the American or the French constitution, which is eloquent on rights.

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Speaker 4: Some rights a sort of protected by common law, which

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Speaker 4: is judge made law.

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Speaker 1: And then there's sort of some implied rights.

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Speaker 4: So it's this patchwork of system and there's a very

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Speaker 4: limited number of rights and not really what you'd consider

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Speaker 4: human rights that are protected at the moment.

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Speaker 2: And has that made it hard to enforce human rights

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Speaker 2: in court cases?

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Speaker 4: Yeah, so you get this gap. I mean Australia does

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Speaker 4: some things very well. So we have extensive legislation on

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Speaker 4: discrimination law, you know, lots of different types of discrimination law.

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Speaker 4: But when you fall outside those boundaries, then people victims

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Speaker 4: just simply don't have pathways or obvious pathways around human rights.

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Speaker 4: So yeah, there are massive gaps and enforcement has long

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Speaker 4: been a problem in Australia.

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Speaker 2: But something I always think about is that there are

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Speaker 2: these big international documents, and these big international documents like

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Speaker 2: the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Australia as a signatory

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Speaker 2: to that, does that not kind of fill that gap?

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Speaker 4: So there's major human rights treaties and Australia is you know,

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Speaker 4: signed those and ratified those who were bound by them.

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Speaker 4: But what you happen in the system is that you

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Speaker 4: international law. But for it to work in Australia and

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Speaker 4: for it to be you know, for us to sort

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Speaker 4: of use it as a pathway for remedy, then you've

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Speaker 4: got to turn that into law. So for example, international law,

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Speaker 4: so discrimination law. We've taken parts of the International Covenant

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Speaker 4: on Civil and Political Rights and made extensive discrimination laws

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Speaker 4: around that, around sex, age, disability, but there's a whole

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Speaker 4: suite of other rights, and particularly economic and social rights

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Speaker 4: like social security, housing, food, water, which we have never

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Speaker 4: translated international law. So all of those international laws guide

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Speaker 4: us and provide us with a framework, but in terms

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Speaker 4: of enforcement they mean little in Australia.

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Speaker 2: And I guess what you're talking about there is if

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Speaker 2: you're somebody impacted by one of those areas that you

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Speaker 2: just rattled off, how do you actually go about being remedied,

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Speaker 2: being fixed in that area?

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Speaker 1: Yeah, there's no clear pathway.

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Speaker 4: And so you know, what we have in the system

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Speaker 4: in Australia is largely some rights but without responsibility. Right,

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Speaker 4: there's no responsibility, there's no accountability, and then that totally

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Speaker 4: makes these rights illegitimate because they can't be enforced.

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Speaker 2: Before we get to the potential solution that we're going

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Speaker 2: to discuss, can you just give me an example of

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Speaker 2: one of these areas that you think would really benefit

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Speaker 2: from its own law.

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Speaker 1: So for example, housing rights. So housing rights different.

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Speaker 2: We talk about that all the time on this podcast.

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Speaker 4: And it's a massive issue in Australia at the moment,

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Speaker 4: particularly around cost of living crisis where we're seeing evictions rise.

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Speaker 4: So there's sporadic laws around Australia. They differ from state

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Speaker 4: to state. There's no national laws on housing, no national standards,

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Speaker 4: and you know, largely at the moment, eviction laws tend

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Speaker 4: to favor the landlord and not those who are most vulnerable,

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Speaker 4: and so that's a situation where there are international rights

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Speaker 4: around it, and it sets out criteria about what housing

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Speaker 4: rights should look like in terms of accessibility and culturally

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Speaker 4: appropriate and all of these types of things.

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Speaker 1: But Australia doesn't have anything like that.

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Speaker 2: And so then last week Parliamentary Committee proposed the government

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Speaker 2: establish Australia's first ever human rights law, the Human Rights Act.

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Speaker 2: What would that actually look like?

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Speaker 4: So the idea, and this is really historic, what this

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Speaker 4: Parliamentary Committee is proposing is the idea is that there

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Speaker 4: is a Human Rights Act that would apply to all Australians,

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Speaker 4: everybody who is here, citizens and non citizens, everybody within Australia.

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Speaker 4: And when you boil it down to what it basically

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Speaker 4: means is that what we're agreeing to do is protect

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Speaker 4: people's and respect people's basic dignity. And then we do

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Speaker 4: that through recognizing their right to free speech, their right

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Speaker 4: to housing, their right to social security, and we have

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Speaker 4: standards that are national that everybody applies to everybody, and

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Speaker 4: we're also setting up a pathway where if things go

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Speaker 4: wrong and they do we know we've had multiple Royal

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Speaker 4: commissions which show this in the last few years, then

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Speaker 4: those people have a pathway to seeking remedy.

