Australian Lawyers for Human Rights (ALHR) is seeking expressions of interest from lawyers to Co-Convene our Western Australian activities and play a leading role within the Western Australia for a Human Rights Act Coalition (WA4HRA) About the roles The successful applicants will be lawyers or final year law students with a knowledge of and passion … Read More >>
ALHR made a submission to NSW’s Portfolio Committee No. 7 – Planning and Environment, providing feedback on the Climate Change (Net Zero Future) Bill 2023 (NSW) (“the Bill”). Our submission was solely directed towards the Bill’s inclusion of the human right to a healthy environment as a guiding principle, and does not otherwise comment on the … Read More >>
In an Australian first, an ACT Government Parliamentary Committee has recommended that the human right to a healthy environment be recognised under ACT law and protected within the Human Rights Act 2004 (ACT). The ACT Legislative Standing Committee on Justice and Community Safety today released its final report into the Inquiry into Human Rights (Healthy Environment) Amendment Bill 2023. … Read More >>
ALHR made a submission to the ACT’s Standing Committee on Justice and Community Safety (the Committee) providing feedback on the Human Rights (Healthy Environment) Amendment Bill 2023 (‘the Bill’). ALHR’s submission outlines our support for the articulation of the right to a healthy environment in the Bill, our significant concerns with the non-justiciability of that right … Read More >>
South Australia is one step closer to a Human Rights Act, with the Social Development Committee of the South Australian Parliament committing to hold a parliamentary inquiry into how human rights across the State can be guaranteed and protected. The announcement comes on Human Rights Day and exactly one year after a group of more … Read More >>
A major new report tabled yesterday by Commonwealth Attorney-General, the Hon Mark Dreyfus KC MP in Federal Parliament, calls for an overhaul of Australia’s Human Rights framework and a Federal Human Rights Act to better protect the rights of all Australians. Ms Kerry Weste, President, Australian Lawyers for Human Rights (ALHR), said, “We welcome the … Read More >>
ALHR commends the Federal Attorney-General, the Hon. Mark Dreyfus KC, on the establishment of a PJCHR Parliamentary Joint Committee on Human Rights Inquiry to investigate Australia’s human rights framework, with a focus on whether the Federal Government should introduce a federal human rights Act. For thirty years ALHR has called on Australia to comprehensively incorporate … Read More >>
More than 70 of Australia’s leading disability and civil society organisations have endorsed wide-ranging recommendations to reform the nation’s archaic and degrading migration health laws. The recommendations are part of a submission made by the Welcoming Disability Campaign to a public review of Australia’s migration health requirement being conducted by the Federal Government. The recommendations … Read More >>
The landmark High Court judgment, which ruled it is unlawful and unconstitutional for the Australian Government to detain people indefinitely in immigration detention, should mark the end of a brutal chapter in Australia’s history. Australian Lawyers for Human Rights (ALHR) NSW Co-Convenor, Ms Stephanie Lee said the decision is an historic judgment that corrects some … Read More >>
On Friday 8 November ALHR collaborated with the University of Newcastle School of Law Centre for Law and Social Justice and the Human Rights for NSW Alliance to host a School Student Forum on the Right to a Healthy Environment. More than 60 students from the Newcastle region came to together to talk about what the … Read More >>
Leading human rights lawyers and disability justice experts are calling for an immediate end to indefinite detention laws in Australia that often see people with disabilities abused and victimised, their behaviour criminalised and often becoming victims of the criminal justice system rather than being managed through disability support services. The call follows the recent episode … Read More >>
Welcoming Disability, a joint civil society campaign led by Australian Lawyers for Human Rights (ALHR) and Down Syndrome Australia, has welcomed the Disability Royal Commission’s recommendation to review discriminatory migration health requirements, which have been described as archaic and degrading by leading disability advocates. Under Australia’s current legal framework otherwise fully eligible visa applicants and … Read More >>
