Key Aus domestic human right documents

Magna Carta

• legal doc first establishing all have rights and responsibilities under the law

• introduced in 1215, written as peace treaty between King John of England and his barons

• symbolically established fundamental current rights such as right to fair trial, protection of property, rule of law

• provisions of it are formally incorporated into legislation of some aus states/territories

• operates as foundation for principles currently embedded in Aus law such as ‘responsible gov’, ‘rule of law’, and ‘seperation of powers’

Racial Discrimination Act

• federal law that makes discrimination based on race unlawful

• functions as Aus’ domestic implementation of int. obligation of ICERD

• introduced in 1975

• overrides inconsistent state/ territory laws

• introduced following the dismantling of the White Aus policy

• essential for future cases such as mabo v qld

• enforceable through Human Rights Comission

Sex Discrimination Act

• Commonwealth legislation making it unlawful to discriminate against a person based on gender

• introduced in 1984

• prohibits direct and indirect discrimination

• promotes equality, protection from sexual harassment, and has extended protections (2013 amendments) to cover sexual orientation, gender identity, intersex status

• introduced to domestically CEDAW’s int. commitments

• at the time, no preventative or protection measures for harassment, especially in economic and employment sectors

• relevant today where reforms still occur to introduce duties on employers to proactively enforce

Disability Discrimination Act

• commonwealth legislation making it unlawful to discriminate against a person on the basis of disability

• introduced in 1992

• promotes and protects equality, requires reasonable adjustments against a person on the basis of disability, unless doing so would cause unjustifiable hardship

• enabled creation of accessibility standards

• introduced amongst growing int. and domestic rights movements based on rejecting medical and charity based perspectives of disability and instead on a social model that incorporates and values them in everyday society

• operates today through disability standards and support systems

real life example of racial discrimination act impact on australia

• protects right of equality before the law regardless of race — specifically, protection against racially discriminatory laws being applied to a person's property or legal rights.

• example is Mabo v Queensland (1988)

• demonstrates the power of the Racial Discrimination Act 1975 (Cth) by invalidating state legislation that attempted to extinguish Indigenous land rights without compensation

• By High Court finding this law to breach the RDA's guarantee of equality before the law, because it denied Indigenous Australians property rights protections available to other Australians, it formally recognised native title in Australian law for the first time, creating a national framework for land claims to uphold rights of all

real life example of sex discrimination act impact on australia

• protects right of freedom of sexual harassment in the workplace.

• Following the Respect@Work Report (2020), led by former Sex Discrimination Commissioner Kate Jenkins, the Act was amended in 2021–2023 to introduce a positive duty on employers — requiring them to proactively prevent sexual harassment and sex discrimination, rather than only responding after a complaint is made.

• This shifted Australian workplaces from a reactive complaints-based model to one where employers (including large corporations and government departments) must now actively audit and address harassment risk, with the Australian Human Rights Commission given new powers to investigate and enforce compliance.