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Speaker 2: So that sounds pretty straightforward to me. Yeah, like it

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Speaker 2: kind of sounds like it would make sense that you

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Speaker 2: put all of that. Seems like we've agreed to it

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Speaker 2: at an international level. Why are we than the only

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Speaker 2: Western democracy who have not done this since Lauren? Why

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Speaker 2: has it taken so long?

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Speaker 4: Well, that's a really good question, and I think it's

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Speaker 4: sometimes when you hear great ideas and people are like, yeah,

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Speaker 4: don't we already have that? And I think that's where

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Speaker 4: we're at now. So we've evolved our thinking around a

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Speaker 4: human Rights Act. I mean we've been here once before.

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Speaker 4: Back you know, in two thousand and eight to twenty ten,

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Speaker 4: previous governments did another inquiry and a Human Rights Act

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Speaker 4: was recommended and it wasn't followed through on. We did

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Speaker 4: lots of other things, education and training. But what this

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Speaker 4: report says is that all of those other things have

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Speaker 4: been helpful but not nearly sufficient. And I think Australia

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Speaker 4: has also evolved in a different way where we think

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Speaker 4: about human rights, particularly post COVID, where it's actually something

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Speaker 4: that applies to us. For many years, Australians would think about, yeah,

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Speaker 4: human rights, but they're probably just people overseas that need them,

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Speaker 4: not us.

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Speaker 1: Everything is fine here.

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Speaker 4: And people in Australia now think, well, actually I have

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Speaker 4: rights that need to be respected and when something goes wrong,

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Speaker 4: I need to be able to get remedy in relation

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Speaker 4: to that.

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Speaker 2: So I can tell from your answers that you're in

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Speaker 2: favor of a human rights Act and that you want

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Speaker 2: to see it happening. What criticism or or commentary have

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Speaker 2: you heard in the discussions you've been having about the

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Speaker 2: acts that could perhaps be the other side of the coin.

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Speaker 4: Sure, So the most obvious one is that we don't

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Speaker 4: need it all our you know, we Australia is a

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Speaker 4: liberal democracy. People are in great place, everything is working.

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Speaker 4: There are a number of rights, there are a number

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Speaker 4: of laws that we have that we can you know,

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Speaker 4: pursue in relation to problems. But then I would say, well,

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Speaker 4: you know, if I look at just the last few years,

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Speaker 4: we've had a Royal Commission into robodet into age care

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Speaker 4: and disability, which have just been startling in terms of

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Speaker 4: the impacts on people. People's lives have been destroyed, and

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Speaker 4: you see the abuses that people are suffering, and so

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Speaker 4: logically you say, well, then the system we have isn't working.

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Speaker 4: We need something else. It's not that it's nothing there,

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Speaker 4: but we need to plug the gaps and we need

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Speaker 4: to have a holistic framework. So one is that you know,

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Speaker 4: everything is fine. The other one, some people say, is

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Speaker 4: that well, you know, are we sort of giving too

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Speaker 4: much power? Are we taking sovereignty away from parliament? Remember

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Speaker 4: this is just a legislative act, so a parliament can

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Speaker 4: bring it in, a parliament can later amend it, a

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Speaker 4: parliament can later appeal it, so it's another act. But

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Speaker 4: basically it's sending a signal that this is something you know,

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Speaker 4: that all Australians should have access to. So they're often

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Speaker 4: the most common ones. And the other one I think

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Speaker 4: is that well if we do this, then will open

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Speaker 4: the floodgates and there'll be massive compensation. Well, we have

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Speaker 4: three state acts already in Victoria, Queensland and the Act.

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Speaker 2: So you're saying that people suing, yes, a body for breaches.

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Speaker 4: Of suing a public authority for a bridge of human rights,

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Speaker 4: and there's going to be litigation never ending, and we'll

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Speaker 4: turn into America. So we've got three states that have

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Speaker 4: already had them for a number of years. And that

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Speaker 4: argument just has not been seen through. There's been consistent

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Speaker 4: causes that have pushed under it, but in no stretch

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Speaker 4: of an imagination has sort of been floodgates in relation

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Speaker 4: to human rights claims.

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Speaker 2: It seems to me that the really important part of

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Speaker 2: this discussion is the pr effect of a human rights

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Speaker 2: act and the ability for it to bring human rights

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Speaker 2: into the consciousness of everybody when it's part of an act.

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Speaker 2: Do you agree that that's a significant part of things.

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Speaker 2: The kind of public perception of human rights?

