The United Nations human rights panel has rebuked the Australian government over its treatment of Aboriginals.

At the release of a report from the Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD) in Geneva, one of the authors said discrimination has become "embedded" in the Australian way of life.

Committee member Patrick Thornberry lamented the fact that the Australian constitution lacks any entrenched protection against racial discrimination.

He said that that had led to a kind of structurally embedded discrimination in the way the Aboriginal intervention was being handled in the Northern Territory.

"That may be a certain disappointment, if I may say so, that this issue particularly to do with Aboriginal communities - it could have been handled in a more sensitive and culturally sensitive way," he said.

The committee criticised what it called the "unacceptably high level of disadvantage and social dislocation" for Indigenous people in the Northern Territory.

It welcomed the Labor government's national apology to Indigenous Australians, but said that concrete steps to increase life expectancy or improve the rate of deaths in custody had not yet been demonstrated.

The committee's recommendations were issued in a report following a regular review of Australia's compliance with an international treaty of 1969 prohibiting racism.

The report also raised concerns about the handling of refugees and asylum seekers, as well as anti-terrorism measures; discrimination against newer, mainly Muslim, ethnic communities; and assaults on foreign students.

Refugees

CERD voiced concerns that the policy of processing refugees outside Australia meant that people seeking shelter in Australia were not being treated properly.

The treatment of refugees, especially those arriving from Afghanistan and Sri Lanka by boat, was a contentious issue during the federal election campaign.

On processing refugees, the committee recommended that the government:

Review its mandatory detention regime for asylum seekers so that detention is a measure of last resort;

Review its mandatory detention regime for asylum seekers so that detention is a measure of last resort; End the suspension of processing visa applications from Afghanistan and standardise asylum processes regardless of the country of origin or form of entry;

End the suspension of processing visa applications from Afghanistan and standardise asylum processes regardless of the country of origin or form of entry; Develop proper reception arrangements, especially for children, some of whom are kept in detention-like conditions away from their parents;

Develop proper reception arrangements, especially for children, some of whom are kept in detention-like conditions away from their parents; Ensure that asylum seekers are not forced back to their countries of origin when they are being returned.

Companies targeted

The panel also said Australia must tighten rules governing the behaviour of its companies, especially mining firms, towards indigenous people at home and abroad.

"The committee notes with concern the absence of a legal framework regulating the obligation of Australian corporations at home and overseas whose activities, notably in the extractive sector, when carried out on the traditional territories of indigenous peoples, have had a negative impact on indigenous peoples' rights to land, health, living environment and livelihoods," it said.

The 18-member committee of independent experts on racism also told Australia to do more to integrate recent immigrants from Africa, Asia, the Middle East and other Muslim countries and tackle racism against Indigenous people in Australia.

Suggestions included negotiating a treaty with Indigenous Australians, giving them better access to legal aid and tackling laws in the Northern Territory that discriminate on the basis of race.

The committee bemoaned the fact that Australia had not complied with all its previous recommendations and asked the government to report back on what it was doing about the latest concerns and recommendations at the end of October, 2012.

- ABC/Reuters