This is just a very brief post to draw your attention to an online survey by the Australian Human Rights Commission.  I think this might be of interest to many of you!

Australia’s Human Rights Commissioner, Tim Wilson, is conducting a national consultation about how effectively we protect people’s human rights and freedoms in Australia. The consultation will focus on building understanding and improved protection of our fundamental human rights, freedoms and responsibilities.

Past consultations, such as the National Human Rights Consultation under the previous federal Government, have tended to focus mainly on what government should do to protect human rights. This consultation aims to go beyond this objective and identify where there are restrictions on rights and freedoms that are disproportionate to the harm to be prevented. Importantly, the consultation seeks to identify where people are advancing their rights and freedoms through community-based and voluntary programs.

Discussions will focus on some of the key rights and freedoms that have traditionally underpinned our liberal democracy in Australia. These include:

  • the right to freedom of opinion and expression
  • the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion
  • the right to freedom of association
  • property rights.

This survey includes questions about each of these rights, but there is no need to answer all of them. You can choose to skip particular sections and comment only on particular rights that you feel are relevant.

The survey ends on October 31, and can be found here.