Peta Murphy (Dunkley, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I'm not going to speak for too long on this piece of legislation, the Australian Human Rights Commission Legislation Amendment (Selection And Appointment) Bill 2022. I do want to address something that the member for Berowra said. He's just walked out, unfortunately. He said that this legislation has been brought forward at the behest of the Global Alliance of National Human Rights Institutions. It's clear that Australia and the Australian Human Rights Commission retaining a status is an important reason for bringing forward this legislation, but so are the principles of transparency and merit based appointments. This is something that the Australian Human Rights Commission itself has asked for. The president of the commission, Emeritus Professor Rosalind Croucher, wrote to members of parliament on 1 August, this week. At paragraph 3 of her correspondence to all of the members of this place, she wrote:

The Australian Human Rights Commission (Commission) has long advocated for these reforms to strengthen the integrity and independence of the Commission and unreservedly supports the passage of the Bill and the proposal for accompanying guidelines.

Under the heading 'Why is the Bill necessary?' on the second page of the president's correspondence, paragraph 8 says:

The existing legislation is not sufficient to support the legitimacy of the Commission, as it does not require all statutory appointments to be conducted through robust, merit-based processes. This affects public confidence and trust in the Commission and its appointed Commissioners.

So while the criticism by the Global Alliance of National Human Rights Institutions has been ongoing for several years and is something that is worthy of consideration and a reason to support this legislation, what is fundamentally important to this legislation is public confidence and trust in the commission and its appointed commissioners.

As Professor Croucher finishes at paragraph 24 of that correspondence to all members of this place:

The Australian Human Rights Commission has advocated for these reforms for some time and unreservedly supports the passage of the Bill as a priority.

In fact, one of the papers that the Human Rights Commission published in the last term of this parliament as part of their national consultation, called Free and Equal: a national conversation on human rights, was a position paper published in December of 2021. It said:

One of the key findings of the Commission's work is that the existing system of federal discrimination law is primarily geared towards the remedial aspects of the obligations to respect and protect, and even with this as its main focus, it falls short of realising effective remediation for discrimination.

The commission identified gaps in the protection offered by discrimination laws and significant questions for accessibility of the discrimination law system, particularly for marginalised and disadvantaged groups, suggesting inevitably that federal discrimination law could be more effective in meeting obligations to respect and protect rights.

The position paper outlines the need to shift the focus of federal discrimination laws, in the view of the commission, to a more preventive approach and towards actions that better support the fulfilment of rights. Four major reform areas were identified in that position paper: building a preventive culture; modernising the regulatory framework; enhancing access to justice; and improving the practical operations of the laws. Under each of those major reform areas there were specific reforms that were suggested.

I'm not going to go through all of them, but I want to make the point that one of the specific proposals under improving the practical operations of the laws was to specify that all commissioner appointments can only be made following a clear, transparent, merit based and participatory selection and appointment process. That's in a paper published in December 2021, well and truly within time for the previous Liberal government to have brought forward the legislation that the current Attorney-General has brought forward today to take up that suggestion.

I want to endorse what the commission said in that position paper, as follows: 'Above all, reform should be seen as a shared endeavour, in which individuals, businesses, organisations and governments each actively contributes to and is assisted in reaching this outcome' of improving our discrimination and human rights laws and justice system. It is so pleasing to see the current Attorney-General acting so swiftly to bring this legislation forward. As the Attorney-General has said, this is necessary to bring forward trust and transparency in the process, and, as the member for Berowra pointed out, reaccreditation of the commission as an A-status national human rights institution, which is so important for our international reputation.

But this legislation is also part of a commitment by the current Albanese Labor government, and those of us who are members of it, to being a government that respects, protects and enhances institutions which are central to or important for a functioning democracy, a democracy that, firstly, works for the people of Australia and, secondly, holds the trust of the people of Australia. It's something many of us on this side of the chamber have been talking about since our first speeches in this place—that one of the responsibilities we have as members of this parliament, as leaders in our community and in the nation, is to respect, reform and protect the institutions that are central to a functioning democracy and which have been battered all over the place under previous governments. There is much work to be done, and, as I've pointed out, in the human rights antidiscrimination space, many suggestions are in the position paper published in December last year.

I want to end this brief contribution by saying, as I've said a number of times, that it is also important that we have in this country a conversation about a national bill or charter of human rights and responsibilities, which we don't have. If we needed any greater impetus for why that conversation is necessary, perhaps some of the discussions about what our rights and responsibilities are during COVID should ring the alarm bells, because of the way some of our rights and responsibilities are misunderstood in this country. Many people don't know that we don't have a national bill of rights and talk about American rights as if they're Australian rights. They don't know that these rights aren't in our Constitution and they don't know where to go to find out what their rights and responsibilities are.

We also need, in my view, a national bill or charter of rights so that we have the necessary legislative framework to discuss, consider, weigh and give effect to rights and responsibilities—which often jut up against each other, sometimes are compatible and sometimes have to be weighed against each other—so that we can stop considering human rights in silos or as the political topic of the day and we can consider them in a legislative framework, and members of this place and members of our broader community can have the language in which to have constructive conversations about what human rights and responsibilities are.

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