The Albanese Government has rejected 204 of the 332 recommendations made in this year’s UN Universal Periodic Review, including calls to raise the age of criminal responsibility, legislate a Human Rights Act and end mandatory and offshore immigration detention.
Labor’s rejections come despite warnings from over 120 countries and the UN’s own findings of systemic racial discrimination against First Nations children in Australia’s justice system. Labor has used the review to confirm in writing what it has shown in practice for four years: human rights protections in this country remain optional for the Albanese government that is too politically gutless to legislate to protect human rights.
As stated by Greens Justice and Immigration spokesperson Senator David Shoebridge:
“Labor has been handed a roadmap to fix this country’s worst human rights failures and they set fire to it, rejecting 204 of the 332 recommendations on offer.
“Australia has spent years lecturing other countries on human rights and now it has just shown the world how little it’s prepared to do at home.
“Children as young as ten are still being arrested and locked up in this country, and Labor just told the world it sees no problem with that. This is their plan.
“The UN has already found our justice system delivers systemic racial discrimination against First Nations kids, and the Albanese Government’s response has been to double down on not fixing this.
“From a Government who continues to pay lip service to Closing the Gap and the Statement from the Heart it’s worse than disappointing.
“Refusing to raise the age of criminal responsibility is a choice to keep funding prisons instead of the community programs that actually keep kids safe.
“Non-refoulement of refugees is meant to be a baseline commitment, not a negotiable one, and Labor has rejected it outright.
“Mandatory and offshore detention should have ended years ago, and this government just confirmed it has no intention of stopping either in their endless quest to outflank One Nation.
“LGBTIQA+ Australians are still living with legal exemptions that allow discrimination, and Labor have said with this response that they are ok with that. Thankfully the Greens introduced a bill for a LGBTQIA+ Commissioner this week that is a chance to go some way to addressing this issue.
“Reading the response you see a government who will accept a recommendation that costs them nothing and reject every one that requires spending political capital to achieve real change.
“This Government has the numbers to legislate a Human Rights Act tomorrow and refuses to, that’s not a lack of options, it’s a lack of courage and principle.