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Speaker 1: Yeah, so you say PR, I would say culture like

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Speaker 1: sort of what was.

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Speaker 2: Sting you and me?

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Speaker 1: Yeah? Not media trained.

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Speaker 4: So I think what it is is starting to bring

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Speaker 4: into Australia that Australia recognize it needs, and I think

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Speaker 4: and clearly the majority of people want, is a rights

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Speaker 4: culture where, you know, human rights sometimes can be scary

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Speaker 4: to people because they feel like, what is that, you know,

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Speaker 4: you know, we're giving special rights to people. At its essence,

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Speaker 4: what it boils down to is that we recognize that

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Speaker 4: everybody has inherent dignity and we're going to find ways

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Speaker 4: to respect that and respect you know, their fundamental freedoms

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Speaker 4: around that.

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Speaker 1: So I think it's really important.

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Speaker 4: The point you raise that we that we start to

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Speaker 4: we're a mature democracy, that we have that that we

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Speaker 4: have that conversation, and that we recognize that as a culture.

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Speaker 4: This is where we're moving and we're joining everybody else

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Speaker 4: on the global stage.

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Speaker 2: From here, where do you see this policy discussion going?

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Speaker 2: Like what does the roadmap look like?

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Speaker 4: So this is a report from a Parliamentary Committee on

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Speaker 4: Human Rights which is recommending this historic change. Now we

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Speaker 4: await the government response. So ideally then we have the

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Speaker 4: governments coming in and saying yes, this is what we do,

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Speaker 4: and then we set a pathway up for a form.

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Speaker 4: The Australian Human Rights Commission has been doing work for

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Speaker 4: a number of years setting out a pathway or what

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Speaker 4: that would look like. There's a whole coalition of civil

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Speaker 4: society organizations looking at the charter of rights movement. So

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Speaker 4: I think what we'll see is policy and advocacy discussions

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Speaker 4: and we will wait a government response that will then

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Speaker 4: provide a framework for what happens.

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Speaker 2: Next final question, So you are actually my law professor.

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Speaker 2: I was at the University of New South Wales. You

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Speaker 2: now do work with the Australian Human Rights Institute. This

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Speaker 2: is just part of the human rights landscape in Australia.

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Speaker 2: What's the biggest challenge facing the human rights sector in Australia.

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Speaker 2: Does it need more funding, does it need more literacy?

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Speaker 2: Where are you seeing the biggest opportunity for us to

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Speaker 2: really make make a move both of those things.

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Speaker 4: I think when you work for a nonprofit or a university,

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Speaker 4: you always say, yes, we need funding, but there is

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Speaker 4: you know, with funding comes resources that enhances your capacity

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Speaker 4: to send a message out. But I think the biggest

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Speaker 4: thing is that question that we just had at the moment,

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Speaker 4: this acceptance of that human rights are relevant and needed

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Speaker 4: in Australia. And I really do think that we are

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Speaker 4: there now. And you know, if you look at how

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Speaker 4: the world is exploding around us, and discussions in Australia

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Speaker 4: around many issues, whether it's around indigenous issues, racism, housing rights,

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Speaker 4: the cost of living, all of these are going to

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Speaker 4: be more mature discussions, more accessible discussions when you put

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Speaker 4: them in a rights framework and you respect people to

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Speaker 4: have those thoughts, to have those opinions, And the idea

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Speaker 4: of a human rights act is that you know, it's

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Speaker 4: really a preventative measure as well, that you start to

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Speaker 4: embed in people this notion that we need this and

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Speaker 4: we have this literacy.

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Speaker 1: So I do think sort of literacy and education.

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Speaker 4: Is a huge part of human rights in a s

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Speaker 4: And yeah, if you want to give us money, please

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Speaker 4: send it.

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Speaker 2: Professor Justin Nolan from the Australian Human Rights Institute, thanks

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Speaker 2: so much for joining us. Thanks Sam, that's all we've

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Speaker 2: got time for on today's episode of The Daily Ours.

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Speaker 2: I'll put a link to some more information about the

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Speaker 2: proposed Human Rights Act in today's show notes. If you

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Speaker 2: want a bit of further reading, We'll be back again

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Speaker 2: in your ears tomorrow morning. Until then, have a great

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Speaker 2: start to the week. My name is Lily Maddon and

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Speaker 2: I'm a proud Arunda Bungelung Kalkotin woman from Gadigol Country.

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Speaker 2: The Daily os acknowledges that this podcast is recorded on

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Speaker 2: the lands of the Gadighl people and pays respect to

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Speaker 2: all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Island and nations.

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Speaker 1: We pay our respects to the first peoples of these countries,

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Speaker 1: both past and present.