PART ONE

Introduction

The National Human Rights Consultation was announced on 10 December 2008.
This part of the report provides an overview of how the Consultation was conducted
and the matters the Committee was asked to consider.
Chapter 1 outlines the various strategies the Committee adopted in order to consult
the Australian community. Chapter 2 offers a selection of what the Committee heard
during the Consultation, and Chapter 3 discusses rights and responsibilities and
provides an Australian context for the discussion in the remainder of the report.





Introduction

| 3
1 The Consultation: an overview
On 10 December 2008 the Commonwealth Attorney-General, the Hon. Robert
McClelland MP, launched the National Human Rights Consultation, honouring the
Australian Labor Partys 2007 election commitment to initiate a public inquiry
about how best to recognise and protect the human rights and freedoms enjoyed by
all Australians
1
and to establish a process of consultation which will ensure that all
Australians will be given the chance to have their say on this important question for
our democracy.
2

A National Human Rights Consultation Committee was appointed to conduct the
Consultationacademic and human rights advocate Father Frank Brennan (Chair),
former broadcaster Ms Mary Kostakidis, former Australian Federal Police
Commissioner Mr Mick Palmer, and barrister Ms Tammy Williams. Mr Philip Flood, a
former senior public servant and diplomat, was subsequently appointed from late
March 2009 to 30 June 2009 as an alternate for Mr Palmer, who was unable to
attend some of the community roundtables because of his involvement in other
government inquiries.
1.1 The Committees brief
In launching the Consultation, the Attorney-General issued terms of reference
asking the Committee to consult the community on three primary questions:
Which human rights (including corresponding responsibilities) should be
protected and promoted?
Are these human rights currently sufficiently protected and promoted?
How could Australia better protect and promote human rights?
In conducting the Consultation, the Committee was asked to do the following:
consult broadly with the community, particularly those who live in rural and
regional areas;
undertake a range of awareness raising activities to enhance participation in
the consultation by a wide cross section of Australias diverse community;

1
Australian Labor Party, ALP National Platform and Constitution (2007) 7
<http://www.alp.org.au/platform/chapter_13.php> at 3 September 09.
2
ibid., 9.



4 |
Human Rights Consultation Committee Report

seek out the diverse range of views held by the community about the
protection and promotion of human rights; and
identify key issues raised by the community in relation to the protection and
promotion of human rights.
The Committee was asked to report to the Federal Government on the issues
raised and the options identified for the Government to consider to enhance the
protection and promotion of human rights. It was also asked to set out the
advantages and disadvantages (including social and economic costs and benefits)
and an assessment of the level of community support for each option it identifies.
The terms of reference further directed the Committee to ensure that the options
identified preserve the sovereignty of parliament and [do] not include a
constitutionally entrenched bill of rights. Appendix A presents the Committees
terms of reference.
Initially, the Committee was to report to the government on 31 July 2009. This date
was later changed to 31 August 2009 and subsequentlyas a result of the
overwhelming response to the call for public submissionsto 30 September 2009.
The Committee received secretariat support from officers in the Human Rights
Branch of the Commonwealth Attorney-Generals Department.
1.2 The Consultation
The Committee resolved to seek out the views and experiences of the broadest
possible range of community members interested in human rightsthe mainstream
public as well as vulnerable and marginalised groups. It was particularly concerned
to hear from Indigenous Australians, the homeless, people with disabilities, people
with mental illness, refugees, new migrants, prisoners, and individuals and
organisations involved in the protection and promotion of rights, among them non-
government organisations and advocacy groups. Additionally, the Committee sought
the views of lawyers, academics, parliamentarians, judges, senior public servants
and senior police. It also considered it important to seek views on the effects of
human rights legislation in Victoria, the Australian Capital Territory and overseasin
particular, in the United Kingdom and New Zealand.
In brief, throughout its seven months of public consultations the Committee did the
following:
invited written submissions
held 66 community roundtablestown hallstyle meetingsin 52 locations
around the country, in metropolitan and regional areas and in remote
communities



