Josh Burns (Macnamara, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

On behalf of the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Human Rights, I present the committee's report entitled Human rights scrutiny report: report 10 of 2024.

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

by leave—I'm pleased to table the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Human Rights' 10th scrutiny report of 2024. In this report, the committee has considered 24 new bills and 162 new legislative instruments and has substantively commented on one new bill, one new legislative instrument and has concluded its examination of two bills.

In this report, the committee commented on the Migration Amendment Bill 2024 and the Migration Amendment (Bridging Visas) Regulations 2024. The Migration Amendment Bill seeks to amend the Migration Act 1958 to provide for the cessation of subclass 070 bridging (removal pending) visas to facilitate arrangements for the removal of visa holders to receiving countries; to permit the sharing of criminal history information, both domestically and with foreign countries; to provide for the reversal of protection findings; and to alter the test for where the minister may remove certain BVR visa conditions.

The Migration Amendment (Bridging Visas) Regulations 2024 changes the test for where the minister may impose visa conditions, including curfews or electronic monitoring on a bridging visa holder. The committee considers that the bill and regulations engage multiple human rights while those individuals are in Australia and potentially in circumstances where they've been removed to a foreign country. The committee considers that further information is required to assess the compatibility of these measures with these rights and is seeking further information from the Minister for Immigration and Multicultural Affairs.

The committee has also considered a response from the minister regarding the Aged Care Bill 2024, which seeks to establish a legislative framework for the Commonwealth aged-care system. The committee sincerely thanks the minister for the provision of additional information and welcomes the minister's acceptance of some of the committee's suggested actions, including with respect to aspects of measures related to restrictive practices and to supporters and guardians. This is an important reminder of the work of the committee, and I sincerely thank the minister. The committee otherwise restates its recommendations from report 9 of 2024, including that it would be appropriate for the bill objectives to be inclusive of Australia's obligations under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.

Finally, the committee considered a response from the minister regarding the Communications Legislation Amendment (Combatting Misinformation and Disinformation) Bill 2024. The committee thanks the minister for their response and reiterates its recommendations from report 9. Further, having regard to additional information provided as to limited remedies available where these measures breached a person's human rights, the committee has recommended that consideration be given to amending the bill to require the Australian Communications and Media Authority, ACMA, to establish a complaints mechanism to handle complaints with respect to breaches of human rights arising from the proposed scheme.

On that note, I thank the secretariat, as always, for their diligence and their hard work for the other committee members. We do have an inquiry that is about to get underway into antisemitism on university campuses and the work doesn't stop while that inquiry is going on. We are still doing our regular work, and I have to say that 10 committee reports are a reflection of the hard work of the secretariat as well as all committee members, so I thank them all. On that note I commend the committee's scrutiny report 10 of 2024 to the House.