Amnesty International has issued a scathing assessment of Australia's policies on Indigenous affairs and refugees in its latest report on human rights around the world.

Amnesty's 2012 human rights report says Australia continues to violate the rights of Indigenous people, and is driving them from their homelands.

"The [Australian] Government continued to limit funding for housing and municipal services such as water and sanitation to Aboriginal peoples living on traditional homelands in the Northern Territory," the annual report says.

"As a result, people were effectively forced to abandon their traditional homelands to access essential services."

The report is also highly critical of the Federal Government's treatment of asylum seekers.

It highlights particular concern about the rates of suicide and self harm in detention centres.

Launching the report, Amnesty's national director Claire Mallinson took the opportunity to criticise the Federal Government's so-called 'Stronger Futures' legislation.

The new bill, which is soon to be debated in the Senate, is being widely condemned by Indigenous groups as a continuation of the Northern Territory intervention.

Ms Mallinson says the legislation echoes the policies of the assimilation era.

"If passed, we will see another 10 years of policies that stigmatise people, that don't meet people's needs, and are not proven to be effective," she said.

"For a strong and sustainable future for Aboriginal peoples living in the Northern Territory, the government needs to radically re-think the proposed legislation.

"They need to establish mechanisms that ensure real participation and secure the ownership and support of the communities effected by policies and plans."

Sorry, this video has expired Interview with Amnesty International's Clarie Mallinson

The Federal Government says the new law will help keep children in school, and prevent violence and substance abuse.

But there are complaints that appeals against the bill by Aboriginal people went ignored.

Amnesty's Rodney Dillon told the media that consultation was seriously wanting.

"Aboriginal people in the communities that we've worked with have not given free, prior and informed consent under the Stronger Futures, and there's been very little consultation with the people that we've worked with," he said.

A senior elder and Uniting Church minister, Dr Djiniyini Gondarra, is one of many condemning the bill.

"It's the same approach [as the Northern Territory Intervention], the same control, the same ways of trying to dehumanise aboriginal people [by] taking what belongs to them," he said.

"Can't government see it?

"They are controlling us," he added.

"We are living in poverty, our life has always been shaped; controlled.

"We cannot make our own decisions - what is the self determination? What is the self-management that they talked about? It's just lies.

"Those that think that this is a good idea are a product of...welfare dependency, a product of the mission dependency.

"These people have always lived their lives on somebody else's money."