Introduction

| 5
held an online forum for discussion of the three primary consultation questions
and the question of whether or not Australia needs a Human Rights Act
held many meetings with a broad range of interested organisations and
individuals
commissioned a national phone survey and focus group research in order to
gain a better understanding of the views of the wider Australian community
commissioned social research in order to gain a better understanding of the
views of members of particular marginalised groups
commissioned an analysis of the economic and social costs and benefits of a
number of options for better protecting and promoting human rights
held three days of public hearings in Canberra to discuss matters emerging from
the submissions, roundtables and meetings
contributed to the national conversation on human rights in a range of
mainstream media as well as hosting Facebook pages. The Department of
Education, Employment and Workplace Relations also organised an online
discussion of human rights for younger Australians on the Australian Youth
Forum website.
Throughout the Consultation the Secretariat drafted and distributed a range of
printed materials, maintained the Consultation website and staffed a 1800
telephone hotline. Among the printed materials were the National Human Rights
Consultation Background Paper and a document outlining the consultation process,
entitled About the National Human Rights Consultation. These materials were
available in a variety of formats, among them in large print and as PDFs.
The Committees work began in earnest in early 2009. It held a press conference on
4 February in Parliament House in Canberra to officially launch the public
consultation phase of its work.
Submissions received
People were able to lodge submissions from the day the Consultation was launched
until 15 June 2009. In total, the Committee received 35 014 written submissions
by far the largest response to a national consultation in Australia.
The Committee asked that submissions be posted, emailed or presented using an
online submission form on the website, where people could type in free-text
responses as well as send documents as attachments. By 15 June 2009 the
Committee had received 26 650 submissions electronically; the remainder arrived
by post.



6 |
Human Rights Consultation Committee Report

A substantial number of the submissions received appeared to have been facilitated
by campaigns run by lobby groups. In particular, the Committee received 14 604
submissions as part of a campaign run by GetUp! and 10 488 as part of a campaign
run by Amnesty International Australia. A number of petitions incorporating
hundreds of signatures were also received.
The subject that generated the greatest amount of discussion in the submissions
was whether or not Australia needs a Human Rights Act. Of the 35 014 submissions
received, 32 091 raised the question, there being 27 888 in favour of a Human
Rights Act and 4203 against. Other reform options were raised in 11 per cent of
submissions, most of them favouring an increase in human rights education in the
community.
Individual topics discussed in submissions ranged from mental illness and the
human rights implications of homelessness to problems with aged care and the
discrimination faced by people in same-sex relationships. The human rights aspects
of disabilities, racism, sex discrimination and religious freedom were the most
frequently discussed subjects.
Examples of the submissions are available on the Consultation website
<http://www.humanrightsconsultation.gov.au>. (The authors gave permission for
them to be published.)
Submission analysis
Every submission received during the Consultation was analysed in order to identify
the following:
the number of submissions supporting the different options for the human rights
and responsibilities that should be protected and promoted
the number of submissions arguing that human rights are already sufficiently
protected and promoted or expressing the contrary view
the number of submissions supporting each of the reform options identified
through the Consultation process
the number of submissions raising specific human rights concernsfor example,
in relation to homelessness, mental illness, asylum seekers, aged care,
euthanasia, prisoners, young people, and national security.
Committee members each read a large number of the submissions. They
considered it important to ensure that they had read enough submissions to gain a
clear sense of the variety of subjects being discussed, the responses to the specific
questions asked, the variety of people who felt strongly enough to make
submissions (and their reasons for doing so), the various legal, economic and social
arguments put forward, and the very many personal stories that were shared.



Introduction

| 7
One of three Brisbane community roundtables

Accordingly, Committee members read a broad range of submissions from members
of the public, experts, human rights advocates, and various organisations. Some of
these submissions contained a paragraph only; others ran to more than 100 pages.
Community roundtables
Sixty-six community roundtables were held between February and June 2009.
Figure 1 shows the 52 locations at which they were held.
Chaired by a Committee member and running for two hours, the roundtables varied
in size depending largely on the size of the community: in major metropolitan
centres up to 250 people attended; in smaller towns groups of about 25 were
common.
The format of the roundtables varied somewhat, according to the interests of the
participants, but typically involved an introduction and overview of the Consultation
by a Committee member, then participants being asked to respond to the terms of
reference for the Consultation. Participants generally worked in their table groups to
respond to the three primary consultation questions and reported back to the whole
meeting.
About 6310 people registered to attend the roundtables; many more attended
without registration. The responses to the three primary consultation questions
were recorded by participants at each roundtable, both individually and in small
groups, and were provided to the secretariat members present. The material
provided to secretariat members was later analysed. As with the written
submissions, the
question of whether a
Human Rights Act is
needed received a great
deal of attention, and
the overwhelming
number of participants
recorded their support
for such an Act.
Increased human rights
education and
development of a
stronger human rights
culture were also an
important focus of the
roundtable discussions.

