A coalition of community and human rights groups is set to deliver a damning picture of what it calls "Australia's backward slide" on human rights when it delivers its report to an expert panel of the United Nations Human Rights Committee in Geneva today.

Key points: Australia is seeking a seat on the UN Human Rights Committee

Australia is seeking a seat on the UN Human Rights Committee A coalition of NGOs will tell a UN panel Australia's human rights record is worsening

A coalition of NGOs will tell a UN panel Australia's human rights record is worsening The coalition will point to Australia's treatment of asylum seekers and Indigenous people

Australia is facing its regular review by the committee, with representatives of the Federal Government set to appear mid-week in Geneva.

The non-government organisation (NGO) group — led by Australia's Human Rights Law Centre — will argue that Australia's continued mandatory and indefinite detention of some 2,000 asylum seekers in offshore detention centres, along with the backward trend in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander health, education and employment, means Australia's once highly regarded reputation is being tarnished.

The executive director of the Human Rights Law Centre, Hugh de Kretser, said his centre is co-ordinating the 56 NGOs that are part of the coalition, including the National Congress of Australia's First Peoples and the Refugee Council of Australia.

Mr de Kretser said the vast majority of asylum seekers in detention had already been found to be refugees.

"Australia owes those people obligations," he said.

"We have promised to provide people fleeing persecution safety as a signatory to UN conventions, yet we have mandatorily detained them in remote camps on islands in [the] Pacific.

"Plus we have boat turn-backs still happening under secrecy on the high seas."

The co-chair of the National Congress of Australia's First Peoples, Jackie Huggins, said state and federal budget cuts has led to most targets under the Australian Government's Closing the Gap policy not being met.

Dr Huggins said the high rate of incarceration of Aboriginal and Torres Strait islander people, especially women, was a major concern.

"We have the highest incarceration rates in the world amongst Indigenous peoples. Aboriginal women are the fastest growing prison population," she said.

Australia set to gain seat on human rights council

The NGO report in Geneva comes ahead of the expected election of Australia to the prestigious UN Human Rights Committee for the first time in New York on Tuesday (Australian time).

What was a three-legged race between Australia, France and Spain for two available places, now looks like an assured election for Australia following the withdrawal of France earlier this year.

Mr de Kretser said Australia's impending election to the council was an opportunity for it to restore its reputation as an upholder of human rights and to lead the way for other countries.

"To have that credibility internationally we have to fix our own issues," he said.

"At times Australia has compromised its principles on refugee and other policies due to a perceived political domestic need."

"We have been far too quiet on human rights abuses in Nauru, Papua New Guinea, Myanmar, Cambodia and Sri Lanka."