Recently, Australia’s parliamentary joint committee on human rights released its Inquiry into Australia’s Human Rights Framework report. In it, the committee examined the potential merit of Australia passing or ratifying a federal Human Rights Act (HRA) and scrutinised the effectiveness of Australia’s current Human Rights Framework.

The report outlined: “Our current piecemeal approach to human rights protection is inadequate to ensure rights and freedoms are properly respected, protected and promoted. We need human rights to be made real in everyday decision making – not considered, at most, as an afterthought.”

The recommendation to establish an HRA by the federal government has been suggested previously, with the Parliament committee endorsing this in 2009. However, at that time, the government expressed scepticism that such legislation would result in improved outcomes.

Following the release of the report, the Human Rights Law Centre noted that 104 Australian civil society organisations have voiced their support for the government to take action to implement an HRA.

This included the Law Society of Australia, with president Greg McIntyre SC emphasising that enacting such legislation will ensure that “all persons – Australian citizens, non-citizens, ordinary and marginalised people – are equal before the law and are afforded human rights”.

McIntrye also highlighted the inadequacy of current legislation in Australia in protecting numerous rights.

“Unfortunately, under our current patchwork of laws, there is inadequate protection for many rights, and when people’s rights are breached, there may not be a means through which they can seek effective remedy,” McIntrye outlined.

McIntrye underscored that enacting an HRA would strengthen and uphold Australia’s existing international law commitments while aligning the country with other Western democracies.

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“Such an act would not only better implement Australia’s international human rights obligations in a coherent way, but also bring the country into line with other Western democracies that provide much-needed legal remedies for those whose rights have been breached,” McIntyre said.

Human Rights Law Centre has also voiced its support for the inquiry report, with the CEO Caitlin Reiger emphasising that if the Albanese government enacted an HRA, it would guarantee the protection of the rights of every individual.

“An Australian Human Rights Act will ensure that the values we share – fairness, respect, freedom and justice – are at the heart of all government decisions, laws and policies. Everyone should be able to enjoy their human rights regardless of their postcode or bank balance,” Reiger said.

HRLC senior Lawyer Arif Hussein outlined how now is the “time for the Albanese government to act and create a fairer future for every person”.

The inquiry report also noted that close to 90 per cent of the thousands of submissions it received expressed support towards implementing a federal Human Rights Act.

Since the report was released and presented to Parliament, it has attracted immediate controversy, with several opposition members rejecting the findings and recommendations.

The Coalition issued a dissenting report with the LNP deputy chair of the committee, Henry Pike, in which he emphasised how “Coalition members reject this flawed proposal”, viewing it as “both unnecessary and dangerous”.

Pike also warned that an HRA would “weaken our parliamentary democracy and politicise our judiciary” and “an act along the lines proposed by the Labor and independent majority of the committee would insert abstract and vague concepts into our law that would require judicial interpretation”.

The concern of a HRA granting excessive powers to the courts and presiding judges was also outlined in the inquiry report.

The inquiry outlined that some of the advocates against such legislation suggested that an “HRA would weaken Australia’s system of parliamentary sovereignty by requiring the judiciary, rather than the legislature, to make value-based judgments to set limits on fundamental rights, and so would distort judicial decision making”.

In particular, Professor Nicholas Aroney and Richard Ekins KC and Dr Benjamin Saunder argued in their submission that “a federal HRA would require courts to make decisions using open-ended moral and political reasoning and engage in a balancing exercise of different rights”.

Several Australian civil society organisations have expressed how this wouldn’t be the case if an HRA were enacted.

On its website, the Australian Human Rights Commission released an information package called Ten Common Questions About an HRA for Australia.

In this, it said that “under a Human Rights Act, Australian courts would be doing the kind of work they always do – judges interpret complex laws, and balance competing issues and social concerns everyday in making their decisions”.

It also disclosed how “a court could highlight the fact that a law is inconsistent with human rights”, but “Parliament would still have the final say about whether that law should stay or go”. The LCA also addressed this concern in the submission it provided the parliamentary inquiry, in which it emphasised: “The experience of the ACT, Victoria and Queensland has shown that Australian courts are perfectly capable of implementing statutory rights instruments in a manner that respects the sovereignty of Parliament, and none of those jurisdictions has seen a ‘flood’ of human rights litigation, as was feared by some.”