8 |
Human Rights Consultation Committee Report




F
i
g
u
r
e

1

T
h
e

l
o
c
a
t
i
o
n

o
f

t
h
e

c
o
m
m
u
n
i
t
y

r
o
u
n
d
t
a
b
l
e
s






Introduction

| 9

Tammy Williams and secretariat members en route
to Charleville community roundtable
Throughout Australia participants were
generally appreciative of having the
opportunity to participate in a national
debate on human rights. As one participant
said, The one thing at this forum that
Ive really found uplifting is the right we
have to challenge and voice our concerns
about things that we feel strongly about.
3

Some participants felt they had learnt a
lot
4
about human rights, and a few said
they had changed their minds about the
best way to protect human rights.
5

The Consultation website and
Facebook pages
The Consultation website
<www.humanrightsconsultation.gov.au>,
which the secretariat managed, provided,
among other things, background information as well as a Hold your own community
roundtable kit for people who were unable to attend one of the Committees
community roundtables. Using the website, people could subscribe to receive email
updates on the Committees activities and could send emails with inquiries. The
website also provided regular updates from the Committee, enabled people to
register to attend roundtables, provided summaries of each of the roundtables, and
offered answers to frequently asked questions and links to other useful human
rights resources.
The Committee established a Facebook page that gave background information
about the Consultation and provided links to the website and the online forum. The
Chair of the Committee also had a personal Facebook page.
The online forum
The online forum ran from 19 May 2009 until 26 June 2009. It was hosted on
behalf of the Committee by Global Access Partners on its Open Forum website
<http://www.openforum.com.au/NHROC>. The primary aim of the online forum was
to gather public responses to the three primary questions set out in the
Committees terms of reference and to facilitate public debate on an important

3
Tweed Heads, Community Roundtable.
4
Wollongong, Community Roundtable.
5
Burnie, Community Roundtable.



10 |
Human Rights Consultation Committee Report

question emerging from the community roundtables and submissionsDoes
Australia need a charter or bill of rights?
The debates on the online forum were led by the Chair of the Committee and
facilitated by respected legal academics Professor George Williams and Professor
Tom Campbell.
6
In its six weeks of operation the forum received 12 622 visits from
8932 people. There was unanimity among the users about the importance of
human rights, but no overwhelming majority emerged for or against a statutory bill
or charter of rights.
On 16 January 2009 the Australian Youth Forum launched an online discussion
board on human rights <http://www.youth.gov.au/ayf/>. The discussion board gave
its audience the opportunity to put forward their ideas on human rights. In the two
months the discussion board was active on the Australian Youth Forum website it
received 45 posts and over 600 votes from young people.
The ideas submitted through the online discussion were compiled and presented as
a submission to the Consultation from the young people of Australia. The posts
made focused on things such as the right to equality and non-discrimination for
people under 18 years of age, the rights of Indigenous Australians, and the rights of
people in developing countries.
Additional meetings
At the beginning of the Consultation the Chair wrote to all federal members of
parliament, all premiers and chief ministers, all attorneys-general, and the chief
justices of all courts in Australia, seeking submissions and offering to meet. The
Committee then met with a range of individuals and organisations throughout the
Consultation. Among them were parliamentarians, senior public servants, police
commissioners, judges and retired judges, anti-discrimination commissioners, and
many others. The Committee also met with prominent individuals who were visiting
Australia, including Baroness Scotland (Attorney General for England and Wales and
Northern Ireland), a visiting South African judge, and a number of New Zealand
politicians, public servants and judges. The Chair also visited Christmas Island to
meet people in immigration detention and to conduct a community roundtable with
Christmas Island residents.
The Committee met with representatives of various community groups, non-
government organisations and other bodies involved in the protection and
promotion of human rights or working with people for whom human rights are a
particular concern. This included a visit to a New South Wales prison to meet a

6
Professor George Williams and Professor Tom Campbell have expressed differing views on whether
Australia should have a Human Rights Act.



