Submission to the Parliamentary Inquiry into Australia’s Human Rights Framework

PIAC supports the introduction of Charters of Human Rights in both New South Wales and federally. In this submission, PIAC reiterates this support, while also making recommendations in relation to another key component of Australia’s human rights framework: anti-discrimination laws.

This includes support for systemic reforms to anti-discrimination laws, such as:

• consolidation of Commonwealth anti-discrimination laws into a single act;
• removal of the comparator test;
• equal access model for costs; and
• reform to religious exceptions.

This submission also recommended a number of specific reforms to anti-discrimination laws, including:

• prohibition of discrimination on the basis of religious belief;
• reasonable adjustments for people with disability; and
• LGBTIQ anti-discrimination reforms (including replacing the protected attribute of intersex status with sex characteristics, protecting LGBTQ students and teachers in religious schools against discrimination, prohibiting anti-LGBTI vilification and creating a Commissioner for Sexual Orientation, Gender Identity and Sex Characteristics at the Australian Human Rights Commission).