The UN Subcommittee on the Prevention of Torture and other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (SPT) will be visiting Australia for 12 days from 16 Oct 2022 – 27 Oct 2022.

The NSW Council for Civil Liberties (NSWCCL) welcomes the opportunity to make a joint submission to The Hon Virginia Bell AC in response to the Inquiry into the Appointment of the Former Prime Minister to Administer Multiple Departments. 

NSWCCL strongly condemns the former Prime Minister Morrison's practice of secret ministerial appointments and welcome the seriousness with which Prime Minister Albanese is treating this issue. We applauded Prime Minister Albanese's announcement upon releasing the Solicitor General’s advice that his department was taking immediate steps to implement a practice of publishing in the Commonwealth Gazette future appointments of ministers to administer departments.

NSWCCL recently made a submission to the Environment and Communications Legislation Committee regarding the Climate Change Bill 2022 and the Climate Change (Consequential Amendments) Bill 2022.

After a decade of inaction on climate change, the Climate Change Bill 2022 (Bill) represents welcome
progress. While we support the Bill as an improvement on business as usual, it is our view that:

• the target it enshrines in law is woefully inadequate; and
• beyond setting a target, the Bill fails to do any work towards achieving that target.

This said, through a few amendments the Bill has potential to provide a proper bedrock for Australia’s
ability to respond to the climate emergency and contribute towards the goals of the Paris Agreement.

NSWCCL is a Non-Government Organisation in Special Consultative Status with the Economic and Social Council of the United Nations (ECOSOC). We sought this special status because we believe that NGOs provide meaningful contributions to the work of ECOSOC by ensuring that states are accountable in their reports to the body. NGOs also augment state reports and call out poor state conduct through their ability to speak from experiences which are closer to the ground and embedded within states.  

The United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP) seeks to provide protection to First Nations peoples worldwide. It establishes guidelines setting minimum standards for individual, cultural, and collective rights.  The UNDRIP was adopted by the UN General Assembly in 2007 and was adopted by Australia two years later in 2009. 

On 29 March 2022, the Senate referred an inquiry into the application of the UNDRIP to the Legal and Constitutional References Committee. NSWCCL has welcomed the opportunity to present a submission to the Committee, declaring that more can be done to better incorporate the principles and aims of UNDRIP into Australian law.

Update 11 August 2022:

The parliamentary inquiry has published its report here and recommended that the Legislative Council proceed to debate the Road Transport Amendment (Medicinal Cannabis-Exemption from Offences) Bill 2021.

The committee elected not to take a position on the bill, despite substantive witness evidence relating to the impact of the current law, broad community support for the use of medicinal cannabis and the availability of exemptions in other jurisdictions.

NSWCCL made a submission to the NSW Legislative Council's Standing Committee on Law and Justice Inquiry Into The Road Transport Amendment (Medicinal Cannabis Exemptions From Offences) Bill 2021. 

NSWCCL supports the passage of the Bill, which addresses discriminatory, inequitable and out of date presence-based drug driving practices targeting medical cannabis patients. NSWCCL agrees that those patients in Australia who are legally prescribed medicinal cannabis should be exempted from prosecution for driving with Delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) in their system, unless there is clear evidence of impairment.

This election comes at a time when civil liberties in Australia are under siege. In NSW, our right to protest is under threat from draconian new legislation. Whistleblowers including Bernard Collaery, David McBride and Richard Boyle face prosecution for public interest disclosures and Julian Assange still languishes in Belmarsh maximum-security prison. Asylum seekers have been held for nine years then released with no rationale and less than an hour's notice, seemingly for political reasons, while others inexplicably remain locked up. Australia has been named and shamed by the UN for its track record on climate change and locking up children as young as 10 and by Amnesty International for its failure to ensure basic human rights for Indigenous people amongst other marginalised groups. Meanwhile, our ranking on Transparency International's Corruption Perception Index hit an all time low in 2021.

Against this background, we asked political parties and independent candidates about their stance on a range of civil liberties topics.

The results speak for themselves, with a comprehensive fail for the Liberals and Labor scraping a pass mark on just under half the issues (download PDF version).

NSWCCL thanks those who participated for their time and thoughtful responses. Sadly other parties did not respond to our repeated requests for input. We have scored the Liberals based on their published policy, but as a volunteer led organisation were unable to resource this research for other parties.

NSWCCL joined a coalition of environmental, social justice and human rights groups in urging the Perrottet government to halt its attempts to rush through a draconian anti-protest law, which could see peaceful community protesters jailed for up to two years.

The repressive measures in the Roads and Crimes Legislation Amendment Bill 2022 were waved through the NSW Legislative Assembly late on Wednesday night. The Bill is expected to be considered by the Legislative Council as soon as today.

Update 7 April 2022: view the scorecard results.

NSWCCL made a submission to the Australian Human Rights Commission welcoming its plan to develop a National Anti-Racism Framework.

In particular, we support:

• building a stronger legal framework to improve protections against racial discrimination
• constitutional recognition of First Nations peoples
• implementation of the UN Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous Peoples
• effective anti-racism and racial equality initiatives