A report card into Australia’s human rights efforts has been released, pinpointing subtle improvements among some states over the course of a year.

Australian Lawyers for Human Rights (ALHR) has unveiled its 2018 Human Rights Report Card. Overall the report showed Australia continues to lag across key areas, including Indigenous rights, children’s rights, disability rights, LGBTI rights and other freedoms.

Efforts towards Indigenous rights across the country in 2018 remained at a score of ‘F-’ – the same result as 2017.

Business and human rights saw some improvement, with 2018’s efforts gaining a ‘C+’ score, up from a ‘C’ in 2017. Human rights efforts towards refugees and people seeking asylum scored an ‘F’, the same as in 2017, while efforts towards LGBTI human rights and disability rights both scored a ‘D’, and freedoms scored an ‘F’.

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Seeing the highest jump was efforts towards women and girls’ rights, with 2018’s score set at ‘C’, in comparison to 2017's score of a ‘F’.

Breaking down the states, NSW and Queensland showed minor improvements in their human rights report card, with NSW scoring a ‘D’ overall for 2018, in comparison to an ‘E+’ the year prior. Meanwhile, Queensland jumped to a ‘B+’ from a ‘C-’.

Victoria, South Australia and Tasmania all saw the same score in 2018 as they did in 2017, with Victoria recording a ‘C’ over two consecutive years and South Australia and Tasmania both recording ‘Ds’.

Those remaining states and territories saw a decline in their report card score, with Western Australia going from a ‘B’ in 2017 to a ‘C’ in 2018 and the ACT going from a ‘B’ in 2017 to a ‘B-’ in 2018. The Northern Territory’s score is currently still being assessed.

“As a nation, we can’t seem to move favourably in ensuring basic human rights are established and protected for all Australians equally. Considering Australia has sat on the United Nations Human Rights Council for a year now, our human rights situation is something we must address swiftly and comprehensively,” said ALHR president Kerry Weste, commenting on the results.

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“Australia was a founding member of the United Nations and one of eight nations involved in drafting the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which this year celebrated its 70th anniversary. Our current human rights record betrays the part we played as a nation in the creation of this milestone document which should inspire our political leaders to work to ensure all people can live with freedom, equality and dignity."

While Ms Weste acknowledged that the federal governments should be commended for introducing a Modern Slavery Act, “Australia continues to be criticised by multiple United Nations bodies for its abject failure to protect basic rights on multiple fronts – often impacting most profoundly on vulnerable Australians”.

“The sad fact is that Australia’s record on protecting universal rights has not improved much over the past four decades when Australia began appearing before these UN bodies to defend its record on rights,” the statement from the body said.

“Australia remains the only Western democracy without a bill of rights or federal Human Rights Act. The immediate creation and implementation of one is the surest way to assist in creating a better platform to help all Australians receive and be guaranteed of their basic rights. The Australian government owes it to all Australians to legally protect our rights.”

Australia’s human rights report card revealed Emma Ryan Last Updated: 07 January 2019 Published: 08 January 2019