Introduction

| 11
group of prisoners and discuss their experiences; a visit to schools in Alice Springs,
among them one that has introduced a range of initiatives aimed at improving
educational outcomes for Indigenous children living in the town camps; a visit to the
Matthew Talbot Hostel in Sydneys Woolloomooloo; and a meeting at the Wayside
Chapel with providers of services to the homeless in the Kings Cross area.
The Chair also addressed the Australian Council of Social Service National
Congress, the executive of the Law Council of Australia, the Sydney Institute, the
Medico-Legal Society of Victoria, the annual meeting of Australias police
commissioners, the annual seminar of Queensland Supreme Court judges, and the
annual conference of the Queensland District Court. The Committee met members
of the Human Rights Roundtable convened by the Australian Human Rights
Commission. And the Chair addressed the General Synod of the Anglican Church of
Australia as well as two meetings convened by the Australian Christian Lobby.
Keen to learn about the experiences of the two jurisdictions in Australia with human
rights legislation, the Committee also held meetings with a range of people involved
in implementation of the ACT Human Rights Act and the Victorian Charter of Human
Rights and Responsibilities Act. Among these people were the Victorian Solicitor-
General and representatives of the Victorian Department of Justice; the Victorian
Police Commissioner; Victorian Supreme Court judges; representatives of the
Victorian Department of Human Services, the Victorian Equal Opportunity & Human
Rights Commission and the ACT Department of Justice and Community Safety; the
Australian Federal Police Commissioner; ACT Supreme Court judges; and
representatives of the ACT Human Rights Commission.
Additionally, the Chair addressed the Commonwealth Attorney-Generals annual
non-government organisation forum on human rights and met three times with
members of a Commonwealth interdepartmental committee established by the
Attorney-Generals Department.
Public hearings
In early July 2009 three days of public hearings were held at Parliament House in
Canberra to conclude the consultation process. In this way the Committee was able
to invite some of those who had made submissions to discuss aspects of human
rights emerging from the community roundtables and submissions.
These discussions gave the Committee further insights into the views of domestic
and international commentators on human rights protection. They also gave the
public an opportunity to hear prominent human rights advocates, as well as
individuals who might have experienced human rights problems in our community.
Over 70 speakers took part in panel discussions and debates, and several British
speakers appeared in interviews on video, among them Lord Thomas Bingham,



12 |
Human Rights Consultation Committee Report

former Law Lord; and Michael Wills MP, the Minister for Human Rights. Geoffrey
Robertson QC, now based in the United Kingdom, also appeared.
These public hearings were subsequently televised on the Australian Public Affairs
Channel.

The Committee at the conclusion of the public hearings
Phone survey and focus group research
The Committee engaged Colmar Brunton Social Research to develop a two-pronged
research project, the main purpose of which was to allow the Committee to gain an
appreciation of the level of interest in and knowledge of and attitudes about human
rights and their protection among a random sample of Australians who had not
attended the community roundtables or made a submission.
The project involved convening 15 small focus groupsone metropolitan and one
regional group in each state and territory (except for the ACT, where no regional
focus group was convened)and this was followed by a national telephone survey of
1200 people. The research team used the focus groups to obtain a qualitative
understanding of the communitys views about human rights and identify questions
for use in the telephone survey, which quantified attitudes and preferences.
Appendix B summarises the resultant report.



Introduction

| 13
Devolved consultation
Colmar Brunton Social Research was also commissioned to conduct a focus group
study in order to cast light on the experiences and opinions of marginalised and
vulnerable groupsindividuals who are thought to be especially at risk of having
their rights threatened or violated.
This devolved consultation research project entailed nine small-group and individual
discussions and nine interviews with representatives of non-government
organisations working with these groups. The groups involved were homeless
people; people with mental illness and people with physical disabilities; recently
arrived refugees, immigrants and people recently released from immigration
detention; ex-prisoners; the aged; and people with drug or alcohol dependencies.
The discussions focused on understanding the practical, day-to-day experiences of
members of these groups. Appendix C summarises the resultant report.
Social and economic costbenefit analysis
The Committee commissioned The Allen Consulting Group to provide a costbenefit
analysis of options for the protection and promotion of human rights in Australia.
The options put forward to the consultants had been developed by the Secretariat
before the closing of the submission and community roundtable phases of the
Consultation, so they are more limited than the full spectrum of options that were
identified throughout the Consultation. They covered various statutory models of a
Human Rights Act, increased human rights education, greater parliamentary
scrutiny, an increased role for the Australian Human Rights Commission, reforms to
the federal anti-discrimination framework, the development of a new National
Action Plan for human rights, as well as the option of maintaining the current
system of human rights protections (that is, a do nothing approach).
The consultants developed common criteria against which to compare and evaluate
each optionbenefits to stakeholders, implementation timeliness and costs, and
risks. Appendix D presents the consultants report.
Advice from the Solicitor-General
The Committee sought from the Solicitor-General advice on the constitutional
implications of various aspects of a potential Human Rights Act. Appendix E
presents the Solicitor-Generals advice.
Broader community discussion
In addition to each initiative just outlined, the Committee was pleased to note the
strong interest in the human rights debate that was demonstrated throughout the
Consultation process. For example, several books on the subject were published
during the Consultation period, among them A Statute of Liberty by Geoffrey



14 |
Human Rights Consultation Committee Report

Robertson; Bills of Rights in Australia by Andrew Byrnes, Hilary Charlesworth and
Gabrielle McKinnon; and Dont Leave Us with the Bill: the case against an
Australian bill of rights, edited by Julian Leeser and Ryan Haddrick. Opinion pieces
appeared regularly in the print media, as did articles covering the development and
progress of the Consultation.